From Darkness to Light
She tries to get ahead, but in the end she falls behind. It’s painful. It feels like she’s hitting her head against a wall and no matter what she does, it fails.
She does what she can so that there’s money in the bank and yet even before the end of the month they are in minus.
She does what she can to educate this child and try as she might he leaves her feeling inadequate and stupefied.
The parenting classes don’t work, neither do therapies. The situation doesn’t change, he won’t listen.
She looks into this and dapples in that. She tries so hard and it won’t go. It doesn’t succeed. She’s barely holding on, she’s not making it.
She tells herself that this time she can do it. She’s going to change and break free from…whatever it is that traps her and pulls her down like quicksand. It could be an addiction, a person, a habit, even a negative quality trait. She tries over and over to change, but she falls right back into it. Her failure, she views as a weakness. She thinks that she’s in control of her successes and her failures. But she’s not. If anything, here’s yet one more example of how she’s so out of control.
She’s suffers from hormonal imbalance, she’s overweight, depressed, without energy or breath. She’s a smart woman. She’s knows intellectually what to do and how to change her diet. How to incorporate more exercise into her daily routine. The solution might seem simple, but to her it feels daunting and out of reach. She’s tried all the diets and they just don’t seem to work. The weight comes right back. Her challenges don’t go away.
She builds, but everything crashes down because she builds without a base.
Something happens, something snaps and she says, “I can’t take this anymore.” She reaches the bottom of the bottom. At last she cries out for help. I tell her something that she’s never heard before, but she will hear from me over and over again. “Give it over to Hashem!”
“Write it down, on a piece of paper, ‘I’m helpless and I have no control in this matter. Hashem, I give it over to You. Help me! Send me what I need!’”
“Give it over to Hashem?” Could the solution be so simple? You mean the diet won’t work unless she recognizes that she has no control in the matter? You mean the addiction will continue to ruin her life until she comes to the point where she realizes she has no control? You mean refraining from something means acknowledging that this too comes only with assistance from Above? That she can’t do it alone and she needs a good support system? You mean the base of everything is to first “Give it over to Hashem?”
“Yes!” I tell her. Otherwise you’re trying to build on swampy land and the endless frustration- this is slavery, this is suffering!
Now it came to pass in those many days that the king of Egypt died, and the children of Israel sighed from the labor, and they cried out, and their cry ascended to God from the labor (Shemot 2:23).
And the Lord said, "I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and I have heard their cry because of their slave drivers, for I know their pains. I have descended to rescue them from the hand[s] of the Egyptians and to bring them up from that land, to a good and spacious land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivvites, and the Jebusites. And now, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression that the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now come, and I will send you to Pharaoh, and take My people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt (ibid 3:7-10)."
Only now Hashem says that He knows and that He sees? Is that possible? No, He saw it all along. And in a minute, yes He can change any situation. From the lowest of lows He can bring you up. From slavery to royalty. So why now? Because only now do we hear that they turned to Him and cried out!
So she feels likes there’s no salvation, no hope. She’s hit rock bottom and yet she still thinks that she’s in control, not just of her accomplishments, but of her misery. And I tell her, “Turn to Him! Cry out! Give it over to Him, relinquish control!”
This is the base from upon which to build. This is the first step. This in itself is the salvation.
***
May the salvation come quickly and painlessly. May we give “it” over to Him and know what it means to be truly relaxed and truly free. May we rise from our darkest moments of despair into lit moments of hope.
With blessing and health, Shabbat Shalom,
Elana