I have a quilt that I bought while on a trip to Oklahoma. I love the colors and the scalloped edges; the matching pillow shams; the way it looks on the wrought iron bed. But the weight of it is sometimes too much- too heavy. It is almost unbearable to have that weight on my feet some nights.

That’s how I feel lately about life.  There is a sadness about it that is suffocating. I find myself crying in the middle of the day when someone comes to mind. I hear about those for whom the sadness became too much. Not just the ones in the news like Spade and Bourdain, but people I know or whose families I know.

I read an article the other day about a young man who, after years of love and encouragement from his family, after years of treatment, who was gifted and talented in so many ways, just went for “a walk in the woods” because he couldn’t find a way to the surface. And I was overwhelmed with sadness.

I look at my children and each of their individual struggles and wonder if life is too hard for them.  Are the expectations too high? Will I be the recipient  of a text, as this young man’s mother was, which says “I’ve gone for a walk in the woods”?   And it makes me sad.  Rather than crawling under that blanket for comfort, it becomes a source of oppression.  And instead of finding comfort in the words I read in the Bible, as I so often have, they too become like a weight.

I think back to my life in my late teens and 20’s- when I was in the throes of addiction and alcohol was the only thing that relieved that sadness of life. Or so I thought.  If I’m totally honest, I thought more about taking my life after I stopped drinking than I ever did beforehand.  I understand all too well that “jumping off place”[1]; the feeling that life is just too hard.  It becomes like walking in wet sand, and each rush of water acts like a suction cup, making it impossible to move your feet.

The sadness comes from my seeming inability to “make things better”, from the lack of enough eloquent words or persuasive encouragement which will lift friends and loved ones out of those pits of despair. While I know it’s not my responsibility to do so, there is still a part of me that wants to fix things.

I try to recall what it was that pulled me out of those places of despair, those “dark nights of the soul”.  Was it something someone said?  Something timely I read?  A song on the radio at just the right moment?

One of my favorite verses in times of darkness is Habakkuk 3:17-18 – “Though the fig tree may not blossom, Nor fruit be on the vines; Though the labor of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; Though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls- Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”

While I certainly see the faithfulness of God in my own life and am truly grateful, my sadness comes when I see those around me struggle, paddling desperately against an undercurrent of fear and longing.  It is like seeing the beauty of that quilt and yet being pained by its uncomfortable weight.

I see friends who cannot overcome the curse of addiction, returning to the “quick fix” rather than pursuing the daily reprieve which comes from following a spiritual program of recovery; I see family members searching for satisfaction in so many things, trusting in “chariots and horses” (Ps. 20:7) rather than in who they are in God’s eyes; I understand the challenge some of them have fully embracing the truth that ”weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning”.  I think my sadness comes from my inability to convince them, based solely on my own experience, that there is truly nothing which can separate them from God’s love (Romans 8:38-39).

I have another blanket that one of my sons got for me. It is soft and warm, providing just the right warmth and comfort on chilly mornings as I sit and spend time in the Word.  I know I have a choice today as to which blanket I crawl under. And so this morning, as the sun starts coming up on a new day, I will try to turn my thoughts from the “wormwood and the gall”, as the prophet Jeremiah did, and have hope in the promise that “Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion’ says my soul, ‘therefore I hope in Him’” (Lamentations 3:22-24).

[1] “Alcoholics Anonymous”, p.152