Dear God: Come, All Who Are Weary

Dear God,

I always get a little teary-eyed when I get to Matthew's eleventh chapter, which is today's reading (Matthew 11:25-30), that says:

At that time Jesus exclaimed: "I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned you have revealed them to little ones. ... Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yolk upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light."

This passage combines two of my favorite sayings. The first from "The Little Prince": "It's only with the heart that one can see rightly; What is essential is invisible to the eye." Which is what, I think, Jesus is saying. The smarter we get at times, the more confused, and the harder it is to say a simple "amen" ... or "yes, God, I turn it over to you."

And the second, is the guts of Matthew's eleventh chapter (Matthew 11:28): "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

That passage is inscribed on the pedestal of a 10-and-a-half foot marble statue of Jesus in the lobby of the Hopkins' Billings Administration Building.

I remember how surprised I was to see Jesus there on the campus of Johns Hopkins, and how relieved I was, to know that you, God, were with me the day of my consultation with a team of Hopkins doctors.

Because I had virtually given up on you.

I had been through six psychiatrists; tried 21 different medication combinations; and had experimented with every kind of alternative therapy: acupuncture, craniosacral therapy, yoga, Chinese herbs, magnets, homeopathic remedies, fish oil, and so on. I had even been hospitalized for a few days, and spent months in a partial-hospitalization (outpatient) program. Plus I was going to therapy, recording all of my blessings in a gratitude journal, and practicing cognitive-behavioral exercises in a workbook.

But all I wanted to do was to die.

I begged you to give me a terminal illness so that I could make a graceful exit out of this life, and not scar Eric and the kids with the shame and the burden of a suicide. And it seemed that no matter how hard I tried to distract myself in activities--play dates with other moms and their kids, building puzzles, playing at the park--the suicidal thoughts stalked me, pestering me like a pushy bride to nail down a time and place, a concrete plan to end my life.

I didn't know what else to do other than pray. I had tried virtually every suggestion ever made to me.

That's when Eric begged me to go to Hopkins. For one more evaluation.

"How is this consultation going to be any different than all the others?" I asked him. "I've been diagnosed with everything from ADHD to Borderline Personality. No one knows what they are doing. They are just guessing and pumping me full of meds that are toxic to my body. I'm not doing that again."

He sat with me, that January day, clearly at the end of his rope, not saying much. I felt so incredibly guilty for putting him and the whole family through this.

"This approach isn't working," he said. "Your quality of life can be better. Our quality of life can be better."

"Not doing it. Not letting a bunch of shrinks doll out some crazy diagnoses and pump me full of meds. Not doing it," I explained.

He sat there for awhile longer. Not saying anything.

"I can't keep on going into the office petrified that when I walk through the door in the evening I'm going to find you dead," he said. His voice cracked and he began to cry.

"Please.... Do this for me," he said.

I didn't say anything for a long time, and then I agreed to go.

But when the day came for the consultation, I was a nervous wreck.

As we circled the campus trying to find the right building, I thought of everything that could go wrong.

Are these doctors going to give me false hope like Dr. R did when he promised me that the newer antipsychotics would not only relieve my depression but deliver me to a stable, peaceful place I had not yet experienced, but the longer I was on them, the worse my depression got?

Would the physicians pump me full of SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors), antipsychotics, and benzodiazepines (tranquilizers), and, in effect, destroy my creativity, dull my cognitive abilities, blunt my personality, and steal any passion or zest for life I felt at one point?

Fear consumed me.

Until I saw Jesus.

And then I knew, intuitively, that You, God, were with me. You were going to be there during my consultation, just as you had been there during all the other ones, like in the poem, "Footprints in the Sand," that none of my nightmare had I done alone. You were always there.

Related Posts by Category