I don’t need any additional medical advice. Just prayers, and whatever anyone can offer to help me remember that I’m not alone (even if I am too weak to respond, it will be much appreciated). Of course, I’m so blessed by friends and family who love me, but I’m also congenitally complicated, and they don’t always know how to respond to me. I don’t blame them. And everyone is so busy all the time (this is the universal affliction of first world people). I have it too, at least in the measure that I condemn myself for being “unproductive” (though, in fact, I haven’t done too badly). I’m depressed in a manic world.
What I must do is love and act in the ways I can (not only with my talents but also my suffering), not concerned with doing many things, but if possible going deeper in a few essential ways, without anxiety about how much or how little lies ahead for me to do. “The only thing that matters is to do God’s will” - I know that this is true, but I struggle against it like all other sinners; I resist letting God’s love be the measure of my life. His love is so mysterious… Still, God is good, all the time.
Also, I don’t think He’s finished with me yet.
I will try hard to recover something of my strength (or find new sources of strength, and focus more on using my strength for what really requires my attention). Somehow, I am convinced that my charism has not yet fulfilled its purpose, and that I am still called to give and endure many things, to face challenges and difficulties on a larger scale than I have yet known. This is how it seems to me, but its all in God’s hands.
We will all need encouragement in the times to come, we will need to remember that the risen Lord walks with us even in the valley of the shadow of death.
