"Why, God?" I kept crying.
"You wouldn't say that to God if you really trusted God," my other half said back to me.
"I can't do that! I'm not suited for it!" I kept venting about a current responsibility.
"Now is not the time to make a rational decision about this," my other half said. "Wait till you feel better."
"I'm not good for anything when I'm like this," I cried in classic self-recrimination.
"You're suffering. Offer it up for the people you know who are suffering," my other half suggested.
By the end of the day, my other half sounded suspiciously like God. Probably WAS God. After all, God took up residence in my soul - and your soul - when we were growing in our mother's wombs. God speaks to me (and to you too) in the calm tones of our most rational, forgiving, gently challenging, merciful voice.
I don't understand myself. I can have a day when I feel so close to God, and other days when the pain I feel over the stresses and tragedies of family members and friends strikes my soul like one dagger after another. And I fall under a dark cloud. I hit a wall. I'm drowning and I can't come up for either air or a prayer.
I have to keep reminding myself that God is merciful to me and God wants me to be merciful to me. I am constructed of all too human flesh and blood, - as you are. There are certain days when all God expects you and me to do is to be patient with ourselves and Him and to hang on. Those days, hanging on is enough. Saying "I trust you, God," even if I don't feel trusting enough. Feelings are fluid and changeable as the sea. My mind fluctuates between one stance and another. But my will - my willing to trust God - can stand firm.
I managed to drag myself out of the house in the evening with my husband to hear a presentation on the Syrian refugees given by Deacon Don Weigel, a Catholic Relief Services Global Fellow. Seeing photos of the millions of displaced Syrians pulled me out of myself so that I could feel compassion for others. I learned that Syria has a higher literacy rate and more High School graduates than the United States does, that these are middle class people fleeing war and death and household destruction with their families. Deacon Don showed a photo of a man he met named Achmed, an electrical engineer, who fled Syria with his family after moving three times, for each time they moved, their home, their neighborhood, was totally destroyed.
Sometimes as an American, I feel like a helpless chess piece, totally at the mercy of politicians, Big Business, and my government. How much like helpless chess pieces these poor people must feel to be driven to such desperation! Their children still draw pictures of the Syrian flag - they still remember their country with love - but those children also draw bombs falling around that flag and their families, and they draw their homes in black to show that they've been destroyed.
Yes, it's good to rest our hearts, minds, and bodies when we can when we are deluged with pain and sorrow. Our merciful God stays with us in our fears and grieving and asks us to trust Him and the plans of His heart which last from age to age.
But our merciful God also likes to remind us, as He reminded me today, that there are so many desperate, grieving, fearful people throughout the world who need us to forget ourselves for awhile to pray for them, especially refugees, to learn more about their situation, and to donate to organizations that help them. Sometimes the best way to start trusting God is to be trustworthy ourselves in showing mercy. When we show mercy to others who are suffering, we become the merciful Face of God for them. Then, in their times of stress, desperation, and grief, when they ask God "why?" just like we do, we become God's answer to their prayers. They don't give up on God, they are able to trust Him, because we forget ourselves to remember them.