neuropsychiatrist, Curt Thompson, says is the very human response to the inevitable suffering of being human.

Inevitable suffering.

When the locusts swarm the rows we hope are growing.

When addiction and anxiety grind.

When we choose to bear the burden of hope, to be the thin beam of love.

When self-doubt imprisons hope and threatens to drown love.

When our best prayer is, “I believe; help my unbelief.”

This morning I pulled out a favorite book, Gilead. It quotes a minister preaching about Hagar and Ishmael: “It’s a story with great assurance that even if a mother can’t find a way, provision will be made. That is how life goes – we send our children into the wilderness . . . but there must be angels there, too, and springs of water. Even that wilderness, the very habitation of jackals, is the Lord’s.”

Even suffering is the habitation of God.

I love this raggedy modern version of Hagar’s prayer:

I’m Hagar.

Broke.

Alone.

About to cry at everything.

Even God.

Especially God.

Wandering in the desert.

This is my fault.

I should have seen this coming.

Oh, the fleeting hope I had of love.

Oh God Who Sees Me.

Breathing Existence Into Me.

Send me Hope

Or a winning lotto ticket

Or friends

Or living water in this desert

Or something.

Amen. (from a poem by Trisha Arlin)

artwork: Ana Gonzales Sanchez