I always fall asleep on my left side. I suppose it's been that way all my life. Sometimes, I toss and turn--must lie on the right side, must lie on my back for a few minutes, but always, I end up on my left side clinging to that one thought that gives me peace of mind and calmness of spirit. Even in the worst of times, there has been the tiniest of thread of hope connecting my heart and mind, a cord of assurance that no matter what, I will be okay and things will work out just fine.
Lately though, I lie awake at night, unable to still my mind or my body and searching desperately for that one tiny thread that seems to have all but disappeared. My friends pray for me. They tell me that they love me and remind me that God loves me too. I know they are sincere; they show me in so many ways that I am important to them and that they genuinely care about what happens to me. But they can never know how horribly Alone I am when I lie with my thoughts of what is happening to me.
Alone has become the only thread I can find. Day and night, it dangles from my mind and sometimes tugs at my heart so fiercely that I put my hand over my chest to make sure it doesn't get pulled right out. Alone isn't the same as lonely. I am familiar with lonely, as I'm sure every human being has been at some time. There are people all around me, but no one who truly understands the turmoil in my soul. I want to tell someone about it, but I don't know how. I want someone to see inside me and know that I have fear and unhealed wounds and even shame, but I'm afraid to show them all the unseemly bits that reside at my core. If they see that much of me, maybe they'll think I deserve to be Alone.
Alone is the deepest, darkest well of silence where no matter how loud you scream, no one is going to hear you. It's when you open up your heart to someone and spill your very soul and all you hear back is the echo of your own despair. You keep thinking that someone, God perhaps, will send down a rope and pull you up, but the rope never comes. You can try to climb out all by yourself, but Alone is a slippery place and if you aren't careful, you'll slide so far down in its pit that you may never be able to escape. After a while, you get hoarse from all the hollering and you tire from all the struggling--the climbing and plotting to escape, and you just give up. Instead of looking up out of that hole into the sunlight, you retreat, let the coldness of the water cover you over and fill you up so there's no more Alone to feel.
If only we all felt safe enough to shed our pride and truly invite another in, Alone might cease to exist. It is our own fear that holds us hostage, locked inside our darkness, while somewhere outside us there is something--someone willing to take Alone's place. Could there be something or someone out there who has the needle and the thread, just waiting to mend us back together? How do you know when it is safe to leave your heart and mind in the hands of someone else--they could just dangle that string in front of you long enough to let you reach for it, and pull it from you just when you start to Trust. It's a chance we all have to take at some point it seems, but Trust can be even scarier than Alone.
A couple of times recently, I have spoken with friends about Faith. Faith in God and Faith in man. When I was younger, I memorized the Biblical meaning of it--"The substance of things hoped for; the evidence of things not seen." I urged one friend to try to have a little Faith that opening up and letting people see the inside just a little could be a good thing. I assured the other of my own Faith in God and my faltering belief in myself.
I have figured out that when you are trapped in the dungeon of Alone, Faith, Hope and Love seem quite impossible to find, even though they might be hovering all around you. Hope gets replaced by fear, Faith gets blotted out by doubt, and Love just starts to bounce off those thick barricades you've built around your heart. For a while, all you feel is turmoil boiling in your belly, roiling up through your soul until you think your mind will explode; but then, after a while, you just sink into yourself and become the very well into which you've fallen.
So how do I get myself out of this hole? I've considered reaching for that thread even though I can't see it. I don't know what will happen though. Maybe it will be there and I can grab-hold, roll over onto my left side and drift peacefully off to sleep. I think though, that until I learn to Trust, every thread I pull will only unravel and leave me with a pile of useless string at my feet and a heart filled with disappointment.
I try to pray, but I don't know how to pray without being able to Trust. I don't know how to have Hope when I seem to have so little Faith. I don't know how to receive Love if receiving it means leaving my heart in someone else's hands. Without meaning to, I push everyone away and I embrace the very thing I loathe: Aloneness. I let it lie beside me at night and I carry it with me throughout the day. Sometimes I come close to letting it go, but I always seem to sabotage whatever comes my way to banish it.
I don't want to be this way anymore. I don't want Alone.
They keep telling me God is with me, but I don't feel God. I feel like the thread that once tied me to Him has been severed, that He doesn't care or even know I exist. In the grand scheme of things, I can't even believe I would ever matter to Him. And there, I suppose is the beauty of it all--of life itself, I mean; that even though I don't feel Him, and even though I doubt Him, he is still there loving me anyway. He's skillfully directing my path, even when I'm in this darkest of places, feeling so full of Alone that I can't feel anything else. It isn't Aloneness, Faith, Hope or even Love that keeps me steady on my feet even though I feel so orphaned and discouraged. Grace is the only thread left for me to grasp. I will cling to it because, right now, it is all I have and ultimately, it will be enough.
2 Corinthians 12:9 "And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."
