Every battle - and some fight simultaneous battles - saps your strength. You struggle to stay focused. It takes a giant effort to get out of bed and move one foot in front of the other to face the new day. You become so focused on your own pain that everyone else can seem like shadowy figures that have little or nothing to do with your own life. How can you go on?
I remember the days, weeks, months, years after our son's death, after a little over a year of watching he and his family struggle with his terrible illness. Life felt like a nightmare and I couldn't wake up from it. Nothing in life held freshness or savor. I was dead inside. And I could sense the danger. I mentioned it to my counselor. "I'm afraid," I said to her, "of not being able to keep loving."
The danger is indeed real. If you continually feel dry and dead inside, all the shadowy figures of others around you mean next to nothing. Your family or friends may receive love from you, but outside of your tight circle where you expend your energy, the rest of the world means nothing at all. You are on an island of self-interest. Your whole being is so weary that your small amount of energy won't take you to the mainland, to the waiting world.
"Oh God, You are my God," cries the psalmist, "for You I long. My body pines for You like a dry, weary land without water. So I gaze on You in the sanctuary to see Your strength and Your glory." If we can slowly drag our dry, weary selves into the Presence of God, the One Who waits for us is Food and Drink for the starving and thirsty. Each morning we need to hope - and find the loving God Who lives within us, ready to hold us, tell us we're lovable, heal us, nourish us.
"The favors of the Lord are not exhausted, His mercies are not spent: they are renewed each morning, so great is His faithfulness. My portion is the Lord, says my soul; therefore I will hope in Him." (Lam. 3:21-26.)
If our faith, hope, and love are replenished through prayer each morning, our spiritual cataracts are removed and the world regains its freshness and vitality for us. And we can clearly see the others around us whom we interact with each day, even in passing. The stranger, who looks downcast, who could use a smile. The person struggling with a walker who needs a door opened. The waitress who could use a tip. The co-worker who needs a patient, listening ear. The client we need to stay calm with who is full of hostility - what battles is he or she fighting? The crying, bleeding world that needs our prayers.
Even in the midst of our own struggles, there is abundant love in us that can flow out of us over others. It's not our own weak, limited love energy. It's God's powerful, energetic love flowing through us and out of us and over others. Whenever we feel the least ready and capable, when we'd rather look the other way or run and hide, that is when God speaks loudly inside us: "LET ME. LET ME USE YOU. THIS ONE YOU SEE IS FIGHTING A HARD BATTLE."
Our compassionate God pours His mercies over us so our dry, weary selves are renewed each morning. Renewed so we can pour His loving mercy over others.