He Restores My Soul

When we lose someone we love, when death, divorce, or other circumstances separate us from a "soul mate," we feel that our souls have been diminished. Human souls are nourished by love, by relationships, and to sever a relationship is to chip away at a person's soul. That is why we need prayer and healing, mediated through friends and other good people, to "restore our souls." Whether we believe that we will be reunited with our loved one in a time and place to come, or whether we believe that we keep a person close to us by cherishing that person's values and memories, our religious faith helps us to fill the emptiness.

You don't have to be religious to have a soul; everybody has one. You don't have to be religious to perfect your soul; I have found saintliness in avowed atheists. But maybe you have to be religious to have your soul restored. The prophet Jeremiah compares the person who scorns and rejects God to a tree planted in the desert, which will ultimately dry up and wither because it has no source of replenishment outside itself, which "he who trusts in the Lord . . . shall be like a tree planted by waters . . . its leaves are ever fresh, it has no care in a year of drought, it does not cease to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8). When we are emotionally empty, we are not able to replenish ourselves. The restoration, the replenishment has to come from somewhere outside ourselves, from God and from people inspired by God to reach out to us in our need.

Should you know someone who has suffered a loss, whether loss of a loved one, loss of a job, or loss of a relationship, and you hesitate to contact your friend because you feel inadequate to the situation, because you are not sure you have the words to help her, please overcome that hesitation and reach out to your friend. Call her, visit her. You don't have to say anything besides "I'm sorry, I feel bad for you." Human souls are nourished by relationships, and your friendship, your going out of your way to show concern, has the power to heal a person's soul.

There is one other important way in which God restores our souls when they verge on wearing thin. As many readers may be aware, my wife and I had a fourteen-year-old son who died of progeria, the extremely rare rapid-aging disease. Almost exactly two years after his death, our daughter reached the age of becoming Bat Mitzvah and was preparing to celebrate that status by reading from the Torah and the prophets at a Sabbath service. As luck would have it, on the Sabbath closest to her thirteenth birthday, the Jewish liturgical calendar called for her to chant the fortieth chapter of Isaiah, concluding with the words, "Those who trust in the Lord will have their strength renewed. They shall mount up with wings as eagles. They shall run and not grow weary, they shall walk and not feel faint" (Isaiah 40:31).

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