In Laura Bush's new memoir, Spoken From the Heart, she reveals how a car accident that she was involved in at 17 affected her profoundly. The accident, which killed one of her high school friends, happened after she ran a stop sign while chatting with a friend (although other factors, including the positioning of the stop sign and the poor design of the victim's car, played a role).
I was moved by her account of the trauma and her confession that the accident shook her faith:
“The whole time, I was praying that the person in the other car was alive. In my mind, I was calling ‘Please, God. Please, God. Please, God,’ over and over and over again . . . . I lost my faith that November, lost it for many, many years. It was the first time that I had prayed to God for something, begged him for something, not the simple childhood wishing on a star but humbly begging for another human life. And it was as if no one heard. My begging, to my seventeen-year-old mind, had made no difference. The only answer was the sound of Mrs. Douglas’s sobs on the other side of that thin emergency room curtain.”
Although my experience with depression was far less tragic than Mrs. Bush's car accident, it put me in the position of praying for deliverance from suffering too, only to find a frightening void where I thought help resided. I even bargained with God--couldn't he take an arm or a leg, put me a wheelchair, or give me cancer in exchange for my depression? Instead, I spent months experiencing suffering that was completely senseless and undeserved. It eviscerated any childish illusion I had that life is just or fair, or even pleasant. I don't think I'll ever be the same. Nor, do I think, will Mrs. Bush.
This isn't to say suffering doesn't have benefits. It cultivates empathy and inspires action against injustice. But I don't know if its dividends are worth the burden.
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