I ate with a man this week who has spent his life writing on the behalf of others. Pulitzer honored him with the most prestigious award in his field, and yet he is honest in his self-hatred.
He can not forgive the man he used to be. That unforgiveness stops faith cold.
Genuinely, he asks, “What is faith? Really.”
Five years ago his daughter was born at 23 weeks gestation and spent six months in the NICU. Every day for weeks on end he did not know if he would ever hold her outside the walls of the hospital.
“Your faith isn’t like Hallmark is it?”
No. It’s not. There are no bows and no anesthesia. My faith is real, but so is the pain of life.
He talked of the book he got from a colleague while his daughter was fighting for life. The colleague had lost a child and determined there was no purpose. He wrote an entire book about the futility of human life.
The silver-haired writer in front of me couldn’t accept it.
“I don’t get it. In my mind, God isn’t an entity. It’s the place where meaning exists.”
The silver-haired man desperately wants answers that give purpose to his pain. It is the only way to hold his fragile world together.
My heart breaks. I want desperately for this man to know hope. I want him to know somehow this crazy spinning ball is not for naught. I want him to know the God of the Universe died so he could be forgiven. I want him to know there is One who cares infinitely about every second of the pain and anguish of watching his one-pound daughter fight for her life.
I have heard too much depravity in these few days. My heart can’t take one more picture. It needs rest. It needs to wake with the hope of the watchman waiting for the morning.
The silver-haired writer does have something I envy. His courage of heart calls me to a deep place. He does not step back from the pain of others. He enters in. He drinks deeply from our shared humanity. And yet he does not have the hope of eternity.
I don’t know how he does it.
I have that hope, the knowledge of the infinite love of God, and my heart still shrinks.
The depths of depravity feel too much for me on this night.
I pray for the silver-haired writer, and I pray for myself. I pray for belief and for courage.
A Crazy Beautiful Life 
Shout back at the one (lowercase o) who whispers through snarled teeth that you don’t have courage. he (lowercase h) is so wrong. You are a fortress, armed to the teeth with courage. You have never given up, even when it seemed like the only obvious and reasonable choice. You still have not given up. Even this–taking a meal with a Pulitzer Prize winning author and then turning the conversation to spiritual things–is courageous. But so is the very act of writing (to say nothing of publishing that writing). And prayer? What is more courageous than speaking to the air with a confidence that THIS, THIS is my lifeline? You embedded these striking proofs of courage into just this one blog post.
I’m so glad you posted. Just yesterday I was hoping you would come back and post again.
Your silver-haired friend…Roy, by any chance?
You are so kind Erik. Why is it so hard to feel my own resilience? My own attempts at bravery? Thank you for the words, my friend. If I’m not writing, it’s probably not a good sign for my own heart, so thank you for wanting to hear.