Thank you Jabber and MamaRed.

Jabber, I hear you, but one of the things I want to make clear here is that I do not wallow in my pain, though it might seem that way because when I write about it here, that's what comes out as the focus, because that's what I need help with. But I get up everyday, spend much of my day doing lots of things for other people, and I diligently and as wholeheartedly as possible practise gratitude, pray for joy, thank God for the blessings of my life and talk with God almost every moment of the day, sometimes through structured prayer, mostly just chit-chatting my way through the day.

This pain, which now disguises itself as a sort of "deadness", is at the very core of my being and needs to be addressed, not ignored. I live my life around it, by putting blinders on and moving myself in a "mind-over-matter" way, ignoring the pain, ignoring the "why's"...but always, at the core of me, this profound sorrow - which continues to spiral not so much into depression as a deepset acedia, is preventing me from living my life JOYFULLY. Right now it's drudgery, not because I'm depressed, but because I've lost everything that used to make it all worthwhile, including God-as-I-used-to-know-Him.

And it's impossible for me to separate my pain from the pain of the world around me....all pain and tragedy rolls into one pain and becomes my pain too; whether it should or not, I cannot disown it. It affects me...we have soldiers dying in Afghanistan too...every death, especially young 18-19 year olds, affects me. I have a little sponsor-girl in Kenya, her poverty and hunger affects me and makes me both grateful and sad that I have so much while she has so little. These are just the tip of the iceberg of the "why's" that gnaw at my soul, these are the sort of tragedies and agonies that are at the root of my "why", not just my own pain, but all pain, all people that die of cancer, all tragedy. Yes tragedy happens to everyone, but that doesn't satisfy my need to know why. On some level, I grasp the whole free-will thing, but I also believe that doesn't let US off the hook, that it doesn't let ME off the hook to find ways to do my part to lessen or ease the poverty, hunger and pain "out there". I'm doing what I can, but it isn't enough, and there at that intersection of loss, tragedy and inadequacy lies my soul, knowing that I need to do more, not knowing what else I CAN do, and not knowing how to live with the gap, the inadequacy, because my own life's tragedies have rendered me lost and joyless...without faith and trust, everything I do feels like drudgery and makes no difference.

I cannot not ask God why. Not if I'm going to be in authentic relationship with Him. He knows that, He knows me, He knows that it's He Himself who created this heart that weeps for the reality of cruelty and tragedy in the world. And He knows that as soon as I hide any facet of myself from Him, including the questioning rage, we cannot be in authentic relationship. We will find our way through this - I do think that "acedia" does best describe it - to the other side.