We are the Light of the World. That’s what they tell us. Stand strong, resist the devil, be an example to the world around you, never be weak or afraid, and if you are, never, EVER show it. To be the consummate Christian is to be a faithful, shining warrior for God; never doubting or wavering.
What “they” fail to address is that you don’t have to doubt God’s existence or His love to lose yourself in an awful situation.
A couple of years ago, my mother nearly died. The chemotherapy drugs she had to have at age 16 damaged her heart permanently, but we never knew it until we rushed her to the hospital one day thinking she was having a heart attack. They told us there was nothing they could do to fix her, but gave her drugs to help stabilize her—it didn’t work for several months, until it all culminated one day when they told us she had about five minutes to live. I’ll never forget the absolute horror of that phone call from my dad, asking me to leave work to come see her for the last time. It was the first time I had been confronted with death so closely, and though I didn’t realize it at the time, it was the start of a rocky, treacherous journey for me.
They did manage to save my mom and get her meds balanced so she could go home two weeks later, but they told her to put her affairs in order and not expect to live another three months. It was basically a death sentence; and while I didn’t fear death exactly, I wasn’t even remotely ready to give up my mama. She was supposed to be there at my wedding, being the voice of reason to my excitement; she was supposed to be there through my labor and be among the first to hold my baby; she needed to be there for when I moved out and couldn’t remember how to make enchilada sauce from scratch.
I needed her.
I remember those first few months—I slept in a sleeping bag near the chair she spent each night in, since she couldn’t breathe when she lay down. Sleep was near impossible, because I was terrified I would wake up and find her gone, so I would stay up as late as I could manage—usually the wee hours of the morning—and then sleep like a rock for a couple hours before waking up early to start my day. My siblings and I took turns being with her, helping her, watching her; I got the night shift because I usually worked during the day.
After a few months, she began to improve. She did some research and found ways to battle her condition naturally, and even was eventually able to get off some of the meds completely. She fought her way back to relative health with a determination I’ve never seen in anyone else.
Despite that, fear nagged at me constantly. The doctors, while impressed with her progress, warned us that this type of heart disease could kill at a moment’s notice. So instead of enjoying her stability and making the most of each moment with her; I spent my days and nights constantly aware that I could lose her without warning. Maybe while I was at work, or during the couple hours a night I slept, or while I was out with my friends for a little while…I could come home to a grief-stricken family any minute.
And our trial was not even yet over.
About a year or so later, mom was pretty stable, but dad started having problems breathing. He would cough, horrible hacking fits that would leave us all hovering, wondering if it would be an overreaction to call for help. He had trouble eating because food would lodge in his throat and bring on the fits. He began to lose weight, stopped leaving his room; the doctors went back and forth for months about what was happening. They finally settled on constrictive bronchiolitis—a degenerative, irreversible disorder in which scar tissue appears on the bronchioles in the lungs, preventing proper breathing. They gave him meds, and placed him on an oxygen tank. Those days were reminiscent of mom’s health scare for me; watching my daddy—the man who taught my siblings and me to camp, really camp, with a tent and a latrine hole; the man who took us on bike rides for miles, just for fun; the man who chased and tackled us just to tickle us til we couldn’t breathe—now barely able to get to the bathroom without collapsing. It was absolutely wrenching.
My faith had completely dried up by this point. It wasn’t that I stopped believing in God, I just stopped talking to Him. Not necessarily on purpose, I just was too consumed with fear and anger and sadness to have time for Him. Hope seemed shallow and pointless, joy a distant memory. There were other things I was struggling with in my own heart that only added to the pressure and grief. I found ways to express the darkness that suffocated my heart, ways that only made me hurt more and longer. Outwardly, I kept a carefully constructed image of “Christianity,” but inside, I was drowning. I felt unable to turn to anyone I called a spiritual leader—my parents had enough on their plate, and anyone else would only pity me and not understand just how deep the pain ran. I remember one day realizing that I never expected to be happy again; looking out toward my future and seeing nothing but day after day after day of depression and heartache, no relief in sight. The only way out of the fear of losing my parents would be to actually lose them. By then, I wasn’t sure which would hurt more.
Perhaps I overreacted, it did occur to me. But I couldn’t bring myself to snap out of it, couldn’t care enough about what I “should” feel to bother trying. I began to resent it when people would rejoice over my mom’s stability and my dad’s (now) improving condition—didn’t they understand it was temporary at best? It was an illusion—despite everyone’s best efforts, my parents’ bodies were failing; they were probably never going to live to see me give them grandbabies, or see me succeed in my music ministry (which was laughable, how could I minister in such a state anyway?), or meet my future husband. The idea made me unreasonably bitter.
Through all of it, I can now see how the Lord never was far away. I didn’t pay Him much mind during that time, so obsessed was I with my own despair; but He tempered it as only He could, and my inherent compassion wouldn’t allow me to fall too far away from Him for fear of hurting my parents. I don’t think I ever stopped hearing His voice either, because I knew how far I was from Him and exactly what I needed to do to come back. It was just all so exhausting; how could I contemplate a complete paradigm shift when it was all I could do to make it through each day?
Then on May 11, 2013, I made my choice. I chose to obey His word even though I still couldn’t see a light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. It was the hardest decision I ever made, because all I still saw in my future was an endless string of painful tomorrows, but I figured if I was going to hurt anyway, I may as well do it obediently. I made a couple changes—smallish ones, really, nothing too huge—but I had to keep it manageable. Once those changes were cemented, I made a few more. I want to say I made my way back to Him, but even that isn’t true. It was really more a desperate plea for Him to come to me where I was, and then a willingness to let Him—and He did. Oh, did He ever.
Literally three days after my decision to follow Him regardless of how it hurt, the wall between us broke down, and I could see Him again. Hope, dazzling in its strength, returned to me; love so intense it brought me to my knees filled my heart again—His love, I knew. It was like getting a hug from God Himself, and I couldn’t get enough.
I wish I could tell you I never struggled after that, but that would be untrue. I have struggled since then, but never has the struggle consumed me like it once did. My future is full of tomorrows, and maybe painful ones, yes; but I no longer fear pain because it cannot come between me and my Father anymore. He has proven His love for me by never giving up, even when I had literally nothing to offer Him, not even devotion; and if He is with me, what could I possibly have to fear? I guess I didn’t realize how far He’s brought me until the other day when someone asked how my dad is doing. I reported that he’s doing all right, getting ready for a double lung transplant sometime in the future, keeping up his doctor appointments; but more active now, sometimes even leaving his oxygen off for a full family dinner, and that’s something to celebrate. My friend said to me, “gah, Meg, that must be so hard, especially with your mom having heart disease too!”
There was a time my response to that would’ve been, “yeah, it really is hard. You have no idea.”
This time, I realized my answer was, “no, actually. It’s…not really that bad. We have a lot to be grateful for.”
We are the Light of the World. They’re right when they say that to us. But it’s not because we never stumble. It’s because when we do, our Father picks us right back up, dusts us off, and holds our hand through it. It’s because no matter how bad things get, we never walk alone. It’s because through our imperfect lives, He shines the brighter.
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