How long?

How long!

Apparently, driving while distressed is not received well in the county in which I live.

Last night, despite my better judgment, I met Pastor to finish the catechism. We have not managed to finish before, so I fully expected to not finish again. I did not want to go because it hurts so much to fail in this pursuit, when failing means I cannot have the Lord's Supper. But I admit that somewhere deep inside, I dared to hold out a mustard seed of hope.

Whole clumps of my hair are falling out. As I wash my hair, I have to keep catching it in my fingers so as not to clog up the drain. Several times in the past week and a half since my hair started coming out in droves, I have had to spend a couple of hours trying to clean out the drain pipe enough to then pour caustic gunk down it so the tub will drain, because despite my efforts to do so, I cannot catch all my hair. If I do not, the soapy water that takes hours to drain leaves a residue that makes the tub slippery. And I fall. Usually, I fall and hit my head on something. I let that happen three times before I could find the mental fortitude to do the work of cleaning out the drain, while trying to set aside the reason for the problem.

Whole clumps of my hair are falling out. I am nauseous all the time. I've lost 51 pounds. I am so cold at times that I cannot warm up for hours. And, yet, the doctor believes it is just stress. Oh, and by the way, I somehow have another disease, hypoglycemia. She blithely told me to eat every two hours, protein, and left the rest of the instruction for understanding about living with that disease--despite knowing I fainted from dangerously low blood sugar on Tuesday several hours after the test and was fortunate enough to be near someone who recognized what was happening, managed to rouse me, and force me to drink orange juice--for me to find out on my own. She tells me to eat every two hours, when I am telling her I eat about the equivalent of perhaps one meal a week.

I went last night because I allowed myself to believe Pastor when he said that it would just take two hours and we would be done and I would join the rest of the church at the alter. To be fair, he honestly believed so.

Yes, the instruction took about that, I think. And I actually learned something about both the Office of the Keys and the Holy Spirit. There was joy for me in learning more about the Living Word and a certain fellowship of faith when Pastor talked about how the doctrine of the New Testament cannot be understood without the doctrine of the Old Testament. So often, in the churches of my past, the Old Testament has been the step-child, relegated to the simple role of housing the stories of Jonah, David and Goliath, and Joseph that permeate Sunday School for children. That the Lutheran Liturgy includes whole passages from the Old Testament, the New Testament, and the Gospel is one of the parts I cherish most. I truly savor being bathed in the Living Word during worship.

But then there was the test. He would say it is not a test, never intended to be a test, but it seems like one. And I did not pass.

I stupidly and foolishly thought that the instruction was it. But, no, Myrtle, you have to answer a set of questions, preferably in front of the congregation.

The questions are not just a profession of belief. They are also a declaration of intent. Why, oh, why can belief not be enough?

I believe. I am baptized. And I believe.

But I know my heart. I know how very often I do not do what I want to do. To me, to make that declaration of intent would be a lie. I wanted to just say, yes. I wanted to lie. Oh, how I wanted to lie. But how could I receive the gift of Christ's body and blood based on a lie?

While the two hours turned to five and yet again I kept this man from his family and his bed, nothing changed. I am still barred from the alter, and I do not see as to how I can get there. I cannot answer those questions. I cannot lie just because I long for, crave, the comfort of communion.

I did cry before him. But I also managed to hold myself together until he left and I went to put my books in the car. After doing so, I dropped to my knees and starting wailing behind the open passenger door, not caring that I was still outside of JM's restaurant. Not caring that people were walking around. At one point, some woman asked if I was okay after being coached by a man to not get to close to me. I almost laughed at his warning, for as much as the loss of the alter after daring to hold the tiniest bit of hope overwhelmed me, the guilt of wasting Pastor's time was just as great. I showed up because he was hurt when I told him that I planned to quit trying, to quit banging my head against a brick wall when it came to catechism. I came more because I didn't want to hurt him any more than I already had than I believed him when he said it would be just two hours and we would be done. I have repeatedly angered and hurt and frustrated the very person who is trying to pour out the love of Christ in my life. It was silly for the man to think a woman sobbing in grief would be a danger, but I couldn't help but think how once again I had failed and should have known better than to try, should have left Pastor to his family and his bed.

I struggled to drive home because I could not stop crying. And, I suppose, my less than stellar driving might have looked as if I had been imbibing. The officer had no patience for my tears. Standing on the side of the road, trying to pass another test, I tried to tell him what I had lost. I tried to tell him what that meant. He didn't really care. He told me I was being foolish for letting an empty piece of religion matter so much. I did manage to pass his test and leave with just a written warning.

So, here I sit, exhausted from staring at the bible all night and crying. Just a few hours to go before work. Just a few hours to once more find the strength to pretend that I am fine, that everything is great, so that I keep that social contract whole at work at least, so that I do not jeopardize my job.

I do not understand my doctor. I cannot get a consult from an endocrinologist until November 2nd. I know that the medical hoops through which I have been jumping are, indeed, stressful, but I also know that I have lived with greater stress than this...though, perhaps, not greater grief. Something is not right. I do not lose my hair over stress. I do not lose my appetite. I am a great trencher woman. I am a true Dr. Pepper addict. If I have eschewed food and my drug of choice so easily and so completely...well...certainly that ought to be evidence aplenty that something is amiss. Hypoglycemia cannot be the sole blame for all of this.

I do not understand God. I believe Him. I trust that He is at work and at work for His good, for His perfect purposes. I just do not understand why He would lead me down a path that ended in a test that I couldn't pass. He knows me better than I do myself. He watches me do that which I do not want to do when I long with my whole being to be doing otherwise. He sees how much I struggle to walk in faith. He knows how weak I am, how easy it is for me to believe the lies of my past, how hard it is to rest on the truth that I am a cherished sheep of the Good Shepherd when I learned so thoroughly as a child that I am not worth rescuing from danger. He knows me.

Oh, why...why did I have to choose between lying and finally having communion and telling the truth and losing the freedom of the alter?