Human Frailty - Part Two

How does one get to the point when their spirituality becomes frail? What kinds of circumstances happen to cause a person to become that downtrodden that their faith no longer exists or is weak?

Like physical frailty can cause emotional frailty, I believe that physical and emotional frailty often leads to spiritual frailty. Physcial pain due to an illness or injury does cause a physiological response in the brain. Emotional illness or psychological trauma causes basically the same response. When a person's brain is assaulted with a constant barrrage of pain and/or anxiety, a person will become weaker to outside forces. A person becomes extremely vulnerable at this point. The situation is totally out of that person's control. So, how does a person respond?

I'd like to answer that question by pulling out some of my own life experiences. I can think of several times in my lifetime when my own spirituality - my relationship and faith in God - was frightfully frail. Probably the first time I experienced that rift with God was after my mother's death when I was fourteen. I spent years after that being angry with God for taking Mom away from me, as I was virtually an orphan. I lived with my Dad and a couple of my brothers, but they weren't very understanding or supportive of a girl my age. In fact, the opposite is true - if anything, I was ridiculed and put down and teased a lot. During high school and college, I immersed myself in extra-curricular activities - but in retrospect, I think it was my way of running away from God. I didn't want a thing to do with Him - all I wanted was just just live life MY way. Little did I realize that the frail relationship I had with Him left me very, very vulnerable to attacks from forces which led me even further away from Him. I was consumed with anger, bitterness, and rebellion against Christian beliefs.

I married when I was twenty one, right after my junior year in college. While my husband and I married in the Catholic church, neither one of us were "practicing" Cathlics per sae. I was still searching for an answer to take my pain away. I didn't realize that all I had to do was reach out my hand to God, and He'd be right there to help me. I wasn't as angry or bitter or rebellious over the next few years - but I was very sad and depressed. Again, that left me vulnerable to drifting even further away from God, and I felt all alone. My spirit and my soul were as frail as a tiny new-born kitten.

I decided to pursue my Master's Degree in Social Work when I was about thirty years old. This process allowed me to do some pretty intense soul searching. I began to pray, ever so tentatively, to ask God to make some sense out of my past life, to help me in my present life, and to guide me in my future life. And then, IT happened. I had a medical crisis where there was a question of whether or not I had cancer, and which required me to have an operation which would not allow me to ever bear my own biological children. Over the next several months, while I was very physically and emotionally frail, my spiritual frailty was transformed into a very strong faith in God. It was a metamorphosis of sorts. Granted, there were times when, once again, those forces tried to attack me to bring me back to being vulnerable once again - but I learned how to rely on God for my strength and my comfort. I had to let go of my intense need to CONTROL everything. He was the one constant in my life that pulled me out of the darkness and into the light. Without Him, I would not be here today.

All of my experiences - the painful and the joyful - have allowed my relationship with God to grow and get stronger. I am one of the blessed ones. Unfortunately, I think that other people don't ever allow their spiritual frailty to be healed by turning to God and accepting Him into their lives. It may be out of fear, or a need to "control" their own destiny, or anger, or a lot of other reasons which hold them back. I am thinking in particular of members of my own family who are still bitter and resentful and afraid. And I pray for them on a daily basis.