Walking with Hashem, Trusting Hashem

I try to understand, to make sense of her tears. She’s scared, she’s overwhelmed. She’s a mother of a large family. As I start to work on her feet I see and so I ask because it’s important for me to know for the treatment, “Are you expecting?”

“I don’t know.”

And there are tears.

She’s afraid. She’s overwhelmed. She’s scared. Of what? Of her age, of what this could mean-a healthy baby? A healthy pregnancy? A healthy birth? Can she cope? Does she have the strength? The energy?

The tears flow and I see that at this moment she just can’t. She can’t put one foot in front of the other. One step at a time? Impossible. Instead her emotions, her thoughts, her fears, they’re flooding, pulling her underneath a fast current of gushing water.

As random as this sounds I ask her to take a deep breath and look at her feet. The feet? Yes, the feet. Her mind, “up there” is racing. Look down I tell her. Down at the feet. One step at a time. See where each step takes you. See where Ribbon shel Olam (Master of the Universe) takes you. Go with Him, walk with Him. Trust Him! Where will He take you? I don’t know. But He’s testing you with this for a reason. Follow Him, let Him guide you, hold onto Him and don’t let go.

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, demand of you? Only to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways and to love Him, and to worship the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul, to keep the commandments of the Lord and His statutes, which I command you this day, for your good (Devarim 10:12-13).

***

The children are bored, or so they say. Supposedly there’s nothing to do.

Nothing to do. I feel like I haven’t sat down all day.

“When are we going…?”

“What are we doing?”

You go somewhere, at least you are on your way, and it’s non-stop, “How much longer until we are there? When will be there?”

You are there and they already ask, “Where are we going next?”

You turn around to face them and in this moment, this moment when you want to explode from frustration or is it exhaustion, maybe it’s something else…? You want to scream. You want to cry. You want to run away. Why? Because it feels like you just can’t make them happy. You look around. They look around. It seems like everyone else is having a fun time. Everyone else is going places or doing things that they are not doing. You look around and you want to go too. You’re fragile. You’re going to fall. You’re going to break. You can’t make “them” happy. Are you yourself happy?

Ahh. This is the real question. Are you happy? Or are you caught up in the river, the raging river of emotion, of worry and fear? The river that takes us everywhere, except where we need to be in the moment. You stop and you ask yourself, “Where am I going?” Yes, where are you going? In this moment, in this moment. I ask you to do something which takes such hard work. I’m telling you it’s so difficult!

I’m going to ask you to stop. To look at your feet and tell yourself, “One step at a time, one breath at a time.” You remind yourself that you on the exact path that Hashem chose for you. He’s holding your hand and guiding you. Trust Him, this is what He gave you and it’s for your good.

And now, O Israel, what does the Lord, your God, demand of you? Only to fear the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways… for your good.

***

What do I tell the woman who called me this morning? The one who gave birth yesterday in her 28th week of pregnancy? She waited so long for that first child and he came. I was there.

This one, another long wait and all of a sudden, she calls me from the hospital at week 27. Week 27? But it’s too early for the baby to come? We still have a long way to go. They were able to hold him in for another week, but last night, he wanted to come. He (Hashem) wanted him to come.

She calls me. And what do I say?

One step at a time. This is the path and this is the speed. This is the road Hashem wants us to travel. One step at a time. Look at your feet. Trust Him.

And do you know what she answers me?

“I guess he (the baby) wanted to me out before the chagim (High Holidays)!” She answers me and I genuinely here simcha in her voice. She’s scared, but she’s present.

And I know that she’s going to be fine. How? Because I see that she embraces. She accepts. She walks in His ways and cleaves to Him. She trusts Him and this trust lets her see that now is the right time. It lets her see that this is the path that He wants them to take.

***

I hate these calls. They break my heart.

Month after month she’s waiting and it doesn’t come.

It just doesn’t come.

Why? I don’t know.

She asks me so many questions. I have no answers. I don’t know.

And really, I don’t even want to go down that river. The river of unknown and the river of fears.

And so I ask her to do something so difficult. I ask her to just take Hashem’s “Hand”, to walk with Him and to find trust in the path of “not coming”. To take one step at a time, not think about next month. To be in the present, in the moment. To accept. To embrace. To walk. It’s so hard. It’s so difficult.

… all these commandments which I command you to do them, to love the Lord, your God, to walk in all His ways, and to cleave to Him…(Devarim 11:22)

And that test comes. The one you already passed and you ask, “why again?”

And that test comes. The one that knocked you off your feet. The one you least expected and you ask, “why?”

And what do you do with all this?...

You walk, you trust….