The following is absolutely fictional
and increasingly common. There is no Brad and definitely no Jill, in case that
is not obvious. There are, however, way too many people in their position.
Dear Brad,
Yes, it has been a
while, and I’m happy you feel up to keeping in touch. I know it’s been hard. Dan
mentioned you ran into Jill at the mall, but neither he nor I can imagine how difficult
that was for you.
Your account of that accidental meeting reminds me how easily we can miscommunicate, but I think I can relate to your
confusion: years of familiarity combined with sudden, obvious emotional distance
can make you reassess everything you once thought you knew.
Questions, Questions
Was her awkwardness
motivated by guilt or shame? Has she been reconsidering her plans to divorce
you? Was it just perfectly normal discomfort with a public encounter that could
have potentially become embarrassing? More alarmingly, was her obvious weight
loss and the new hairstyle a sign there’s another man in her life or, if not, that
she’s already looking? How long did she plan this? How much of your marriage
was, as you put it, “a sham”?
Questions like these can
fill your mind and occupy every waking moment. They interfere with your
prayers, your meditation, your Bible reading and your conversations with
others. They are profoundly distracting, and I’ve never discovered a simple
solution to getting relief from them. You can “pray them away” for a few
seconds and then find them racing back to occupy you again only moments later.
You will probably find
yourself fussing and obsessing about issues of which nobody else is even
conscious. As Solomon put it, “The heart knows its own bitterness.” And of course, just when you think you are getting back to normal and are able
to work without thinking of her every waking moment, that’s when you run into
her again and find to your dismay that whatever benefit time and distance
had provided was only a temporary fix.
Grief and Depression
Dan worries that you
are depressed. Typical older brother! But reading your latest emails, I think
it’s unlikely. You do not have a chronic mood disorder; what’s happened is that you are going through a tragic life event. Your grief is perfectly
normal, and it is part of a God-designed recovery process that we are unwise to try to chemically abbreviate. Our Western obsession with treating every variety of sadness with medication
is mistaken, I think. A genuine, ongoing chemical imbalance is one thing, but
this is not that. I’ve written before about different kinds of sorrow and the futility of one-size-fits-all remedies.
Brad, you are dealing with a loss that in some ways is as painful
as the death of a family member; maybe even more so, because with death can
come a sort of relief when you know the person you have lost is present with the Lord, and especially when their exit from this world was attended by suffering.
But losing Jill has
only created uncertainty for you: about her relationship with the Lord, about
her current spiritual state, about the reality and meaningfulness of the sorts
of Christian service you once engaged in together, and there’s no relief in
sight. I know others who have gone through divorces and have tried meds. You
will probably hear something about the benefits of Zoloft, Celexa or Prozac. But
I’d encourage you to try something else first.
The Initiative Against Despair
I think it was Oswald Chambers who said the initiative against despair is to “arise and do the
next thing,” which he extrapolates from the Lord’s words to his disciples in Gethsemane,
“Rise, let us be going.” I think there’s a lot of wisdom in that advice: you cannot recover from this
sort of thing by standing still and reflecting on what you’ve lost. Do that for
too long and you’ll find that occasional glass of wine you have with dinner is
turning into a bottle or more, and nobody wants that!
Do you remember the story the Lord told
about the unclean spirit that returns to the house from which it came and finds
it swept and put in order? It goes and brings seven
other spirits more evil than itself back with it, and they all live there
together. And the Lord adds, “The last state of that person is worse than the first.”
I can almost hear you laughing, but of
course I quote it only by analogy, you understand. I’m not comparing Jill to an
unclean spirit or suggesting that dark thoughts and obsessions are the same as
possession. Not at all. But there’s a principle there similar to Oswald
Chambers’ “arise and do the next thing”, and that’s that you can’t recover
without moving forward. Or to go back to the unclean spirit metaphor, you need
to fill up the house so there’s no place for the evil spirit and his pals to
return to. Because the next time you accidentally run into Jill, you’ll feel like
that’s exactly what’s happening.
Fill Up the House
Perhaps the solution involves filling up
your house literally. You could open up your home for that neighbourhood Bible
study you’ve been talking about. Perhaps it means going out with that street
evangelism team. You’ve always been hospitable, Brad, and Jill was only a small
part of making that work. You can still do wonders on the barbecue. You can
still bake that killer carrot cake. Who knows? You may even find others in need
of the blessing of Christian fellowship as badly as you.
These are just suggestions of course, and
it may feel like it’s a bit too soon or a bit too difficult to implement anything
like that at present, but I think the important principle to take away is not
to leave yourself a Jill-shaped hole in your schedule in which to be miserable.
If not your home, then fill up your life with things that matter for eternity.
Finally, I always remember that when Peter despaired
about his own ability to serve the Lord effectively after his frailties were
exposed, the first thing the Lord did for him was make him breakfast. You mentioned that there are a lot of loving people reaching out to you from church.
I hope it doesn’t sound cheesy and sentimental, but they are the hands and feet
of the Lord who loves you. Let them serve you, Brad. Both you and they will
benefit, and you may even sense the Lord cooking you up a metaphorical mess
of fish to sustain you.
Feeble thoughts, but well intended. I trust
I haven’t given offense. Come visit anytime, brother.
Much love in Christ,
Tom
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