It’s a question a friend of mine taught me. Of course the trick in asking the question is waiting after you’ve said “really,” waiting to give the silence time to do it’s work and get to an answer deeper than “fine.”

One of the things I like about the Bible is that it often tells the story of how real people were really doing and what’s really going on in their lives. In one of his letters, Paul basically says to a guy, “Hey, Tim. When you come to see me, bring my coat, would ya? I left it at Carpus’ house.” That’s ordinary life stuff. I left my coat somewhere recently right before the temperature plunged below freezing for a week. I wanted my coat back, too.

In the wake of my husband’s brother suddenly dying of a heart attack at the age of 50, two months almost to the day after my father-in-law died, people often ask me how I’m doing. Unlike most days, no one expects me to say, “Fine,” but it can be hard to put into words how I am doing…really.

Paul puts expression to my experience again in his words, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.” OK, I’m not being persecuted, or hard pressed on “every” side, but the other words fit.

The Psalms are another place where people put words to their experience. Some days the writers are basking in God’s love. “Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.”

Other days…not so much.

One of what we in our family call the “whiny Psalms” begins with the words, “How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” I feel that way sometimes. “How many deaths can a family take in such a short time? Please don’t let anyone else die.”

But even this whiny Psalm ends with hope:

“But I trust in your unfailing love;
My heart rejoices in your salivation.
I will sing the Lord’s praise,
For he has been good to me.”

I may not feel like singing right now, but I believe that one day I will again.

And that’s how I’m doing…really.