My best friend, the best therapist

Throughout my life I have been blessed with many wonderful friends. They were there for me during the best and the worst times of my life; they heard me out when I felt hurt by life and when I needed a shoulder to cry on; they laughed with me and supported me. But the truth is that friends come and go and many friendships fade away. Perhaps once in a while a friend may be the source of your disappointment and pain.  

While I am thankful for all the amazing friendships in my life and for all my wonderful friends, there is a particular someone who has been there for me always, despite time and space or the distances I have traveled. He is always by my side, my very best friend: God… The God who does not judge, the God who does not care about the color of my hair, my skin tone, where I am from or what I do, the God who loves me for who I am and knows exactly what is in my heart.  There is nobody who can listen better than Him.

Prayer has always been my favorite form of therapy. I turn to it instinctively when I don’t feel good or when I feel hurt. I can cry and tell God exactly how it is. When I pray I talk to God and there is no need to hide anything, there is no need to look for the right words or to fake anything. I can tell God exactly how I feel: I don’t hide my anger; I don’t have to hide my fears nor my disappointment. I talk about every ache in my heart and soul no matter how big or small. He already knows about my pain. Still, I use prayers and my conversations with God to acknowledge what and how I feel. Then I begin to ask for help with the given situation, for strength and grace to see the difficult situations as another lesson and, ultimately, to help me find a way to one day be thankful for the obstacles. I also ask God to help me remember that there is always hope, to help me feel more hopeful and positive and, finally, to help me trust that all is as it should be. I ask God to help me have trust in His wisdom and help me believe that even though it may hurt now, ultimately whatever I am going through is for my greatest good. Then, I just sit in the stillness and wait for God to respond and He never fails. Within couple of minutes I am able to feel relief, feel comforted, more whole and hopeful. I know that in the end, it will all be well.

Ironically, I found my connection to God thanks to a friend who ended up hurting me more than any other… I spent the majority of my high school years alongside a girl whom I considered to be my best friend. I loved her as much as you can love a friend and admired her with all my heart. However, as the time passed, after meeting her future husband, out of nowhere, she distanced herself from me and to this day I don’t know why. I was very hurt by this, although now I see that thanks to this decision, I was able to get out of her shadow and start living my own life and grow. A while after our friendship ended, I found out that she got herself into a very difficult and potentially life threatening situation. I was mortified. During that time, I decided to look for a church which my mom had told me about once. I went to the Old Town of Cracow to look for it, but instead of that particular church, I ended up in a tiny church dedicated to Mother Mary. I prayed there like I have never prayed before and was glad to find out the next day that my friend was able to solve the problem and even made some friends out of the situation. I will never know if it was actually my praying that helped but I kept returning to this church, time and time again. When I was there, it felt like home. This church is long gone now but the connection I found with God while being there has thankfully remained with me.

After that fatal night many people, including my own physician who would at that point just give me any medication I requested, recommended that I should begin taking some kind of antidepressants. However I was always very hesitant to use any kinds of drugs. It is not that I have anything against medication, quite the opposite to be honest. Maybe if my husband started taking them perhaps both he and Sebastian would still be alive. However, I was very afraid to take antidepressants for numerous reasons. I do have to admit that were few instances where I thought I would eventually need to start taking something to numb the pain. Those were the moments when on top of the terrible agony and heartbreak that I already felt, I would experience new disappointments which combined with stress of these situations felt like too much to bear. During these times, I literally felt as if I could just jump out of my own body—jump out a window or somehow just end it all. It did feel like too much to handle. During these times I was on my knees asking God for His help: to help me survive that moment, help take the pain away and to give me strength to go on and live. Eventually, the pain would fade away and I became calmer, feeling like there was someone beside me whispering in my ear: “All will be well. I am here with you.”

I thank God for all the wonderful people in my life, all the wonderful friends, however the friendship I will always be most thankful for is the one I have with God.