Same Sea, Different Boats
What Mother Teresa’s Darkness Taught Me About Faithfulness
This reflection was originally published on Medium under the “Even Here” publication.
Read it there → Even Here
I didn’t expect to be moved so deeply by Come Be My Light. I had always admired Mother Teresa’s compassion and service, but reading her private letters was something else entirely. Her inner life was marked by a spiritual darkness I hadn’t known she carried — a silence from God that persisted for decades.
And as I sat with her words, something stirred in me. Not a comparison — I wouldn’t dare — but a recognition. A recognition of what it means to keep walking when God feels hidden. A recognition of what faith looks like when there’s no clarity, only commitment.
It made me think about my own season — not a crisis, not a dark night, but an in-between. An unsettledness. A searching. And slowly, I began to see that while we were not in the same boat, we might be navigating similar waters — uncertain, silent, and still calling us forward.
But Maybe the Same Sea
That image stayed with me. Because as different as our experiences are, there’s something in her story that quietly echoes my own — not in form, but in posture. A way of continuing, even when clarity doesn’t come.
Her darkness was not the loss of faith; it was the loss of consolation. She still believed God existed. What she longed for was the assurance of His nearness, the felt intimacy of His love, the certainty that He still wanted her.
That distinction matters.
It’s not that God had abandoned her. Theologically speaking, God’s presence is not something that flickers on and off. But in her experience, God was hidden — unreachable, silent, veiled. She wasn’t doubting God’s existence; she was grieving His silence.
This is something the mystics have spoken about for centuries — what St. John of the Cross called the dark night of the soul. It’s not the absence of God, but the absence of the felt sense of God, even while grace remains secretly at work. It is faith stripped of reward. Obedience without assurance. Love without feedback.
The In-Between as a Journey, Not Just a Phase
Lately, I’ve come to see that the in-between is not just a phase to get through — it’s a journey in itself. Not a holding pattern, but a way of walking. A way of being. A posture.
And when I look at Mother Teresa’s life through that lens, I see someone who embodied that posture in its most faithful form.
She didn’t wait for the darkness to lift before she began to serve. She walked in it. She built a life within it. Not with fanfare or resolution, but with quiet, persistent love. Her in-between wasn’t a detour. It was the path.
And maybe that’s what I’m slowly learning too: that I don’t need to rush through my uncertainty or tidy it up. Maybe I can learn to walk in it — not as something to escape, but as a way of being. Like she did.
Different Boats, Shared Waters
My in-between is quieter. Less raw. I wrestle with belonging, with questions, with letting go of old theological frameworks and trying to live into new ones. I’m not tormented by silence. I’m trying to make peace with complexity.
But even in our differences, I’m learning from her.
She served in the darkness. She showed up, day after day, loving the dying, the forgotten, the poor — while carrying an ache that never left.
I try to stay faithful in the dim. I reflect, write, mentor — while holding my own uncertainties, my own unfulfilled longings.
She offered love in the dark.
I’m learning to trust in the gray.
The Hiddenness of God Is Not the Absence of God
The Psalms echo this ache:
“Why, O Lord, do You stand far off? Why do You hide Yourself in times of trouble?”
(Psalm 10:1)
And Christ Himself enters that darkness on the Cross:
“My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?”
(Matthew 27:46)
This isn’t unbelief. This is what faith sounds like when it’s gasping for air. It’s the prayer of those who still reach out even when they cannot feel the hand of God in return.
I don’t pretend to understand Mother Teresa’s suffering. But it challenges me. It exposes how often I seek certainty, clarity, or resolution as conditions for moving forward. She moved forward with none of those things. Her holiness was not born of spiritual highs, but of radical perseverance.
Learning from Her Light
If I feel a kinship with her, it is not because I’ve shared her darkness, but because I’m learning to walk without guarantees.
She showed me that faithfulness is not always triumphant. Sometimes it’s quiet. Hidden. Gritty. Sometimes holiness looks like continuing to serve and love when the heavens are silent.
And sometimes, it looks like staying in the in-between — not to be rescued from it, but to remain faithful within it.
So no, I am not in the same boat as Mother Teresa.
But perhaps I am learning to sail in the same sea.
And if that is true — even just a little — I can draw courage from her.
Not to compare myself to her, but to be reminded that even in uncertainty, God is not absent.
He may be hidden, but He is never gone.
Reflection Question
Have you ever felt that God was distant — even while you tried to remain faithful? What helped you keep going?