tough love, baby

Tough love, baby, says Lorelai Gilmore, as she cuts off her beloved daughter.

Tough love.

I have learned many lessons in my life. One of which was about the nature of God. I was walking up a long staircase to campus and ahead of me was a man in his late twenties or early thirties. Next to him was his daughter, of an age where she was just learning to walk. She was climbing each stair on her very own, struggling with intense effort, battling each step and then once having succeeded moving on to the next. Her patient father took each step as she did. When I passed them on the stairs they were perhaps fifty feet above their starting point. As I had traversed that distance the girl had made it up five. I was weighed down with books and fatigue, and I knew that the man could have easily outstripped me even bearing the child in his arms. Why did he sit by and watch her climb on her own, when he was much more capable than she at completing the task? Because someday she needed to be the one standing patiently as her child crept, fell and continued crawling. That is how I learned who God is.

Last night I learned a little more about His relationship with me. That overwhelming feeling of inaptitude and meaninglessness came to a climax. I realized that the time when I had been happiest the last few weeks was during the few seconds between when the phone started ringing and when it was answered. Those were the moments when I had hope. Other pleasant interactions were ways to narcotize myself from feelings of worthlessness.

Last night I prayed, begging to be rid of the feeling, begging for someone I love to love me back. I made myself hot chocolate -the ultimate comfort food- but took only a few unsatisfying sips. what I wanted, inexplicably, was to be found in a little leather cover engraved with a picture of Solomon's temple given to me by my best friend. I opened to the eighth chapter of second Nephi. Now I cannot say that the Lord chose for me to fall behind in my reading, that he planned for me to read only one chapter a night instead of two, but it certainly felt as though on that night I was meant to be reading that chapter.

Please let me be happy.
For the Lord shall comfort Zion, he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord. Joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving and the voice of melody.
Please make this end.
Thus saith thy Lord, the Lord and thy God pleadeth the cause of his people; behold, I have taken out of thine hand the cup of trembling, the dregs of the cup of my fury; thou shalt no more drink it again.
Please let me feel like I am somebody of value.
But I will put it into the hand of them that afflict thee; who have said to thy soul: bow down, that we may go over -and thou hast laid thy body as the ground and as the street to them that went over.
Help me face a new day.
Awake, awake, put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city.
Please send someone to comfort me.
...
...
...
Nobody came. I waited. I wept. I sobbed my heart out, wringing from it every bad feeling I could conceive. I closed the Book and clutched it like a lifeline. I fell asleep holding it like a teddy bear. The phone never rang, nobody ever came, and I felt abandoned by my Lord, unloved by my Heavenly Father. Yet, even while I hurt I did not turn away hope, but still looked to the verses I had read. I wondered why but did not punish myself in any attempt to punish Him.

When I woke I felt desperate for some time, time to sort out my feelings, time to get work done, time to read the Book that suddenly I craved like air. It was as if I were reassured, though I had asked for the answer to be given me through another, that it was acceptable to take time off to take care of myself. I called in sick, and my boss was lovely about it. Get some sleep, Audrey, I'll see you Friday.

I waited to understand why the Lord had not sent anyone to my rescue, and the understanding came. Tough love, baby. I am he; yea, I am he that comforteth you. Although I trusted in the grace of my God, I did not trust in Him. I waited for help from someone else. I would have given my gratitude to that person. I would have used that person as a prop on which to support myself. Instead, when I awoke, I felt calm and comforted, and slightly rebuked. It was almost as if He had told me to pick myself up and get over it, the way Ted might have. It was almost as if He had pierced me with His gaze, telling me I needed to have more faith in Him, and less in the arm of man. It was completely as if He had taken care of me.

Shake thyself from the dust; arise, sit down, O Jerusalem; loose thyself from the bands of thy neck, O captive daughter of Zion.