...and the One Rock That Holds

 

This Fading Grass, Anchors, and the One Rock That Holds

After reading, 1 Peter 1:24-25, over and over again, I feel like it hits differently compared to other verses. It feels less like Scripture and more like what is happening in my life. "All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass." For years, I’ve known this in my bones, long before I could have articulated it. I’ve been in this long, exhausting war with depression, a heavy, cold fog that settles in and teaches you, in the most intimate way, just how fragile "flesh" is. It taught me that my own mind, my energy, my very ability to feel hope or joy, is all "grass." It can wither for no reason at all, leaving me empty and just... tired. In that fog, you desperately search for an anchor, anything to hold onto. And I had mine. Together with my wife, I had these two beautiful, bright, solid anchors: my two young sons. Their laughter, their needs, their simple, unconditional love—they were my "glory." They were the "flower" I poured my heart into, the very real, tangible reason I fought the fog every single day. They were my reason.

And then, a little over three months ago, I lost my youngest brother. His untimely demise wasn't a slow "withering" like the depression I’ve grown used to. It was a violent, shattering event that proved, in one instant, that all flesh is grass. Even the young, vibrant, seemingly permanent kind. His death made a mockery of any stability I thought I had. It took the "grass" and "flowers" of my family's "normal" and just… leveled them. That colossal, heartbreaking loss is what finally broke me open. It made me realize, with a terrifying clarity, that my family, my wife, and little anchors, as wonderful and precious as they are, were also "grass." They are beautiful, glorious grass, but they are flesh. They can't bear the full, crushing weight of my soul, my grief, and my depression. No human can. That realization, in the midst of all that pain, is what sent me searching for something that wasn't grass at all. It’s what drove me back to the Faith.

Now, my life is this chaotic, painful whiplash. My "good and bad days" are a battle on multiple fronts. It’s the old, familiar weight of the depression. It’s the new, blinding spikes of acute grief for my brother. And it’s this fierce, profound love for my wife, my sons and my family, which now carries its own kind of sacred terror, knowing how fragile everything is. I am living, breathing proof of that verse. I am surrounded by "fading grass." My own mind is grass. The world that had my brother in it was grass. My beautiful wife, children and remaining family members are, in this sense, the most precious "flower of the grass," and the thought of their fragility is almost more than I can bear. It’s all so temporary.

And that is where the rest of the verse comes in, not as a platitude, but as the only possible answer: "...but the word of the Lord endures forever." This is it. This is the bedrock. In a life where my own mind is unreliable, where my heart is shattered by loss, and where the very people I love most are precious but fragile, this "word" is the only solid ground. It’s the stubborn, defiant promise of the Resurrection, the only hope I have that my brother Zack’s "Amen" wasn't the end. It’s the tangible, physical reality of Christ in the Eucharist - a place I can go, a Person I can receive, when my feelings are a complete shipwreck of grief and my body is weighed down by that old, heavy fog.

My faith isn't serene or pretty. It’s a desperate, daily clinging. It’s the conscious, beautiful and painful work of loving my family fiercely, but not making them my God. It’s unhooking my ultimate hope from their well-being, from my own mental state, from my grief, and anchoring it, hard, onto that one, single, eternal promise. The promise that God is real, His love is real, and His Word is the only thing in this entire universe that will not, cannot, fall apart. It’s the only Rock that can actually hold me, my grief, my depression, and all the precious, fragile "grass" I love so dearly.

-ojpd