“Make no mistake about this…you are the answer. We’ve got God and one another, and that’s the way it always has been, and that’s the way it still is today.”
– Phil Berrigan

I am the answer. You are the answer. God is the answer. Yesterday, as I wrote my letter to God, sharing with Him my struggle against the maggots of self-doubt and sadness, I knew I would share it with you. It released harmful and sticky energy to type the words that had been weighing so heavily on my heart. When I asked God to relieve me of the ugliness that had settled in, I was reminded that He is in charge; and that most often when that kind of ugliness settles in it is because I am looking only to myself for the answers. Then, when I shared it with you, you responded and filled my soul with the warm flames of a campfire on a crisp autumn evening. In my darkness, there was the circle of you.

I cannot explain why any one of us goes through difficult times – whether they be months or years at a time, or simply moments in days that halt our progress. I do not know why any of it is necessary. But, I do know that when I stop in the middle of it and recognize the need to share my pain with you and with God, I suddenly have the courage to welcome the pain and learn from it. Then, as the healing catapults me into the longer days of serenity, I am again able to respond to the call that will come from you as you suffer through your moment or your day or your month or your year. I am available to you as you have been to me in spite of the pain – or perhaps, because of the pain.

In the culmination of it all, we may be given all the answers to the why questions, and maybe it will be nice to finally know. In the meantime, I sit in gratitude for the bond God has given each one of us through His loving embrace. God is the answer. You are the answer. I am the answer.