Luca

A blog I love to read put out the following challenge: "Write your own post on your own blog, answering the question: What is saving your life right now? Write it quick, don’t overthink it, just spill it all out, it can be pictures if you want, whatever. If you’ve already written one, feel free to link that up, too."

So that's what I've done here. I must admit, I was a bit surprised at how quickly it came to me and how passionately I punched out the words on the little keys of my phone.

If you want to see what others have written, you can head on over to Emerging Mummy.

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What is saving your life right now?

A man. A good, loving, imperfect man. He takes on more and more and more and more when I get overwhelmed. He loves me over and over again when I lash out. He forgives me and guides me, gently, cautiously, back to God. He willingy leads, but doesn't force me to follow. He reads books and fights monsters with our little boys. He cuddles when I need to be loved and keeps his distance when I need some space. He washes dishes, prepares meals, folds laundry, gets up in the night with the boys, works all day, pays the bills......and on and on and on......

Our life is so lopsided these days. I need so much yet have so little to give. And he just loves me. Not always perfectly or just in time, but it's always there.

What is saving my life right now? My dear, under-appreciated husband. He is patiently loving loving loving whenever I need it. I know, beyond a doubt, that he is on my side no matter what and will still be here no matter how many horrible twists and turns that this crazy mess called "treatment" goes through. I know that I can take this time to work on all of the ugly and hurt and bad inside of me, and that he will still be here through every moment.

My dearest Luca-Love, you have been a rock for me when I can't trust myself or God or anyone else. Your love for me has renewed my desire to live and calmed me down when nothing else could. I love you and appreciate you and couldn't make it through this battle without you. I'm so glad that you are forever mine and I am forever yours. I love you. Your Jaymi-Love

A Dark Winter

Winter is always hard for me. I hate the cold, dark days. I long for sunshine and open windows, and even my sweaty husband (although I always regret wishing for that part, come summertime). But this past winter was particularly cold and dark, despite the mild weather. 

In the fall, I felt some depression coming again. Not a new problem for me. But this time, it was more debilitating than it had ever been before. I had unexpected outbursts of anger, long days and nights of spiralling thoughts, and was dropping the ball in every area of my life.

By December, I was afraid to be with my kids because of the strength and unpredictability of my anger, and the depression had taken over everything in my life. My therapist read few of my journal entries and told me to immediately find outside childcare for the kids, and to prepare for more intense treatment than I had previously had. 

The treatment was brutal. For months, every day was spent in individual and group therapy. Layer after layer of my defenses were pulled away, revealing anger, confusion, bitterness, hurt, fear. Medicines were prescribed and taken, only to fail and prolong my treatment. I questioned and doubted everything about God, myself, my past, present, and future. On the darkest days, I wished I'd never gotten married and had kids; I wanted my life to end. 

By late February, I thought the worst was behind me. I couldn't have been more wrong. March and April brought even darker times. All of the ways that I knew to cope with life had been ripped to shreds, and new fears and emotions were exploding out of me. I was so so so lost and confused and angry and hurt and I had no idea what to do with it all. Twice I was hospitalized. I spent night after night at friends' houses because I couldn't handle the stress of being home with the kids. More medicines were prescribed, again failing and compounding my problems. 

Looking back at those two months of spring is fuzzy. There is a haze over all of those memories, punctuated by insane thoughts and actions. I was suicidal, furious at everybody and nobody, and hurt beyond description. In that period, I experienced true insanity.

Amazingly, Luke stood with me through it all. He carried all of the responsibilities for our home and children, loved me day after day, and still managed to work full time. 

Our church family was similarly faithful to me. Babysitting and meals were provided so often that I lost track of who was even helping. Notes and messages of support and love appeared regularly. My children were loved by so many people when I couldn't do it myself. 

Finally, in early May, things started looking up. In addition to finally finding the right combination of medicines, I started another therapy program that worked to rebuild me from the inside out. The past two months have been good. Very very good. I've come alive. I can engage with my kids and my friends and my husband and actually enjoy it! My mind is free to think of others and their needs, ponder the mysteries of God and the world, read Facebook and blogs and books. 

Meanwhile, treatment continues. It will likely go on for many more months, although I've cut way back to part time by now.   There are many days that really suck a lot. But I am thankful that I am here. After the deep darkness and fog of winter and spring, even the hard days feel light and free. 

Never in my life have I so deeply enjoyed flowers and warmth and seeing life through the eyes of my kids. Even the brutal heat of last week (and Luke dripping in sweat!) was welcomed as goodness. There is so much joy in returning to a good life after such a deep departure from it. 

Winter is over. Summer has come. God is good. 

Faith in Doubt: A Guy Named Job

A continuation of the series by Luke, Faith in Doubt.

How can we trust a God who allows so much suffering in the world? 

Some don’t realize it, but the Bible actually addresses this question directly.  The main point of an entire book is to deal with this question.  This book is often misunderstood.  It is about a man named Job. 

Job was a guy who was very faithful to God, and consequently God had blessed him.  He was rich. He had tons of kids.  His servants were loyal.  He had sheep coming out of his ears.   This is the good life in the Bronze Age.   Then one day, for reasons completely hidden from Job, God allows it all to be taken away.  His calamity is very theatrical.  The whole book plays out like a kind of theatre production.  The story goes like this.

One day Job is sitting in his house enjoying a cup of tea, and in rushes one of his servants. 

“Job, Job! A group of Sabeans attacked us and killed all your servants and stole all the Oxen.  They’re all gone Job!” 

And before Job’s jaw can even drop another servant runs in and says “Job, there was a meteor!  It fell from the sky and incinerated all your sheep.  I’m the only one who survived.” 

Then in comes another.  “Job!  Your camels Job!  The Babylonians attacked us and killed everyone and stole the camels!” 

Then another.  “Your children Job, they’re all dead!  They were eating together and a storm came and knocked the house clean over.  They were all crushed!”

Just like that, Job’s world falls apart.  It only takes about 200 words in my Bible.  It happens so fast it seems more like a poorly executed practical joke, but Job isn’t laughing.  It’s real.  Before the week is out, he is huddled up in the middle of a field, scraping at the burning boils that now cover his skin, and wondering what the hell God is doing up there. 

Job’s loss is so complete that it sets him up as a kind of ultimate sufferer.  A guy whose suffering is so unexpected and so severe that few could compare themselves to him.  And then, he and his friends begin to talk.

Most of the rest of the book is lengthy dialogues between Job and his friends as they wrestle through the reasons for his suffering.  The summary is something like this:  Job’s friends are convinced that God is just, and therefore he would never do something like this to Job unless he deserved it. But Job argues for his innocence. He insists that some mistake has been made, and if he just had the chance to present his case before God then all would be made right again.  Both he and his friends agree that since God is just, nothing like this could rightly happen to a person like Job.  Either Job has done something to deserve it (Job’s friends’ argument) or Job is being treated unfairly (Job’s argument).  They battle back and forth and back and forth, until God appears.  Enter God, stage left.  

What would we want or expect God to say in a situation like this?

Maybe:  I’m so sorry Job.  I didn’t want this to happen to you either, but sometimes bad things just happen to good people. 

Maybe:  Job, don’t worry.  This has just been a trial and it will pass, and you will receive even more from me later (which he does at the end of the book). 

Maybe even:  Job, I know that you are suffering, but if you could see it from my perspective, you would understand why things have to be this way. 

From the perspective of the book, I think this last answer is a true answer, but this is not the answer that is given to Job.

Here’s how God starts his reply to Job.

 “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?” (Wait…what?) “Tell me, if you think you’re so smart.”  It goes on like this for a while.  It is everything from “do you know the measurements of the earth?” to trivial stuff like “do you know when the mountain goats give birth?”   God replies to Job’s suffering by spending three chapters cutting him down to size, without even addressing the question that has driven the entire book.  The entire book has been a debate about whether or not Job’s suffering is just, yet God does not weigh into this debate.  The reader is given a reason why Job is suffering, but God does not convey even this to Job.  He sticks to “I am God, and you are not.” 

On the surface, God kinda looks like a jerk.  Here is a guy who had everything taken away from him for no good reason, and all God can say is “I’m better than you so pipe down.”  If you come to Job looking for an intellectual argument for why a just God would allow a good person like Job to suffer, then you may be disappointed.  

But Job is not disappointed, and if we miss this we miss the whole point of the book.  I don’t think that God’s speech is intended to be an intellectual argument.  God’s speech is meant to convey verbally what Job is undergoing experientially.  Job has been begging for the opportunity to present his case before God, but when God actually shows up, Job realizes that he is the one who has made a mistake. The experience of facing God is nothing like he expected.  The categories in his mind explode in the face of God.  He has been following God faithfully his entire life, but meeting him is a shock that realigns everything.  The petition that Job has prepared against his unjust treatment melts away.  It seems downright foolish.  God asks Job, “Shall a faultfinder contend with the almighty, He who argues with God, let him answer it.”  And all Job can say is “Look at me, I am nothing, what could I say to you.” 

In Job’s final words he summarizes his experience of God like this: 

“I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know…I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”

Job was seeking an answer.   God’s answer was himself. 

So why does God allow so much suffering in the world?  The answer is simple:  We don’t know.  We can’t know.  We can guess and we can imagine, and many Christian thinkers have produced some compelling explanations (I hope to blog about a few of these eventually).  Yet at the end of the day we will acknowledge that there is something lacking in our explanation.  Whenever there is a famine or an earthquake in a third world country, the images will always call back our confusion. 

However, someday we will meet God, and it will be very different than we had expected. 

Someday the answer to this big question will be unmistakable.

It will be the most obvious thing in the world. 

Children and philosophers will both laugh at the thought of such a question.

The answer will be plain before our eyes.

We will see God, and God will be our answer.  

                                                                

Why do Christians trust a God that allows so much suffering and cruelty in the world?

We trust him because he is greater than us. 

We trust him because he loves us. 

We trust him because we don’t have access to all the information.

We trust him because we have experienced a fractional part of the awe that overwhelmed Job. 

We trust him because he is our Father.

We trust him because he is God.  

Faith in Doubt: The Biggies

A continuation of the series by Luke, Faith in Doubt.

I started this series of posts with two motivations.  The first was simply to tell my story.  There are many of my friends and family who were shocked when I left the faith and were never given any context for why I came back, and others who I thought might benefit from hearing it.

In addition, the questions that I worked through over the last six years are the same questions that most thoughtful people struggle with, whether inside the church or not.  Therefore, my second goal of writing is to try to address some of these big issues.  In my experience, church communities struggle to address these kinds of issues.  We have some heroes out there doing good work, but our actual communities don’t seem prepared to receive people who still have serious questions.

I had a conversation with someone recently that finally convinced me to write about how I deal with some of these big questions.  This person was introduced to Christianity late in life, and still seems very interested in it.  But like a lot of us, this person has struggled with the question of why there is so much suffering in the world.  Why would the world be so cruel if there is a sovereign God?  They said something that I found very sad.  They said that going to church had only exacerbated their anger and confusion about these issues.  This makes me upset, so for my next series of posts, I am going to take a shot at some of these big questions.  

So what are the biggies?  At the very least, they include the following:  If God is in control, then why is there so much suffering in the world?   How can hell be considered just?  How can we believe the Bible when it seems to be based in outdated worldviews, and seems full of inaccuracies and contradictions?  How can Christians claim the universality of a single religion in light of the multitude of world religions?  In addition, there are questions that often arise around conservative Christian views of women, families and homosexuality.  (This all suddenly seems a little ambitious…)

I titled this whole series Faith in Doubt.  I love this title because it has a double meaning.  On the one hand it includes my story about a time when my faith was in doubt.  But it has another meaning as well.  It expresses how I can still live in faith even when doubt remains.   Faith and doubt may be antonyms, but that does not mean that they cannot exist together.  I have faith in God and the Bible, but that faith exists in the midst of my ongoing questions.  I don’t have everything figured out, and I don’t have to pretend like I do.  My doubts are legitimate, but that does not stop me from trusting God.  If push comes to shove I’m going to trust God, but right now I have the freedom to think and struggle and learn. 

I do not have satisfying answers to every question, but what I hope to model in these posts is a life and mind that can live in faith, while still remaining honest about doubts.  It is not one or the other.  I invite readers to add questions and critiques of what I say, and I look forward to the discussion.