Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?

Once a month, we gather with some friends and discuss writings that teach Biblical principals and ideas or written by theologians.  This past week was the first chapter of "A Grief Observed" written by C.S. Lewis.  Here is an excerpt:

"... Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be — or so it feels — welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And that seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?
I tried to put some of these thoughts to C. this afternoon. He reminded me that the same thing seems to have happened to Christ: 'Why hast Thou forsaken Me?'"

C.S. Lewis was writing after the death of his wife, but somehow I feel it applies to the way I feel about our suffering with this condition.  Obviously the situations are different, but the feeling of loss, emptiness, and overwhelming loneliness are the same, if not nearly the same.

It seems ironic to say, that as a Christian I would ask "where is God" more, but as a Christian I know that there is a God and He seems distant.  Vulvodynia affects everyone on a physical and emotional level, is it fair to say that as a Christian it also affects us on a spiritual level?  Where is God?  Why has He forsaken me?

Deut 31:6  "Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; He will never leave you nor forsake you.” 

Hebrews 13:5b  "because God has said,  'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.'" 

If God says He will never leave or forsake us, is the feeling of abandonment then wrong-placed?  Have we abandoned our focus on the Lord?  Are we looking where we want answers and avoiding the areas of our lives in which He is giving them?  Just a thought...

The Funk

Part of the reason it has taken so long to write aside from morning sickness and overwhelming exhaustion, is the fear that somehow my view on our condition would matter less now that I am pregnant.  Maybe this fear is stupid, maybe its not.  Either way, I shouldn’t have assumed.  

I have missed writing, I've missed being able to share my difficulties, and I've missed hoping something good will come out of them.

These last couple of months have been filled with doctor appointments and weddings.  I am not sure about any of you, but every time I go to a wedding, I am reminded of my wedding night...and the failure.  With that memory, I find myself heading into “the funk”.  You know, its that place where reason leaves, your brain is blurry, and there is always that one rain cloud that follows you around and you can’t seem to get away.

My next step in “the funk” for me have been all the doctors appointments.  Apparently unbeknownst to me, OBGYN’s expect you to see almost every doctor in the clinic, since you won’t know which doctor is on call the night you deliver.  It insures that you have probably shook hands with the doctor who will be guiding you through labor.  This seems completely reasonable until you realize that once a month you will be explaining to a new doctor that you still have vaginismus and could they go slow.  

My last appointment was a doozy.  The doctor seemed to think that giving me instructions on what I could and could not eat would be enough of a distraction to get me through my pap smear.  Few doctors realize it is an involuntary muscle spasm, they think its control by fear.  I think the involuntary muscle spasm controls the fear, not the other way around.  Either way my muscles tried to refuse the exam and shut down on the alligator tool...thankfully they were already on their way out anyway.  My body has been spasming since.

Job lost his children, he lost is livestock aka his job, and then he lost his health.  All the while he didn’t curse God.  Hearing his story, I found it perfectly reasonable for his to be in a funk.  That is until God reminded him and me how powerful He is and who He is.  Do we really have the right to question the One who created all things?  Can we really think that He doesn’t know what we are going through?  

“So take me as you find me, all my fears and failures, fill my life again!...
Savior, He can move the mountains my God is mighty to save!  He is mighty to save!”