Help Me To Understand

On this day of fasting and prayer I spent a lot of time reading (and finishing) a book that opened my heart to raw emotion.

To pain.

To heartache.

To unanswered questions.

I could feel my heart swelling with a genuine desire to understand.

To understand others whose lives and situations don’t mirror mine.

I have a loved one who is experiencing extreme depression.

She loves her family very much and yet, she so desperately wants to be solitaire. Solo. All alone for a little while. (Well, alone with a stash of really, good dark chocolate).

And sadly, I don’t understand depression . . .

But I do remember the weeks after post-partum and how unsettling the world appeared and how dreadfully insecure I was about the “new” normal that had so suddenly seemed to occur (you’d think nine months is NOT sudden but post-partum makes it seem that way) . . .

So my heart cries out to a Father in Heaven to help her with a burden that seems so difficult to bear, particularly when you feel like bearing it alone.

I have a deaf friend, who, this week, received cochlear implants.

I don’t know what it’s like to be deaf or what transitions will need to take place in order to hear after years of not hearing . . .

But I do know what it’s like to have throbbing, penetrating overnight earaches.

So during this week, I have offered several quiet prayers on her behalf.  That the opposition of her pain will turn to a present-day miracle!

There’s a couple I know who is fighting Leukemia.

He is in ICU. She is by his side as the tug of children at-home and sleep deprivation stalk her.

He went from bad, to a little better, to worse this weekend.

I don’t know what it’s like to be at the side of a cancer patient – in ICU – and still have all the responsibilities of motherhood . . .

But I once experienced a father-in-law on life support with machines doing the work for him and the decision was made to take him off all the machines.

And send him Home.

Back to Father.

And my heart remembers that bitter sweetness and the sustaining power of the Holy Ghost that Sunday in July.

So I pray for God’s tender mercies to continue to manifest in the lives of these faith-filled, Plan of Salvation loving people.  I pray that he can go back home – to his earthly family - and that Father will see him at a later time.

So back to this book I read and finished today.

It peeled open my heart and inserted a great measure of tenderness.

It carved the important message “Try Understanding Others First!” in the deep fissures of my brain.

And it left me with a greater desire to pray with all the energy of my heart to be filled with charity - the pure love of Christ.