A Song of Suffering

the long version

The last contraction never comes. Melanie cannot feel Ezra. Her body thinks that he is already out. She can hear “Melanie, push this baby out.” But she can't feel anything to push. She can hear the call to 911, hear them ask for the address. --- Beliefs don’t make a story. It’s what happens when they meet an experience that flies in their face and seemingly discredits them, a juxtaposition that pits the intellectual content of belief, so hidden and implausible, squarely against the emotional and psychological experience of suffering, so obvious and real. It's one thing to profess faith in a loving, merciful God who looks out for your best interests and works out all things for good. It's another to believe that in the face of your infant turning blue and screaming from suffocating to death, night after night, after night… to attempt to reconcile your feelings of complete abandonment to a purportedly loving God’s promises of comfort, peace and even joy.