I hadn’t talked much with God this week, and I don’t know that it could have been any other way. I was not refusing to speak to God, and while I was angry, the anger wasn’t directed at Him. It just seems that there are those times when there are not words, times when the most I can do is sigh, and look up, and ask why. And God is present, like the perfect friend who sometimes knows when it is better to just be quiet and be present rather than making me talk about it.
This week we were feeding the ducks at the park when I got word that someone we have known for several years had died of a drug overdose. His girlfriend found him, dead that morning. He was someone who we have seen in times of the most terrible sickness from addiction, and in times of recovery and freedom. Over the past couple of years, it has been a real source of hope and blessing to see him grow in health, physically and mentally.
In one moment I went from happy duck-feeding with my boys, to drug overdose death, and back to happy duck-feeding with my boys, only now with tears and anger in the cold wind.
Why, God? Seriously.
The last time I saw this man was on a warm day in October, while I was out for a walk with the boys. He was outside of his house with a friend, and they were washing their cars. He told me he had received a call from God to be an evangelist, and he was on his way. His friend smelled like booze, and I hoped I was wrong. We chatted and I said something about bringing them dinner sometime, in somewhat of a hurry to get away from a situation I didn’t entirely trust.
I guess my instincts were right. It’s been awhile, but I guess booze still smells like booze, and someone on dope still looks like someone on dope.
I have no idea what drives people back into addiction after they have tasted freedom. I have been there too, and I still have no satisfying answer. Like dogs who return to our own vomit, we are.
In these times, my heart shrinks into something cold and small, and I just don’t know what to say, I don’t know what to pray. Every effort to articulate what is in my heart feels mostly just like sand running through my hands. I’m just tired. I look at God and He looks at me, and we just shake our heads together, and that’s about what my prayer life amounts to.
And I am angry, in fact I’m really angry. But at this point I know enough to know that anger directed at God is misdirected. This God who looks kindly on the lowly, this God who provides the life raft to sinners, this God of third and fourth and fifth and twentieth chances.
How many times before this overdose should this man have died, but was protected by this God? We have no way of knowing. No, this God is not unfair; rather, this God who is full of grace and love weeps with me.
To watch the broken fall away - not just addicts but all sinners of all forms - to watch them fall away into the abyss while still keeping out of the pit yourself is sometimes like surviving a massive scale earthquake or other natural disaster. Scrambling desperately out of a sinking pit, fortunate enough to be one of the ones who finds something to grab onto. There is no joy, there is no pride, there are no thoughts of being sure that you are good enough to not fall into the abyss too. There is no I-told-you-so, there is no sense that somehow we are immune. There is only the realization that this thing is powerful to the point of death, that it wants to kill us. There is only terror, and a shell-shocked gratitude, combined with the realization that all is grace upon grace. And with tear-streaked cheeks you lift tired, shaking, weak hands in the air, praising God for the gift of another day of freedom, and O God have mercy.
These are the times when we pray Come Lord Jesus, come quickly. Come thou long-expected Jesus. And in the meantime have mercy because we are so, so tired.
And again, Jesus is just there. I see Him in the people around me. They way my mom just stays near and waits for me to talk. The way a friend shows up with a hot cup of coffee and tears. The way my husband is quiet but his hugs are a littler tighter than usual. The emails and prayers and friends who know the hell of addiction all too well. The way the ones who have made it pour into meetings like clinging to a life raft. The way it’s always okay to add more tear drops to the old wooden altar on Sundays. The way the church of Jesus gathers under the Cross on Sunday morning, bringing all of our tears and joy and worry and all of the heavy things we carry.
So God remains patiently by my side, and finally I’ll talk about it a little today. Little by little we will talk more and more. In the meantime, there is a set of missing footprints in the sand of my life, while He once again carries me along. There are times for just receiving, for being still though it storms, and knowing that He is God. (Psalm 46:10).
I have no eloquent theological explanation for these things. No neat and tidy perspective which cleans it up to make it less ugly. Sin is just chaos, plain and simple.
The addict who suffers and finally dies from addiction typically would want nothing more than for others to find the freedom of recovery, for others to seek out the freedom which the dead could not hang onto. His battle is over, and the monkey is no longer on his back. But our battle is not over, my battle is not over. So this is what we pray for, that those who die serve the purpose of leading some of us to get well, or to cling to the freedom we have already found. Sadly, the opposite is often true, and the face of death by addiction serves only to lead many further into the abyss of the hopeless. It is a vicious cycle, one only broken by grace and desperation.
The suffering are everywhere, even if you do not know the signs to see them.
Don’t forget them in your prayers.
