How long, O God? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?
How long must I bear pain[ in my soul
and have sorrow in my heart all day long?
How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?
Consider and answer me, O God!
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
and my enemy will say, “I have prevailed”;
my foes will rejoice because I am shaken.
But I trusted in your steadfast love;
my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
I will sing to you, O God
because you have dealt bountifully with me.–Psalm 13
My Struggle to Feel Part of Any Community During COVID
The early morning drives to work felt surreal. Highways that were once alive with the rhythm of daily commuters had become eerily empty, stretching ahead like the set of a post-apocalyptic movie. The silence was unnatural, an unsettling contrast to the turmoil that raged within me. As the Clinical Director of a detention unit for adolescent girls, I carried a burden that few could comprehend. The weight of responsibility was not just for the youth in my care, but also for the staff—many of whom were grieving the loss of their own family members. Each day, I walked into a space that was supposed to be safe and structured, yet one that had become a containment of anxiety, grief, and uncertainty.
Despite being deemed “essential,” I felt disposable. The risk of exposure was ever-present, and I lived in constant fear of what I might bring home. My husband was at high risk for complications, and I agonized over the possibility of infecting him. I planned strategies for where I would go if I tested positive, considering hotels, rental spaces, even my car—anywhere but home. I felt trapped between two impossible choices: my duty to my work family and my duty to my own.
Yet, my work was more than just a job; it was a responsibility that extended far beyond the walls of the detention unit. The youth in our care were already living in a state of limbo, waiting for hearings, hoping for some control over their futures. COVID only deepened that uncertainty. Lengthy delays meant that young girls were being held far longer than usual, often without clear answers as to when they would leave. The weight of that reality crushed me, particularly because I had to be the person to sit in their hearings—listening as decisions about their lives were made, knowing that our therapeutic relationship would never be the same after that.
I saw the frustration in their eyes, the resentment in their voices, the way they stopped trusting me once I became the face of a system they couldn’t fight. Therapy is built on trust, but how could I ask them to open up when I was the one bearing witness to decisions that prolonged their confinement? I resented it, too. I resented being put in that position, having to juggle my role as a therapist with the harsh reality of the system. It was a betrayal—not just to them, but to the values that had brought me into this work in the first place.
And then, there was the grief—the silent, unrelenting grief that settled over the unit like a storm cloud. Staff came to work, having lost parents, grandparents, siblings, and yet there was no time to stop, no space to process. We were expected to keep going, to hold the structure together, even as we crumbled inside. I saw the way my team carried their pain, the exhaustion in their movements, the quiet moments where tears slipped out before being wiped away. I wanted to carry it for them, but I was drowning, too.
But the hardest part, the part I never expected, was the quiet unraveling of my faith.
For most of my life, I believed in a God who was present, who cared, who walked beside me in both sorrow and joy. But as I watched grief consume the people around me, as I witnessed young girls sit in detention longer than they should have, as I agonized over the risk I posed to my own family simply by existing in my role—I started to wonder if God was really there at all.
I prayed for protection, but people kept dying. I prayed for guidance, but the system remained broken. I prayed for comfort, but my soul felt empty. The God I had always turned to in times of distress suddenly felt absent.
Outside of work, I felt even more disconnected. The world was shutting down, isolating, staying home. I watched as people complained about boredom, about the inconvenience of mask mandates, about having to homeschool their children. Meanwhile, I showed up every day to a place where trauma compounded trauma, where safety felt like a fleeting illusion. “We’re all in this together,” people said. But we weren’t. Some people had the luxury of staying home, while others, like me, were expected to endure in silence.
I grew bitter. Bitter at the inequity of it all. Bitter that my sacrifices went unnoticed. Bitter that my role in the system had shifted in ways I could not undo. The work that once fueled me now drained me. It no longer felt like healing—only surviving. And one day, I realized I couldn’t do it anymore.
Leaving was not an easy decision. It felt like giving up on the youth who needed me, on the staff who had stood beside me through unimaginable grief. But staying meant continuing to sacrifice myself for a system I no longer believed in. The resentment had overtaken the purpose, and I knew I couldn’t be the therapist I once was within that environment.
So, I walked away.
And slowly, as I found peace in my new path, I found traces of God again—not in the ways I had expected, but in the quiet moments of connection, in the kindness of strangers, in the resilience of the people I served. The bitterness faded, replaced by a quieter understanding that I had made the right choice. My faith is different now—more complicated, more questioned—but it still exists.
The world eventually moved forward, but I have not forgotten. The scars of that time remain, shaping how I see my work, my relationships, my role in the community. The difference is that now, I have reclaimed my purpose as I slowly build my private practice. I am still processing, still reconciling what was lost with what remains. But I survived. And in the space I have built, I am finally helping others do the same.
Open us, O God, to Your traces in our lives. Heal us, O God, in our grief and pain. Awaken us, O God, to our calling to walk with others on their journeys of healing. Amen.
–Shelly Cichowlas