February Schmebruary

It was an exceptionally difficult February. It started with a month-long sickness and ended with a bad case of doubt, and sandwiched in there was the passing and the funeral of an old family friend who helped bring me back to the Lord. And then there’s the usual difficulties of February that seemed amplified by all of that—the frigidness, the toddler and baby destroying everything in sight because I can’t get them out of the house, the isolation one feels at being quarantined.

I still don’t really understand what happened this last month. I cried a lot. I prayed a lot. I doubted the divinity of Jesus so strongly I was afraid I was losing my faith. It was terrifying. It was almost worse than grief, even, because when I have grieved I have known all the anger and feelings of isolation are due to the loss I’ve been dealt. Underneath all the crazy, I know that it will, one day, pass, and I will see the Lord again.

This was different. Perhaps it wasn't more difficult than grief, but it was darker in some ways, because I was afraid the Lord would not be on the other side.

But here I am, coming out of that black hole, and here he is, somehow. Even though I don’t currently understand what happened last month, or why, or what I could have done differently, I do trust that Jesus will show me something beautiful through it. Just not yet. For now, I feel absolutely worn out. I feel like Lent is already laughing at me.

But deep down in my gurgling gut, I do have faith, which as it turns out, is much more than an intellectual thing, much more than a factual understanding of every detail of Jesus. It is a heart knowledge that only comes from walking with him throughout my days. But when I feel I’ve lost him, even a mustard seed will do it, even me pinky clinging to the hem of his garment will do it, which is what I have done the last month, ab spasms and all.

Something I will remember the next time I feel blind: the wonder of the Eucharist. Because when I am exhausted and the enemy is whispering lies about the identity of Christ to me, and thus about my own identity, and when my two-year-old simply will not stop tantruming and we can’t get out of the house because no one wants to hang out with a snotty lady and I feel totally isolated and alone and nothing makes sense, not my emotions, not my reason, not what we’re eating for dinner tonight…

the Eucharist is there, the body and blood of that One Lord, Jesus Christ—the Lover. It’s not a substitute for personal relationship (no use receiving his body if you don’t want to be friends with him), but in times like this last month when I can’t see two inches in front of me, all I have to do is grope along the cold, murky gutter of the week until I can get to Mass, where, even if things still seem murky, I can trust that Jesus is there. No matter my feelings, no matter my half-baked intellectual rebellions, no matter. When I forget every miracle Jesus has done for me and every delicious whisper the Spirit has whispered to me, I don’t have to rely solely on the validity of my personal revelation, for my Church has vouched for the presence of my Jesus in the Eucharist for the past two millenniums. My Father has set me "high upon a rock," that is, Jesus himself.

Ultimately it’s not about my performance or how gracefully I seek him, or even how much my brain can comprehend him in the moment. What matters is that he’s here.

He has already come for me; for you, too.