Coping with Grief

My thoughts on prayers.

“You and everyone else has given me their prayers. These prayers don’t seem to be working at all!” My older, very outspoken neighbor said this to me yesterday when I bumped into her on my walk.

Apart from a friendly wave at a distance as I rushed from my house, I hadn’t really talked with her in ages and so she had been telling me of her difficult circumstances over the past year.  Both she and her husband face some very scary health crises on top of other serious chronic conditions. Even her beloved dog Bandit was in poor health, his tremors visible as he waited patiently by her side while she spoke.

After she shared her hardships, I said the thing everyone does in these difficult situations–that she and her husband were in my prayers. Her face hardened and that’s when she said it. Though she sounded disgusted, it wasn’t that. It came from a place of raw pain.  

I don’t think she expected my response.

While looking her straight in the eye, I told her the following:

I’m not praying for your illness to be cured, or even your husband’s. I don’t believe God has a hierarchy of whose prayer gets answered or selects who deserves a miracle based on prayer volume and that everyone else is out of luck. No, my prayer for you is this: I pray that you receive the strength you need to endure your painful situation.

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Now everyone has their own religious beliefs or non-belief systems and I’m not someone who judges one values construct superior to another—that’s your own personal business. And so I’d never been one to jump into religious conversations with people, especially ones I barely know, but here’s another way having a child with special needs indelibly changed me over time.

Since my son Jack has struggled over the past 16 years with all sorts of cognitive and physical challenges, it has forced me to confront my spirituality, if only to make sense of this life-altering situation I find myself in. Maybe you feel this way too.

When Jack was a baby and first diagnosed with severe developmental delays, I’ll admit, my faith was shaken. I raged against the suffering of my innocent child.

Why him? Why us?

And why, for example, are there some people who drink, smoke or use drugs, yet whose children develop typically, and my child didn’t, even though I religiously followed those pregnancy books? It was so unfair. Jack didn’t deserve this.

At first, I prayed that God would intervene and take away his disabilities through therapies, diet or medications and that we could put this painful chapter of our lives behind us and move on.

That didn’t happen.

Over time, the enormity of his challenges revealed itself and the gap between his development and his typically developing peers grew to the size of the Grand Canyon. And then his seemingly endless cycles of screaming and self-harm began. After a while, I stopped going to church. What was the point?  

I looked around me and found countless examples of situations that seemed senseless and wrong and unfair.

Why should I pray to a God who lets so many good people suffer and even die?  

In my heartache, I felt myself grow more cynical. If I didn’t figure out a way to get some spiritual solace for myself, I realized anger and bitterness would consume me.

And it wouldn’t change a damn thing.

The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.

Marcus Aurelius

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Gradually I realized how faith could shape the stories I told myself to make sense of the bad stuff and greatly impact how well I coped. And why telling myself despairing stories made me suffer a second time, apart from Jack’s actual situation.

So I read countless books on Stoic philosophy, self-help and Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning to make sense of it all. And I keep reading even today.

I talked to my therapist, my husband Mike, my in-laws, my best friends—let’s be honest, I spoke with practically anyone close to me who had the misfortune to be in my path while I was needing to work this all out! And I can honestly say, thanks to everyone, (for it takes a village), work it out, I did.

And so I have begun to attend mass again on a semi-regular basis. Not so that God will grant me what I hope for, but for the strength to keep going as I struggle.

I realize now that praying for outcomes doesn’t always work. And even when miracles happen, they can be random and not because masses of people prayed for it. I know that sounds harsh, but if I could believe that God answers some people’s prayers, then what about those who don’t get what they hope for? I don’t believe God ignores certain people as a way to punish them because they weren’t virtuous enough or praying sufficiently.   

Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.

Bruce Lee

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Ultimately, we have no more control of many painful outcomes than I do when I contort my body at the bowling alley after releasing the ball from my awkward grip. My “go-to” move is twisting myself into a pretzel as I watch the ball make its way slowly down the lane. It’s my way to “direct” the bowling ball away from the gutter, and maybe even knock down a pin or two. As you might guess, rarely does this work. That, like praying for specific outcomes, is magical thinking.

Instead, praying for strength and peace for ourselves and for others, grants us a tiny bit of grace from God. For non-believers, consider it the power of suggestion. And we’re better able to appreciate all the goodness in the world rather than being reduced to resenting people who have what we want.  

I ask not for a lighter burden, but for broader shoulders. 

Jewish Proverb

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And how did my neighbor, this suffering woman at the end of her rope, respond to my prayer clarification? She actually blinked in surprise. Then she grinned and replied, Hmmm. Prayers for strength to endure. I like that. I really really do. She waved farewell. I turned and watched her walk away a bit unsteadily, a smile still playing on her lips, loyal Bandit bravely at her side.

What is to give light must endure burning.

Viktor Frankl