Nihilism or Joy
Dear Friends,
I was laying in bed, staring up at the dark ceiling when the text came in. Another prayer request. Another need. Another cry for hope, for healing, for strength and endurance and help.
Sometimes it all feels like too much. The list of needs gets piled on top of those already there and those coming in like gangbusters from around the world. Viruses and variants. Vaccines and schools restarting. Earthquakes, flooding, fires, climate change, and food scarcity. Terrorism, trafficking, politicians and elections and hatred of those who think differently.
“Lord, in your mercy,” I whispered with pneumatic breath.
But in that quiet moment I was gracefully reminded that healing, hope, strength, endurance, and help doesn’t come from me. I am not the answer or the savior or the rescuer. I am simply the holder—the offerer. Honored, I receive the requests and hold them close as I embrace and ingest your pain, shouldering the burdens with you in love. But your pain doesn’t live in my body for long because I am not your hope.
If I was your hope, I would be crushed and annihilated by the weight of it all. Hopelessness would destroy me if I believed the lie that I had control or that it was my responsibility to rescue others. I would be paralyzed, unable to move.
Because it is not my job or role to rescue. It is my role to help bring hope and healing where I am able to. I am to work for good while pointing to the Healer even when life feels impossible.
This is how the Enemy can stop me from working for good. Nihilism is a nasty and bleak form of surrender. If I believe life is meaningless or I believe what’s-even-the-point-of-working-for-good-when-it-just-seems-like-things-keep-getting-worse, I stop doing anything.
But if I simply wear rose-colored glasses to ignore the pain in the world around me, I also stop doing anything.
I believe there’s another way forward in the possibly debilitating needs around us. The myriad of your big or small current struggles and present difficulties have the great possibility for pessimism to set in, and I’m asking you to never give up working for the good even when it feels pointless or impossible.
There’s an Old Testament book called Ecclesiastes where the writer seems to spiral into a nihilistic darkness, unable to see beyond the “meaningless” nature of life. His despair made it feel impossible to work towards good. But he ends with a newfound understanding that all are held in God’s hands and there is much joy and goodness in this world while we still have breath in our bodies. Hard work, great sex, good wine, nutritious food, worshiping God, caring for those in need around you, wearing clothes that feel good, dancing and moving your body, robust conversation, falling in love. The writer also states that with ALL THINGS, may your heart be one of joy.
It’s worth preserving, my friends. Regardless of who is in office or what you believe about masking or how personally impossible today might seem. Life is still worth preserving and its worth working towards good for yourself and those in your midst. Because we’ve been designed to do so in the ways you can, even when it might feel meaningless or like too much right now.
Life is a gift from God. In ALL THINGS, and with a heart of joy, I want to steward it well. I want to know what I can do and release what I cannot. And I never want to forsake myself or the most vulnerable around me through nihilism.
And friends, oftentimes it’s enough to simply whisper, with a pneumatic breath, “Lord, in your mercy,” because there is a healing Savior, and it is not me.
With (love),
Bethany