They Are Driving Me Crazy!

I was called to the hospital yesterday to pray with a twenty year old college student who had been admitted earlier this week after collapsing.  It turns out she has cancer.  Pancreatic cancer.  She's twenty.  TWENTY!

A couple of weeks ago a vibrant young mom, a pastor, a preacher, a mission worker, lost her life to complications from the flu.  

My friend recently lost her 18 year old niece who died in her sleep.  They still do not know why she died.  

Last year I had a pulmonary embolism and my mom had a liver transplant.  We both lived and we are both doing quite well.  

I thank God for that.  I thank God that I am still around to care for my babies.  I thank God that Mom is still around to care for me.  

But I also have questions.  Big questions.  I'm certainly not the first to ever ask these questions.  In fact, my questions are simply echoes of the many questions asked throughout scripture.  

Why God?  Why do you let these things happen?  Why must we lose people we love?  Where are you?  Don't you know it's NOT FAIR for children or mommies or daddies to die? 

And then, after the questions come the doubts...

Are you really there?  Do you care?  What if everything upon which I've staked my life isn't true?  What if there isn't eternal life?  What if, when we die, we simply die, period?  

I know the "right" answers to my questions.  I know that I 'm supposed to say that in our suffering, Jesus is out best possible companion because he's been there.  He's suffered.  He's gone to hell and back.  I know I'm supposed to say that God doesn't cause suffering but is always with us in our pain.  But remember, those doubts?  Well, that's when they creep in.  

There was a night a few years ago when someone I loved dearly was sick.  I remember feeling desperate for God to fix my loved one.  In my grief I began reading through the Psalms and it was then that I realized for the first time, God may not "fix" this.  In fact, this may not be fixable.  I wondered if God was even listening to me.

Boy did that mess with my theology and my faith.  Basically I lost my faith virginity that night.  No longer could I hold on to a faith in which God would always swoop in and make everything better.  My faith got messy, really messy.  

Since then I've had to work out some trust issues with God.  I've wrestled with God and I now walk with a limp.  But I think I'm thankful for that.  It's made me stronger, more compassionate, able to simply sit with someone in their pain, knowing that there are no easy answers when life hurts.  I can pray now, pleading and begging God to take away hurt, to heal, to make new but I know that even though I plead with all my might for God to swoop in and make it all better, this world is broken and terrible things happen and sometimes all we can do is hold on to hope for each other.

My doubts will not win.  I have to hold on to hope because without hope there is nothing.  I know I can't do this life thing on my own.  I need God, and I need God in Jesus Christ because I need to believe that death does not have the last word.  I need to believe that there is always hope, even in death.  

I do believe that there is always hope.  I do believe that God is here.  I just wish it could be a little easier to know that.  But then again, I guess that's what faith is all about.