On The Goodness of Jesus in a Weary Wilderness

There were days that the darkness was so powerful it felt like I couldn't breathe at all,  nevermind move my body from my bed to the doorway. 

But then, there was a hungry baby beside me who needed me. So my feet moved as if on autopilot, and as I held the bottle to his mouth, I traveled far away in my imagination - numbing myself to the pain throbbing in my head. When the tears fell, I'd shove them away with the back of my shaky hand and focus on my breath the way my therapist had taught me years before - hold, 2, 3, 4...and release, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. 

There were days it felt like absolutely everything had been taken away from us. Due to the impacts of Covid-19, our work was gone. Our freedoms were gone. Our family and friends were either hundreds of miles away or closeby and unable to enter our home. Our plans to do things and go places were instantly erased. But more than all the external things, it felt like my whole sense of self was gone. I used to know things about who I was and what mattered and what I wanted, yet now everything was becoming a question mark. Lost in the chaos of feeding schedules, diaper changes, clutter clean-up, and toddler tantrums, I wondered who this Ashley was on the inside now. 

Once engrossed in a new novel every day, this Ashley cannot remember the last time she actually finished a book. ANY book of any kind. Once organized by a detailed day-planner and way ahead of schedule, this Ashley is continually forgetting appointments and writing daily to-do lists that are never even close to being completed. She feels out of place physically in her postpartum body, and out of place mentally in her mom-brain with much less time and space for research and discussion and study...

I can't remember the exact day the thoughts of ending it all started to take shape. But I know my youngest son was almost 2 months old and I started to feel my grip on reality slipping. Mild irritations were becoming intense rages that raised my blood pressure and my voice to horrifying levels. I would go to bed sobbing as I rocked my colicky wailing child and wake up sobbing as I lifted his body toward mine. He was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen - both of my sons were the most beautiful things I had ever seen - but I was terrified. Terrified that I would hurt him, terrified that I would starve him, terrified that I wouldn't bond with him, terrified that he would fall out of my shaking aching arms one day and my whole world would collapse...and just plain terrified of not being "enough" for any of the things I knew I needed to be. Enough of a wife, enough of a mom, enough of a friend, enough of a daughter and sister, enough of a believer. I just wanted so badly to run away from life and run to Jesus' arms, tell Him how sorry I was for everything I had messed up, and just hide in His embrace until the earth melted away and my family could come and find me.

I felt fairly sure that after the first day or two, nobody would care too much I was gone. My family would move on with their lives as we always had done, living far apart; my husband would soon find a prettier wife who was a better parent and a better homemaker than I could ever be; my friends had plenty of other people they were closer to than me that they could lean on since I was typically the needy one anyway, etc...but then, I imagined my two sons. I imagined their innocent faces waking up to a world without me in it - and imagined how I would feel if I woke up to a world without my own mom in it. That same day, a friend who had walked with me through the early days of my firstborn son's life, posted an image on Facebook of a lion and his cub walking side-by-side that read, "I thought about giving up, but then I remembered who was watching." The weight of that image wrecked me enough to keep me hanging on. 

"O God, how did I get here? And what do I do?

Lord, please don't leave me! Help. Please." The prayers were short. The groanings were long. And the shame was crippling. I really didn't want this to be part of my story. I would rather have gone through another unmedicated labor with another 10+ pound child than deal with the fact that I had a problem I couldn't seem to fix on my own.

Who else lands in a heap on the kitchen floor at 1 in the afternoon, shaking so violently with sobs that they are physically unable to get up to check on their napping kids?! Who stands over their frightened toddler in a blind rage that he whined about his breakfast plate?! I'm supposed to be OK. I'm supposed to have peace and joy and gentleness and patience. But I don't - and I don't know how to get what I need. How can I ask God to give me what I should have by now if I was really a good Christian?

In the middle of these dark moments, I remembered a conversation I had with a struggling friend a few years earlier. "You can leave God if you want, but if you leave Him out thinking that will make life better, it won't - it will make life infinitely worse. You can have everything else but if it's without Him, you'll have NOTHING." I still believe this to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt. But now, I have spent days that I would never have survived without Him. I KNOW it. Because on the days when there was nothing else to cling to, there was HIM. Not some vague "god" who is in everything and everyone and sheds universal peace and light and a warm glow. Not some nameless "higher power" that will someday magically set everything aright. No, there was MY God - Jehovah, Yahweh, I AM. A personal God who was there as my Father. As my Savior and Friend. As my Comforter and Counselor. 

The Psalmist writes, "I would have despaired unless I believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." Amen is all I can say. My desperate emotions would have destroyed me were not the hope of final redemption etched so deeply into my soul. Ultimately, even when faith feels like a fraying thread, the believer in Jesus has something firm to cling to. The Lord IS GOOD. He was good then, He is good now, and He will be good forever. So when I can't see that, there must be something I'm missing.

So I counted on what others could see and did my best to struggle openly, as much as I hated the thought of anyone knowing. I called trustworthy friends and cried, and they prayed me through. I called my mom and my sisters and cried, and they prayed me through. And my husband was the steady presence that I could cling to in the times when it felt like I had no one else. We prayed, and trusted God together, and put one foot in front of the other, day in and day out, until the fog started lifting. 

And yes, it really did lift.

Fast-forward several months and here I am with an almost one-year-old who is the embodiment of joy. His whole chubby body smiles when he smiles, it laughs when he laughs - and he smiles and laughs all day long. He and his big brother are the ultimate snuggle-buddies and I get to watch their bond grow. I get to see him try his first foods, crawl and walk and talk for the first time. And I can't help but remember that I would have missed all this if I had given in to despair. 

"Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning." (Psalm 30:5) Sometimes that "night" feels very long but the fact remains that joy DOES come. Either here on Earth in small measure, or at least in Heaven in full measure. 

Life is still hard. Add in the stresses of lockdowns and conflicts everywhere (about seemingly everything) and some days it is still REALLY hard. But here is what I have learned. The faithful goodness of God is there right in the middle of the hard things, even the things we are convinced we cannot face. 

He is strength when we are weak. He is truth when we are burdened with questions. He is peace when the storm is raging around us. He is love when we are at our most unlovable. He is goodness amid all that is so very NOT good. 

"This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness."

Lamentations 3:21-23

Wherever you are and however you are feeling, know you are loved and you are not alone. 

~Me