When the Story Hits a Bracket

Do you ever feel like your story has hit a bracket? What I mean by this is that the events that are currently transpiring in your life might feel more like a short aside in the midst of a rich chapter than anything quoteworthy, noteworthy, triumphant. Life is full of in-betweens but we long for a feeling that our stories matter. We want people to tell us this. We want our life's circumstances to tell us this. If we push back at the darkness long enough, we will inevitably grow tired.

Lately, i've been musing a bit on the life of Mother Teresa, and her ability to be Christ in a place of her own spiritual darkness. As her personal accounts suggest, the time of the height of Mother Teresa's work was marked by her own profound experience of desolation. It was a time in which, while serving others, Mother Teresa felt distant from her God, found it difficult to press forward in faith, and struggled through feelings of "loneliness and meaninglessness." The modern church will often tell us that to be follower of Christ is to be ever-joyful, steadfast, placid. I'd like to counter this rather serene description by suggesting that the Christ-follower must often be a warrior, fierce, ever-watchful, persistent. Mother Teresa was a fighter, she fought against every voice (internal and external) that told her that she was crazy, that her work wouldn't make enough of a difference, that her God had forsaken her. And her struggle was real, deeply real. Read these words quoted in TIME Magazine in 2007:

Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.— Mother Teresa to the Rev. Michael Van Der Peet, September 1979 

What is most earth-shattering to me about Mother Teresa's story is not that she faced extreme darkness but the manner in which she dealt with it. Mother Teresa's courage in the midst of isolation is remarkable and inspiring. It is a dangerous kind of faith that many so often shy from in today's culture, and it is one that I plan to explore further over the coming weeks. Stay tuned!