Hashem in the Driver’s Seat

I have been overwhelmed by negative feelings lately.  I can’t get out of bed until the last possible moment, when I finally overcome my tremendous desire to fall asleep for the rest of my life because I have to get up (I guess all those “musts” that I’m usually fighting are actually serving a good purpose now).  People I’m close to are starting to talk about “anti-depressants” and “trying to take the edge off” the tremendous emotional pain I’m walking around with.

 

Even more, my situation has really deteriorated, directly resulting in my chronic back pain flaring up.   BARUCH HASHEM – thank G-d – it has gotten much better, but on a daily basis – and a week ago, on a moment by moment basis – I am reminded of my predicament (as if I could forget?) by the nagging pain in my back and legs.  In psychology, there is a nice little formula that describes my situation perfectly:

 

Pain + Non-Acceptance = SUFFERING

 

Oh yes, I’m suffering.  Even hisbodedus has been suffering.  I’m using everything in my toolbox – it could be much worse, Hashem loves me, look at all the little things that are going well, I may feel like I’m dying but I’m not, and there are people who would take this trial in a heartbeat just to know they’ll live through it…nothing has lifted the fog for more than a few moments.

 

I’m literally frozen by pain, and the knowledge that under any and all circumstances it will get worse before it gets better.  I absolutely believe that gam zu ya’avor – this too shall pass – but I’m terrified by the fire and brimstone I’m going to have to endure before I get there.  I have a gigantic, life altering choice before me – and I don’t know which road to take.  It’s like I’m sitting in a car, and the engine is running, but the signs at the fork in the road are all turned around.  I know one way is hell, and the other is Heaven – but I don’t know which is which.  And I just can’t make myself hit the gas and drive on either road.  I am totally immobilized by fear.

 

Of course, I’ve been davening for seata dishmaya – Heavenly guidance (or at least trying, as I’ve explained) – I’ve given charity, I’ve done everything I can think of but an answer doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.  My advisors don’t know what to do, I don’t know what to do, no letters are dropping out of the sky and Elijah the Prophet hasn’t knocked on my door yet either.  I’m firmly resolved to do whatever Hashem wants me to do – I just don’t know what that is.  I’m screaming into a megaphone to the Heavens and the silence is deafening.

 

Then this morning it hit me.  I’m not driving.  Hashem is driving. 

 

But it’s not just that.  I feel like I’m not moving, I’m frozen, I don’t know where to go and what to do and and and… AND Hashem IS driving. 

 

I’m not sitting here immobile, looking at my dreams in the distance as they fade into gray while I sit and watch my friends achieve them.  Hashem IS driving my life, and yes eventually I will need to veer to the right or the left.  The essential thing is that I’m not standing still in the meantime – even if it feels like I can’t continue down my path in life until I make this decision.  I’m not stuck, this isn’t meaningless, I just don’t recognize the road because it is not what I expected it to be.

 

I know Purim is over and everyone is already talking about Pesach (read: CLEANING), and rightly so, but I can’t stop thinking about Queen Esther and the Megillah.  Esther was Queen for four years before Haman’s decree to annihilate the Jews.  Moreover, according to our Rabbinic sources, she was actually married to Mordechai.  She wanted to be a normal, happy Jewish wife living a normal, happy Jewish life – and here she is in this palace against her will, with this horrible, non-Jewish king.  Think about how she must have felt every time she heard about a friend getting married (oh, to be married to someone I love!), or got a birth announcement from a friend (oh, to raise a family with my husband!).  At that point, she didn’t know that she was going to save the Jewish people, that there was a purpose to her suffering and a reason for her predicament – she just saw her life and dreams passing her by.

 

It’s only in retrospect that she understood the purpose of it all, and could be happy and thankful that Hashem made her Queen and gave her the merit to be the person through which the Jewish people are saved.  Even more, her son becomes King after Achashverosh – and allows the Jewish people to begin constructing the Second Temple and return to Yerushalayim.  She thought she had lost all her dreams when she was brought to the Palace – and really, she was preparing for both the physical and spiritual salvation of the Jewish people.

 

Hashem was driving, even though at the beginning, it looked like she was standing still.  Even now, Hashem still “drives” the lives of the Jewish people – every single one of us.  Even me – even now.