Growing Up

I suppose part of my growing up at the moment consists of realizing there is little or nothing I can do to fix things for people I love most. For my friend who is ill; for my friend who wants a different life; for my friend who lost a baby.

We women in my family are women of action, and my first response to disaster is to act quickly, patch things up, get down on my hands and knees and scrub floors until the spots are gone, spills have stopped, and everyone feels happy and things are as they were before. A sick child: I busy myself cleaning up vomit and bleaching the sinks and the door handles, confident that the child will become better; we'll spend most of our days without illness and the child, my child, will soon be helping themselves to butter and flooding the bathroom floor and leaving toys on the floor again.

But then there are the things that I just can't work through, the things that cannot be scrubbed clean or ironed out or simmered down.

As my ill friend told me, all we can do, when there is nothing else, is to pray. I don't know if there was a time when I thought God would fix things for me, but there is comfort in asking God all the same. I even feel presumptuous or silly asking for what I think is best, so instead I think the names of those I love for whom I cannot fix things, knowing that God, who hears my thoughts, also understands my longings. Deeply I feel that all will be well, all shall be well, all manner of things shall be well--but in the meantime, in the worry, and in the waiting, waiting, waiting--there comes a point when busy work does not heal, and all I can do is open my hands in some sort of lopsided, trembling trust.