The following reflection is based on the story and paintings found in Rebecca J. Craig’s memoir, “Once Upon a Nightmare: Through the Looking Glass of Narcissistic Abuse” available now on Amazon.
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that the very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” – Romans 8:26
My hope for a fairy tale life had collapsed around me. There was nothing magical or even romantic left in my world. Just survival. The written word eluded me; which, as a writer, was devastating. When I had no way to describe the emotions that were flooding through me like a rushing torrent of pain, confusion, and grief, I always felt Romans 8 captured that feeling all too well. When words failed. When all I had were deep sighs and groans, the spirit had to intercede on my behalf, groaning and sighing along with me. For me. Alongside me.
I was grateful for the Spirit that intercedes, because there were times when the words I wanted to say to God were not reverent and filled with awe. They were filled with lament and anger. You may know in your head what good theology is. What you believe about the nature of God. That doesn’t help how you actually feel about God at times, however. I frequently felt that I must have done something at some point to deserve this heartache, to be denied my dreams, to be denied my heart’s desire. That in my stubborn insistence that I fulfill my childhood dream to become a wife and mother, my husband was sent to me to prove a point and teach me a lesson. That I am supposed to be alone. That my calling as a pastor was supposed to be all-consuming and how dare I deviate from that.
The warning seemed clear: Do not tread down this path again.
Again. This is not good theology, and I would absolutely tell anyone else who was feeling this way to stop it right now; those thoughts are not from God. Those thoughts are not representative of God. God is not that petty or that vindictive.
Yet, one cannot help how one feels. Since words were elusive, I turned to my art yet again. I felt the need to destroy those thoughts I’d been having about God within my painting, ripping up what words of lament and anger I did have and painting over them. Behind the swirls, behind the cross, behind the spirit that intercedes…were words of lament, grief and anger, literally plastered to the canvas board.
With sighs too deep for words.
Every time I look at this painting, I remember those heavy sighs of when I had reached my breaking point.
That breaking point came Easter morning. As a pastor, one of the things you do not anticipate is worrying about Federal Marshals storming your church so that they can arrest your husband who you know has openly defied a court order. Yet, that was my life. I was living in a state of constant fear that the threats my husband kept making about “suicide by cop” would get played out on my front lawn or in the church parking lot with my entire congregation watching in horror.
For several nights after he’d defied the court order, my husband would sit on the edge of the bed with the blinds open, looking for police lights, knowing they were eventually coming to arrest him.
They finally came.
Thankfully, it was not to our home or to the church.
The morning he called to tell me that the U.S. Marshals had shown up to his place of work to arrest him, I lay in bed just staring at the ceiling.
I was numb by this point. No sense of confusion. No despair. Just…resignation that this was inevitable. I had become so used to the idea that being told U.S. Marshals might come knocking on my door that I only felt relief that they had not shown up to my home. That I did not have to witness it.
When you’ve normalized the crazy, you know you’re way too deep into it.
I had no words. There was a profound depth to my desires and longings that transcended ordinary language that resonated only with the realm of the extraordinary. Only eventually sobs…that were too deep for words.
I knew what I had to do. And the mere thought of doing it was crushing my soul.
