Come To The Water

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?

On a beautiful June afternoon about ten years ago, I was on my way to a vacation at the Oregon Coast with my Mom, Dad, and my two sons who were under the age of five. Nearly there, we came to a stop behind a line of cars at a construction zone on a narrow, undivided two-lane highway that has a notorious reputation among Oregonians, and for good reason. It was one of the first highways in Oregon to be labeled as a traffic safety corridor in the 1990s. Locals call it Blood Alley.

The construction zone was on the other side of a hidden rise, an optical illusion that made it difficult to see that there was a line of cars stopped ahead until we were almost upon them. Dad had to apply the brakes firmly in order to stop in time, and my next thought was, boy, I hope the person behind us stops, too.

I looked in the rear-view mirror, and saw another car come over the rise. In the few seconds before that Dodge Dakota plowed into and over Mom and Dad’s Camry at 55 MPH, all I had time to say was, “Oh, no.” When it was all over, what should have been a fatal accident for everyone in our car, actually claimed only one life, my Mom’s, who was sitting in the seat where I had been sitting thirty minutes before the accident.

We’d switched places, because I was getting car sick.

Everyone experiences grief in their own way, and it is never easy to lose a loved one, no matter the circumstances. In addition, most people experience some sort of survivor’s guilt. I experienced the triple threat of loss, trauma, and guilt. But I had two little children (one of whom had been seriously injured), a husband, a life and a strong faith that I hadn’t lost my mother – I knew exactly where she was, and I would see her again.

Life just goes on – even when it feels like it shouldn’t, and so did I. After the rest of us recovered and were released from the hospital, I cried really hard for a few days, and then attempted to go back to my life. I wasn’t naïve enough to think I would ever be the same girl I was before the accident. But I really didn’t have the time or energy to ponder what moving on would mean or how to do it.

When the horror of that accident would come back on me, or I would hear those what-if whispers, or my hands became so sweaty when I was driving that the steering wheel became slick, or I would be knocked breathless by the searing pain of missing my mother, or paralyzed by the logical-seeming fear that my children at any moment could be taken from me – I would just add something else into my busy life. Thus began years of attempting to bury my feelings under a mountain of activity – another Bible study or book group in my home, another community event or organization, another friend or relative in need, another house project, another writing project. That worked for a while.

A few years ago, I achieved critical mass, and it all imploded. I started having full-blown anxiety attacks (driving on a snowy, fog-covered highway one morning was the trigger) and they threatened to incapacitate me.

Chemical substances have never been my friend. You know the “one person in a million” they list on prescription medications who will have a serious adverse reaction? Drug companies could just post a picture of me on their labels – I am that person and have been my whole life. The extremely mild medications my physician prescribed to calm my nerves and slow my rapidly beating heart were no different. Within weeks I had plummeted from a functioning adult, to someone who was breaking down, to someone who was making preparations to have myself committed.

I have always been an optimist, in an almost insufferable, Pollyanna kind of way. So clinical depression was incomprehensible to me. Couldn’t people just decide to be happy? That’s what I did.

The six weeks of my “episode”, before we realized that I just needed to stop taking the medication, gave me a lot of empathy for people suffering with mental illnesses. I was astounded at the dark place I was transported to, simply because of a little imbalance in my brain chemistry. There is that feeling, that whisper you hear during hard times—If God really cared about you, if He was really there, He wouldn’t make you experience this. In that dark place, that whisper is all you can hear, or at least, it’s the loudest voice.

I have extremely supportive and wise friends and family. And all that I had learned of God in the light brought me through the darkness. But if you know someone experiencing that kind of darkness, pray for them now. Call them, and remind them that even though they can’t feel it, God is right there with them, and you are there for them, too. Invite them over to lay on your couch, or sit in your rocking chair, or lie in your bed, or sit on your porch swing – just so they don’t have to be alone. There are a thousand reasons why God wants us to live in community, and this is one of them. Believe me, it helps. Whatever may happen to that friend or relative in the future, know that simply by being with them, in that moment, you helped.

My brief foray into clinical depression hardly makes me an expert, and my point here is not to talk about mental illness, but what I started learning during that period of my life. It’s a concept I’ve been grasping at, like something slightly out of reach. I could have explained it intellectually, from a theological perspective, years ago. Recently, it actually hit my heart.

Like most teenagers growing up in evangelical Christian circles in the 70s, I learned the song, The Woman at the Well. The chorus goes like this:

Fill my cup, Lord, I lift it up, Lord.

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul;

Bread of heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more,

Fill my cup, fill it up and make me whole.

On a scale that goes from epic hymns to the most insipid “praise” songs you’ve ever heard, The Woman at the Well would probably fall somewhere in the middle. But my sister could play it on the piano when we were teenagers, and I used to sit next to her on the bench and we would sing it together. I have a soft spot in my heart for this song, and the chorus is catchy. I don’t really remember the other verses, which I think have something to do with not being “worldly”. But I find myself singing the chorus occasionally in the shower. I was doing this a few weeks ago, and suddenly a lot that I had been thinking and reading came together like pieces in a puzzle.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Bereft of any chemical assistance to mask my anxiety and grief issues, I had no alternative but to make some drastic life changes. I stripped my life of everything non-essential to my core roles of wife and mother in order to lessen my stress, I changed my diet, and I learned how to deep breathe through an anxiety attack. I tried counseling, but during our sessions I learned more about my therapist than he did about me (I think I really helped him!). Like I said, I have some extremely wise friends and family members who were instrumental in setting me on a healing path. But then, my husband and I took a transfer to a new city where we knew no one.

In his wisdom and mercy, God left me no option but Himself, the greatest mental health professional to walk the earth. A partial transcript of our sessions might look something like this:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, with prayer, supplication, and thankfulness, let your request be made known to God.

Easier said than done, Lord. Don’t be anxious? Seriously? I don’t think this is your garden variety kind of worry. It doesn’t seem to be a mind over matter kind of deal.

WITH PRAYER AND SUPPLICATION, let your requests be made known to God. You have not because you ask not.

Okay, then. I want to feel better. I don’t want to feel like I’m having a heart attack every time I get into a stressful situation. I want my hands to stop sweating and shaking when I’m in a crowd or I meet someone new. I want to quit having flashbacks and creepy dreams and an ability to sleep all the way through the night would be awesome! And while you’re at it, if you could end pain, poverty, and world hunger, that would make me, and a lot of other people, feel a lot less stressed, thanks.

Why?

I… Huh?

Why? You ask and do not receive, because you ask with the wrong motives.

Huh.

Think about that for a while, and also, in this world you will have trouble but take heart, I have overcome the world.

…Still thinking?

Well, I was feeling a little better and then I got side-tracked…but now I’m feeling kind of shaky again…sorry, yes, still thinking.

I’ll be here.

Lord?

I’m here.

Okay, I think I see. My prayers have been all about what I wanted and not what you wanted. I’m wondering, what do you want for me?

I want to ease your restless soul and soothe your troubled heart. I want your life to have hope and purpose. I want you to trust me. I want you to be free from anxiety. In fact, I want you to be free from all the snares that entangle you so that you can join me in overcoming the sin in the world with love and righteousness.

Me, too! I want those things.

We want the same things.

Yes!

How does it make you feel?

Like my heart is full and overflowing.

You don’t feel anxious right now, do you? You couldn’t if you tried.

Wow, you’re right. This is awesome!

Think about that for a while.

So, while I was thinking about that, I was also doing research on the effects of trauma and the causes of anxiety, because I’m a cover-all-my-bases kind of girl. I learned a lot about brain chemistry, enzymes, hormones, receptors, stress, vitamins and minerals and blood sugar and all kinds of things that doctors know exist and that they think affect brain chemistry and how we feel. However, no one really understands how it all works together and why it sometimes goes awry.

I found one article particularly compelling. It was a study on populations of people who have been through traumatic experiences. The researchers were trying to determine why some people come through trauma and recover fairly quickly, while others have their lives wiped out by exactly the same traumatic circumstances.

I didn’t keep this article – so I can’t give you an annotated description of the research. What I’ll describe here is what struck me and stuck with me, and it’s possible I’m combining ideas from more than one source. The researchers postulated that we’re all born with something they called a “well of resilience” somewhere inside us. If we have some good experiences when we’re young, a supportive family, a few successes to bolster confidence, a period of relative stress-free living, then that well gets filled up. When we encounter trauma, we dip from that well to recover.  But it takes a long time for the well to fill back up, so people who encounter one trauma after another, eventually end up with an empty well of resilience. The researchers also theorized as to the reason so many people are currently suffering from anxiety and depression in cushy first-world societies. It’s possible that the stress of modern-day life leaves our wells of resilience dry, as if they have a small but persistent leak.

…Still thinking?

I thought maybe if I just rested and kind of, you know, withdrew from life, my well of resilience might fill back up.

“Well of resilience”?

Um, yes?

If you thirst, Lisa, you can come to the water and be filled.

Really? Because, I’m still having all the same issues and it’s bothering me more and more. I’m not feeling very resilient. I would like to feel the way I felt last time we talked, my heart full and overflowing. That was good—

Why?

I… Huh?

Why is it bothering you? You remember my friend, Martha? She used to be bothered by so many things. And sweet Mary, there was a time she was wiped out by grief and disappointment.

Disappointment? I never thought about that…what was she disappointed in?

Me. They both were.

That must have hurt.

It does. Every time.

It does…? Lord, I’m not…disappointed… Oh.

They didn’t realize what they were doing, either.

I’m sorry.

Already forgiven.

Thanks. Still, Mary and Martha? They’re my favorite people in the Bible, except for you. I love them.

Me, too. We love the same things.

I’m having that heart overflowing thing again.

I know. Think about that for a while.

So I thought about it. I realized that when I pray, for myself and for others, I often ask that God would take away the bad things in life. God knows that’s me crying out, “Abba” and He hears. He catches every tear. Those are the cries of a child seeking comfort from her parent, and that’s right and good. Still, as I pray for a pain free, trouble free life, I know I’m not being realistic. If freedom from trouble in this world was what God promises us, Jesus and the apostles would have had very different lives, and deaths. Millions of people wouldn’t be suffering, hungry, tortured or persecuted.

In this world, you will have trouble… that’s the truth of it. It’s not like Jesus lied to us. It’s not like he promised us a rose garden.

And yet…

There’s Mary, Martha and Lazarus, experiencing resurrection, not in the next life, but in this one.

There’s Stephen, being stoned to death, and praising God, thrilled that he gets to see Jesus.

There are the Apostles and there’s Jesus, on the one hand telling his friends they’ll suffer what He suffered, and on the other hand implying that no one can hurt them. Later there they are, suffering, imprisoned, tortured and persecuted – and they’re able to sing their way through it and “count it all joy.”

And there’s the woman at the well.

If you really knew who it was you were talking to, you would have asked me, and I would give you living water. People who drink other water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Take heart, I have overcome the world.

We may not get freedom from trouble in this life, from pain, loss, persecution, sleepless nights, bad dreams and bad choices.

We get something better—the Word, living and active.

Lord?

I’m here.

I know.

Fill my cup, Lord. I lift it up Lord.

Come and quench this thirsting of my soul.

Bread of heaven, feed me ‘till I want no more.

Fill my cup. Fill it up, and make me whole.

I have this recurring dream. I’m on vacation, trying to get to the resort where I have a reservation. My mom’s already there. But things keep getting in my way, and I never make it to the resort before I wake up.

That dream used to drive me crazy.