that<\/em> hard.
\nI didn\u2019t know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and it was still very hot and very dry. \u00a0I didn\u2019t know that my shifts would be 28 hours long, or that I would get malaria (in spite of taking anti-malaria pills faithfully every night), or that the town would run out of water for three days or that the Internet would go out\u00a0and I would be unable to contact family and friends for days at a time. \u00a0I didn\u2019t know that I\u2019d lose more patients in one week in Togo than I\u2019d lost\u00a0in a decade of practicing medicine in the U.S.<\/p>\nI kept going. \u00a0Because I was part of a team that was working hard, and I wanted to do my part. \u00a0Because dozens of\u00a0people had helped fund my trip to Togo, and I didn\u2019t want to let them down. \u00a0Because I had committed to being in Togo for three months and I wanted to keep my word. \u00a0Because I cared about the Togolese people and wanted to do as much as I possibly could to alleviate their suffering.<\/p>\n
And then I took care of a 2-year-old girl with cerebral malaria whose father was one of the most devoted parents I\u2019d ever seen. \u00a0She had seizure after seizure. \u00a0Every time she seized, she stopped breathing, but we didn\u2019t have a ventilator to put her on. So I stood there breathing for her with an Ambu bag for hours and hours that night.<\/p>\n
She died around 6 a.m. the following morning. \u00a0I\u2019d done everything I could do and gotten no sleep for almost 30 hours, and yet I still couldn\u2019t hold onto her.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"Screen](\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58ded737ff7c50424d8e8f9a\/59c9e1977e2a5f917af8ffc0\/59c9e1987e2a5f917af90259\/1506406746707\/Screen-Shot-2015-07-19-at-8.06.29-AM.png.29-AM.png?format=original\")
<\/p>\n
When I knew she was gone, I turned to her father and just shook my head.<\/p>\n
He ran out of the hospital. \u00a0I went after him, and found him outside, kneeling in the dirt, bowing with his face toward the rising sun, tears streaming down his face.<\/p>\n
I quietly went back inside. \u00a0I took out the girl\u2019s I.V. and peeled the EKG patches off of her chest. \u00a0I wrapped her in cloth and when the father came back inside, I handed him the body of his baby girl. \u00a0The child I\u2019d worked on all night. \u00a0The child I couldn\u2019t save.<\/p>\n
I was fearful of his response. \u00a0I wouldn\u2019t blame him for being angry, and for taking all his pain and grief and anger out on me.<\/p>\n
But instead, he bowed his head to me and said in French, \u201cThank you. \u00a0There is love in your eyes.\u201d \u00a0And then, slowly, he walked home to bury his baby girl.<\/p>\n
As I watched him leave, I was grateful for his kind words, that I had looked at his little girl with love. \u00a0In the end, when all else failed, the only thing I had to give his daughter was love. \u00a0And yet,<\/em> I thought, love isn\u2019t ENOUGH.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nWhen my shift ended I went back to my room. \u00a0I was going to take a walk through the corn fields and vent at God, but there was a big rainstorm so I had to stay inside. \u00a0I laid down to take a nap, but I couldn\u2019t sleep, so I ended up listening to a podcast I\u2019d downloaded about the story of Sisyphus.<\/p>\n
In the Greek myth, Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to an eternal punishment. \u00a0For the rest of eternity, he will carry a large rock up a hill, and just before he reaches the top, the rock will roll back down and he\u2019ll have to start over again.<\/p>\n
The story gives rise to the adjective Sisyphean<\/em>, something that\u2019s futile, frustrating and hopeless.<\/p>\n![\"sisyphus2\"](\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58ded737ff7c50424d8e8f9a\/59c9e1977e2a5f917af8ffc0\/59c9e1987e2a5f917af902ed\/1506406789581\/sisyphus2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
I loved that adjective. \u00a0I told God that this hospital was Sisyphean. \u00a0No matter how hard we worked, no matter how hard we tried, patients kept dying and new patients kept coming and it never let up.<\/p>\n
The story seemed like such a good metaphor for what I experiencing, I became fascinated by it. \u00a0I read essays by Kafka and Camus, who were also gripped by the story. \u00a0They each concluded that Sisyphus was the victor, not the victim, of the story. \u00a0They said he was the hero of the story. \u00a0They said we should think of him as happy.<\/p>\n
What the heck?<\/p>\n
I kept reading, trying to understand their take on the story, until I stumbled across a poem by Stephen Mitchell, who said that Sisyphus is happy because,<\/p>\n
\n
\n
<\/div>\n
\n
The truth is that Sisyphus is in love with the rock. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\nHe cherishes every roughness and every ounce of it. <\/em><\/p>\nHe talks to it, sings to it. <\/em><\/p>\nIt has become the Mysterious Other. <\/em><\/p>\nHe evens dreams of it as he sleepwalks upward. <\/em><\/p>\nLife is unimaginable without it, looming always above him like a huge gray moon.<\/em><\/p>\nSisyphus is the happy victor and hero of the story because he has fallen in love with the rock.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\nI thought of Jesus, the ultimate Sisyphus, who loved the world so much, he put it on his back and carried it up the hill, all the way to Calvary and then, in the ultimate demonstration of love, laid down and died for it.<\/p>\n
Love didn\u2019t seem like enough to me. \u00a0Love didn\u2019t seem like enough to conquer the Darkness I\u2019d been living in for two years. \u00a0Love didn\u2019t seem like enough for a grieving father. \u00a0Love didn\u2019t seem like enough for a world with unbelievable poverty, suffering and pain.<\/p>\n
But, when I understood the story of Sisyphus, I came to see that Love\u00a0\u2014 and Love alone \u2014 is all we need.<\/p>\n
![\"togosunrise\"](\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58ded737ff7c50424d8e8f9a\/59c9e1977e2a5f917af8ffc0\/59c9e1987e2a5f917af902eb\/1506406791836\/togosunrise.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Letting Love all the way in is what finally dispelled the Darkness I\u2019d lived in for two years. I finally understood the invitation Jesus gives in Revelation 3,\u00a0\u201cBehold, I stand at the door and knock\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
Love makes us persevere in difficult situations \u2014 in humanitarian work, in rocky marriages, in relationships with wayward family members, in our faith journeys \u2014 when we have run out of motivation and and energy and incentive and positive emotions and desire.<\/p>\n
Love leads us to make sacrifices \u2014 to lay down our pride and our \u201crights\u201d and our resources and even our lives.<\/p>\n
Love comforts us in death and, on the other side of eternity, resurrects everything and everyone\u00a0we have lost into new\u00a0Life.<\/p>\n
In the end, we find that Love is all we have.<\/p>\n
And in the end, we find that Love\u2013 and Love alone \u2014 is all we\u2019ve ever needed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn\u2019t know it would be that hard. I didn\u2019t know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and it was still very hot and very dry. \u00a0I didn\u2019t know that my shifts would be 28 hours long, or that I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3133,"featured_media":644,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3124,3127,2470,814,3130,3133,16,199,3136,3139,451,3142],"class_list":["post-639","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-albert-camus","tag-calvary","tag-dark-night-of-the-soul","tag-depression","tag-franz-kafka","tag-greek-mythology","tag-jesus","tag-love","tag-love-alone","tag-revelation-3","tag-sacrifice","tag-sisyphus"],"yoast_head":"\n
saint sarah: love alone<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"saint sarah: love alone\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Sarah Thebarge\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-05T10:04:56+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2018-02-09T16:46:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sarah Thebarge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sarah Thebarge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"5 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/\",\"name\":\"saint sarah: love alone\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-05T10:04:56+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-09T16:46:45+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/c74e9b1c6e50505a55dce66de2935c3e\"},\"description\":\"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"saint sarah: love alone\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/\",\"name\":\"Sarah Thebarge\",\"description\":\"Looking for unique ways to use Love to heal our beautiful, broken world.\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/c74e9b1c6e50505a55dce66de2935c3e\",\"name\":\"Sarah Thebarge\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8b7d2ce8a0360c28719de78fb3a7ba62?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8b7d2ce8a0360c28719de78fb3a7ba62?s=96&d=identicon&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sarah Thebarge\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/author\/sthebarge\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"saint sarah: love alone","description":"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"saint sarah: love alone","og_description":"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and","og_url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/","og_site_name":"Sarah Thebarge","article_published_time":"2015-11-05T10:04:56+00:00","article_modified_time":"2018-02-09T16:46:45+00:00","author":"Sarah Thebarge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sarah Thebarge","Est. reading time":"5 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/","name":"saint sarah: love alone","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#website"},"datePublished":"2015-11-05T10:04:56+00:00","dateModified":"2018-02-09T16:46:45+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/c74e9b1c6e50505a55dce66de2935c3e"},"description":"I knew that Togo would be hard, but I didn't know it would be that hard. I didn't know that even in rainy season, it only rained once or twice a week, and","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2015\/11\/2015-11-saint-sarah-love-alone\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"saint sarah: love alone"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/","name":"Sarah Thebarge","description":"Looking for unique ways to use Love to heal our beautiful, broken world.","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/c74e9b1c6e50505a55dce66de2935c3e","name":"Sarah Thebarge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8b7d2ce8a0360c28719de78fb3a7ba62?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/8b7d2ce8a0360c28719de78fb3a7ba62?s=96&d=identicon&r=g","caption":"Sarah Thebarge"},"url":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/author\/sthebarge\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static1.squarespace.com\/static\/58ded737ff7c50424d8e8f9a\/59c9e1977e2a5f917af8ffc0\/59c9e1987e2a5f917af902ef\/1506406781668\/Screen-Shot-2015-11-05-at-1.03.14-PM.png.14-PM.png?format=original\")
<\/p>\n