On Wishing I’d Never Been Born

On a Friday morning a few weeks ago, as I poured my coffee, I was crying. Silent, almost tearless little sobs. It started in the shower, a place where my thoughts catch up with me, continued while I got dressed – and stirred the creamer into my morning coffee. As the milky cream swirled into the dark coffee, it formed a whirlpool and pulled me into its bottomless pit.

Thoughts about my past bodyslam me. So much ugliness. Mistakes I made. People – people that I loved but hurt anyway. Especially my children. Of the trillions of people that God put on this earth, why did someone like me have to be one of them?

It isn’t that I haven’t done good things; it’s just that the bad things I’ve done seem to loom over them like a heavy, dark cloud. The past is surrounded in bullet proof glass. You can look back at it but you cannot go there; you cannot change any part of it. You can only look back at events frozen in time; never to be changed, never to be resolved.

And that’s where I was on this morning. Crying. Wishing I’d never been born. I’m not alone. I’m not the only one who has made a mess of their past. I know that. In Jeremiah 20:18, even Jeremiah who was handpicked by God cried out, “Why was I ever born? My entire life has been filled with trouble, sorrow, and shame.” Solomon and Job were two others who made similar sentiments.

But when it hits you, it hits you. No matter who you are. And even though I know there are others who feel this way, I still feel all alone in that pain.

Every Friday morning, Paul has an oncology appointment that I drive him to. He gets a blood test and a very important shot. I sit there, waiting, and mostly play games on my phone. But I talk to the nurses a little. It’s hard being a nurse these days.

On this Friday, while I’m breaking under this invisible burden, just as we were leaving, a nurse came up to me.

She said, “I just wanted to thank you for praying for me last week. It really meant a lot.”

I have a very short memory. My days are so full. It took a while to remember what happened last Friday. The nurse having a bad day. Co-workers calling in sick. Everyone running behind. Nothing going right. I remember feeling a nudge [from God?] that she needed someone to pray for her.

I’m not a brave person. I don’t talk about God much. It’s much easier to write about Him. But somehow I knew that this woman needed a prayer. I remember very quietly asking, “Can I pray for you?” She looked surprised then nodded.

I slipped my arm around her shoulder and prayed a simple, short prayer. I don’t remember the words – something along the lines of “God be with her, carry her through this day and whatever she is going through. Let her know your peace.” It wasn’t very long or elaborate or eloquent. And I barely remembered it.

Until the next Friday. The Friday when I was breaking apart. And she came up to me – not knowing about my own tears and despair – and said “Thank you for praying for me. It meant a lot.”

In a life that has mostly been a train wreck, I made a small difference for a few minutes to a nurse having a bad day on a Friday morning. I know that God is trying to tell me that He knew what He was doing when He put me on this earth. That all those small, obscure moments where I responded to His “nudge” add up to something.

The only thing I can do is use this time and place to do what I didn’t do back then. I’m trying. I’m really trying. I’ll need more reminders. And God will be there to deliver them.

The only way to heal the past is to mark it Forgiven.