In the movie "Holly Rollers" there is a Rabbi who quotes from the Talmud of when God asks "Adam, where art thou?" The Rabbi points out that God knew all along where Adam was, even when Adam thought he was successfully hiding from God after having taken of the fruit with Even. God knew where Adam was, what was important was did Adam know where he was in relation to God. In our lives, that is an important question to answer for ourselves and to answer to God, "where am I in relation to thee?"
I came home one night, to fall to my knees and face plant into the carpet sobbing tears of heartbreak. It had been few weeks since my ex-boyfriend broke up with me but the pain and anguish I felt was still very fresh, like an open wound that would not heal. I'm not sure if you would say I'm suicidal or not, almost every day post break-up I have secret prayer that I could cease to exists, that my heart could stop beating, or that some merciful semi-truck could flatten me quickly leaving no remnants of my existence here on the earth. All of this sounds melodramatic but it's true, after my boyfriend told me that he just wanted to be friends, he didn't want to date me any more, all hope I had left in me began to evaporate within me. I felt like my boyfriend, my dreams for a future together with him and even my self-confidence were disappearing, escaping my increasingly desperate reach for them. Each minute I felt more desperate for everything to stay the same all hope felt further away. It was a nightmare yet I was awake for it and that horrible feeling of dread reared up from within me and became a cloud of despair that would not leave.
I had hope that he would change his mind initially, that we would get back together, then that hope turned into a morbid hope he would felt awful when he heard my heart stopped beating all on it's own from the pain of unrequited love.
Nothing that dramatic happened other than internally, I gave up on me and on life. I lay there weeping into the ugly carpet and it happened not just once but night after night. I could keep it together sometimes during the day, but generally I was just showing my face at work or to family only to hold my tears back until I was somewhere, anywhere a lone and cry. I cried to my boss at work - not intentionally, I just showed up to work looking like a train wreck and the tears would not stop. I cried to my family and friends, which is to be expected but they only knew about the times they saw me cry, they didn't know that crying had become my new pastime and that I was only rushing out the door from family events because I was already gasping for air through the tears as soon as the door shut behind me.
I've found that when I cry a lot my eyes turn a very pretty, ocean blue and that my skin around my eyes puffs up enormously which makes me look almost pretty and deformed all at once. PreparationH for hemorrhoids actually is very useful at reducing the swelling around the eyes I've learned and Visine drops keep me from looking like a crack-head at work.
Through all these tears and the prayers when my tears and gasps for air seem to pull from somewhere deep within me struggling to find a reason to want to live another day, to breathe another minute. Beneath all the layers of my physical body somewhere in the dark corners of my soul where my greatest fears, hopes, pains, dreams, and loves all dwell, my dark fears were being realized and surfacing. Dark fears that I'm unlovable, I'll never be married, I'll never have children, no man has ever loved me or will ever love me, life is pointless and being alone is my fate in life so have no hope for anything to improve...ever.
I prayed. I pray all the time, and during these times of prayer God has been consistent but the main difference may be my intensity of the prayer and my sincere desire to hear God's voice. My deepest desire to hear some guidance from God, to know that all is not lost and that somewhere in the mess of this thing we call life - something will make sense. In between these tearful prayers and moments of dark hopeless wishes for the pain of existence to stop I continue to receive simple thoughts of inspiration that I can only believe come from God or His angels who watch over me... consistently I hear "Be Still and Know that I am God."
Oddly, sometimes the hardest thing to do, is to be still, to know that God is. To know that God has a plan for me, that I in my insignificance, my fears, my worries, I am somehow part of this greater plan that God has for his Kingdom on Earth and that even though I feel rejected by all that I would hope to be accepted and loved by in the world, that there is divine purpose for my existence. There is divine purpose in these experiences and that although to feel some humbled and heartbroken, that to be lowly of heart is not really a bad thing. It's brought me to the point where I have surrendered my will, my desires, my wants all to the will of God. It may not be for the best of reasons that motivated me to finally fall to my knees in absolute surrender to God's will and pray that I could only want what He desires for me, but I know where I am now in relation to God. I can answer that question God asks of all of us "Where art thou?"
