Dear God,
\nIn today\u2019s reading (Isaiah 49: 3, 5), it is written:<\/p>\n
The Lord said to me: You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him; and I am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Let me read that last line again: \u201cI am made glorious in the sight of the Lord, and my God is now my strength.\u201d
\nWarning, God. I\u2019m in a pisser of a mood today, as it is, statistically speaking, the most depressing week of the year (January 21 is the most depressing day on record). As I read that last line, I\u2019m not thinking holy thoughts.
\nHere\u2019s my beef: I always attribute the good stuff to you, and take ownership of the bad stuff myself. How fair is that? Are you always the strength, love, hope behind my triumphs? So then do I just not tap into them the days I fall? (For which I\u2019m accountable.)
\nI\u2019m going to give you a little context to my complaint, so you know why I\u2019m angry with you.
\nYesterday in the hallway of the office of my current therapist, I run into my former therapist. (I hate it when that happens). My former therapist hands me several pieces of paper\u2014one entitled \u201cMy Autobiography\u201d written in, what looks like to me, my junior-high handwriting.
\n\u201cI thought you\u2019d be interested to read these things now. I\u2019ve been holding on to them, and wanted to return them to you,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\nAn hour later, when I\u2019m finished with therapist number two, I start reading the pages I wrote when I was 13, in eighth grade:<\/p>\nI can\u2019t keep these feelings in any more. My mom doesn\u2019t understand. She tries but she doesn\u2019t. The world seems terrible to me. Everyone seems greedy. I think I need a psychologist badly. I have to keep busy to stay away from my feelings and lately I haven\u2019t been busy. I have thought about suicide many times. It seems to be always on my mind.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I stopped reading for a little bit and just cried. Picturing myself in the eighth grade\u2014in that hideous pink polyester dress I used to wear (Ohio\u2019s finest fashion)–I just cried. I am still crying. I can\u2019t stop.
\nBecause it confirmed something I\u2019ve suspected all along \u2026 that my illness has always been there. I emerged from my mom\u2019s womb with a chemically-whacked brain, a mind that was panicked by the littlest things and obsessed about death, even in preschool.
\nIt wasn\u2019t the birth of David or Katherine that triggered my most severe depression of two years ago like I\u2019ve been explaining to friends. It wasn\u2019t the pituitary tumor that rearranged my hormones in a way that disrupted my moods, like I say to my dental hygienist and others who would gasp at the \u201cbipolar\u201d word.
\nI was born sick. The proof is now there. I just read it.
\nAs I read through my junior-high journal, my heart hurt. I was in so much pain back then. And the way I blamed myself for all of it makes me now, in retrospect, cry twice as hard.
\nI want to go back and hold that little Therese in my arms and say \u201cIt\u2019s not your fault\u2026..the fact that you have a unique way of processing things \u2026.. it\u2019s not your fault, Honey. It doesn\u2019t mean that you are going to hell (which is what I thought because I was grateful. I didn\u2019t love all of God\u2019s creation. In fact, God\u2019s world often made me miserable.)
\nI picture myself back then–in my summer swimsuit, or in my First Communion dress\u2014and want to take her in my arms and tell her that she didn\u2019t do anything wrong, like she thought for so long, and still does to a certain extent.
\nSo I guess, God, when I read that passage in the Bible and others like it telling us that you make us new and that you are our strength, I\u2019m angry that you didn\u2019t put your arm around me when I was younger. In some ways, my faith in you and in all the Catholic traditions, added to the weight of my depression because I was always feeling guilty, like I disappointed you at every turn, because I couldn\u2019t being joyous and free, like I thought you wanted me to be.
\nNow before I\u2019m called a \u201cbitter, whiny, white woman\u201d by a reader (her name starts with \u201cr\u201d), let me just say that I know that my childhood sadness is more recoverable, less traumatic, than many childhood nightmares\u2014of rape, incest, poverty, and so forth. In the big picture (yes, I\u2019ve been watching \u201cOprah\u201d\u2026.I have to say this, puke) I was blessed.
\nBut I\u2019m so damn envious of Eric, who told me his deepest thought in eighth grade was how to get from his house to downtown on his bike, or whether or not he was going to play with Robby; and of my sisters, who could shop for CDs without worrying about the case ending up in a landfill, and what the money it cost would buy a family in Equatorial Guinea.
\nI\u2019m pissed off that I came out the gates running with one leg, that I was damaged goods before the race even began. And I have no one else to blame but you. So that\u2019s why I\u2019m blaming you.
\nI know I sound like an ungrateful victim. Victim. Victim. Victim. That\u2019s how Abraham Hicks<\/a> and Rhonda Byrne<\/a> would classify me.
\nBut I\u2019m angry, God. That journal of mine made my angry. And I want you to know that.
\nGiven that I work my mental-health program harder than anything else in my life\u2014with therapy, meds, exercise, fish-oil, prayer, support groups, service, vitamins, and so forth\u2014don\u2019t I get just a little bit of the credit? Does every strength of mine always have to be attributed to you?
\nOkay, now that I\u2019ve told you what\u2019s on my mind, I\u2019ll go and try to listen to what you have to say in response.
\nPlease don\u2019t yell back (or use caps). Remember, you\u2019re the bigger person between us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear God, In today\u2019s reading (Isaiah 49: 3, 5), it is written: The Lord said to me: You are my servant, Israel, through whom I show my glory. Now the Lord has spoken who formed me as his servant from the womb, that Jacob may be brought back to him and Israel gathered to him;…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-876","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer"],"yoast_head":"\n
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