Disappointment with God #2

Once you’ve encountered the #1 type of disappointment with God, if you managed to move on, heal and understand that you’ll never understand, I believe you’ll be able to handle the other types of disappointments there are to be had.

#2: When we are unjustly disappointed with God.

I realise that in life, I have been mad at God, sad He hadn’t come through for the wrong reasons.

Many a time I assumed He had signed up to give me something specific, or that He had agreed to it somehow. And when it didn’t happen I just got mad. Or sad. I, a few times, got very very sad.

But once about two years ago, I caught my unjust disappointment with Him early enough so He was able to help me heal.

Let me paint the scenario:

There is this friend of mine. Slightly new friend that is, about 8 months in total from beginning to end of whatever relationship we had.

From the moment we meet and become friend to the end, my heart get stangled in love and friendship for this guy.

I take time to admit to myself and God, let alone my friends. I process things. I am prayerful, trying to discern what God has to say about this relationship, how He wants me to handle it. Never does God say “yes” or “no”, but He encourages me to wait, to not rule anything out and cultivate our friendship. Which I do. Faithfully, trying to be wise and sensible yet still spontaneous and sincere.

And as I “cultivate our friendship” I fall in love with this guy, head over heels, and all that jazz.

Now you have to understand the guy is from another country and it turns out he wants to go home. He does very suddenly. I am all heartbroken, tears welling up everyday, crying myself to sleep every night. I tell him how I feel face to face (a first!) and he says “thank you”, walks away and never EVER mentions it again. EVER.

He goes. I’m left there on the sidewalk with my heart in pieces and, what it feels like, no one to turn to, who will truly understand my pain.

Or so I thought…

In those days I firstly got a bit angry at God. But quickly something switched on in my brain and heart: It is my friend who ran out on me, not God.

It is my friend who denied me a reciprocated love. Not God.

God never promised me that love story for one simple reason: He can’t assure me of people’s choices since they, as me, have free will. So I understand that God might have been for that relationship, but the guy wasn’t, and there was nothing God could do about this. And so I was heartbroken, but as soon as I understood this, I turned to God and for the first time I let Him be the one who truly truly understood and saw me.

I cried for days, months even, holding on to false hope and illusions. But because of what I finally understood, I wasn’t alone in this. I felt God collecting my tears, understanding the grieving process I went through, knowing I had to say both goodbye to a relationship I wanted so bad and a friendship I valued so much and went crashing.

We often blame God for people’s decisions. A parent runs out on us, a lover cheats on us, a friend breaks up with us, an interview that goes wrong, an accident even… All those things that are the result of people’s decisions, we blame God for.

But as we do, we miss the chance to let Him in properly. We refuse to let Him console us, heal us.

And let me tell you this: it’s a huge mistake.

God’s presence as I cried was more real than it ever been. His help, His comfort and His love for me were never sweeter than when I felt rejected by someone and I realised I couldn’t blame God for it anymore.

He carried me through, so well, so faithfully. It wasn’t easy and it took a long time (I heal slowly) but I know that God was there. and it’s worth everything and helped my faith a lot.

So if you are encountering disappointment #2 open your eyes and realise that no matter what God does, He doesn’t force people to behave one way or another.

Let Him be God, and let Him in, let Him be near to the brokenhearted, near to You.

Disappointment with God #1

Throughout the last few years I’ve come to be disappointed with God quite a few times. I think every believer in a God does, at some point, question God’s intervention in their lives. We don’t always admit to it or face it. Granted it sounds somewhat pedantic to tell the Creator of the Universe that he isn’t doing his job. Being in a conflict with someone so radically different and powerful is scary.

However if we refuse to face it, we let bitterness build up under the rug and slowly, but surely, we seperate ourselves from Him.

Life came with many question marks, particularly in the past 8 years. People have faced more difficulty that I, but I believe we draw conclusions from our on experiences, whether dramatic or not. I certainly do. I make up these theories about life, God and how it all ties in. My opinion is bound to be imperfect and not truth-filled. What can I say? I am human.

I spend time working things out. And in my experience of a God who stay silent as much as He speaks, I have identified three forms of disappointement that have come to me.

I’ll discuss number One today.

This is probably the hardest one to deal with.

The un-justifiable silence.

By unjustifiable I mean the silence that seems to never match up to what God’s character is like. I mean the person who dies after countless healing prayers. I mean the thorn in our side that seem to have no other possible answer than God’s miraculous intervention.

4 years ago now one my aunts got cancer. It was all fixable and easy. Until it got unfixable and uneasy. It went everywhere. It reached the brain. It unpacked its deadly plans slowly, letting us all time to hope and stay positive.

She was a christian, and a committed one with that. The type that made us all say “she deserves God’s healing”. As if someone didn’t. Pain, fear and love make you say the most stupid things. I tried to convince God she had to be healed. I prayed, I was convinced, I was sure of it. So did my Mum. So did my Dad who spent so much time petitioning for his little sister’s life. She wasn’t married, she didn’t have children, she never found the “calling of her life”. I thought life was the least that God could grant her, because you see I was reasoning, constantly.

Things happened, she experienced God’s presence, inner healing, love. She let Him give her love, comfort her. She peacefully let Him lead her wherever. Even if that wherever was death. I stood by and watched one of my loved ones drifting away and God not healing her.

Not healing her.

What had happened to “go and heal the sick”? What happened to promises of life, people being raised from the dead? They all were burried in the coffin with her three years ago.

To this day, it’s been the hardest answer to prayer I had to get. Because we got an answer: it was a big, fat no.

Like a slap in the face, a hit in the faith.

It took me a long time to admit it and say it: I was disappointed. So very much so, it was like a thorn in my heart that kept on making bleed bitterness, unbelief and resentment.

But what do you do with the outcome? The outcome only God could change? What do you do when it’s no one’s fault and the only one who could have made it any different held back?

My entire family worshipping over the coffin, at church, singing praises comforted my heart as much as it hurt it. It felt like the biggest sacrifice to make: to sing the praises of the very one whose intervention could have made that day not exist. Crying angry tears, brokenhearted still trying to obey. It’s more than that one day, it’s the life after. Everything that is affected by God’s decision not to do “it”.

What do we do with this?

There’s only one dark, narrow road through this: accepting God’s sovereignty and moving on. It sounds harsh and I don’t mean it that way.

I mean that if we are looking to live, and live well, to let joy flood our hearts again one day, we need to accept that God chose to not do “it”. It’s unchangeable, that answer will not change with time. He did other things, he changed her heart, he answered other prayers, but not the final one that seem bigger than any other.

He didn’t say yes. And there’s nothing I can do about it.

Even now, writing this,  I find it hard to not revel in my feelings of loss and absence of someone that will always be my family but will never be part of its life again. I find it hard to move on to my point. Precisely because it is a “No” that bears too much weight for me to carry.

But I must move on and let God be God. I chose not to wait for an answer to my newer question: Why?

There will be no answer to that one either. Not yet at least.

But if I don’t move on and accept, my heart will lose its life, I’ll withdraw from God’s presence and from that He has done before and will do after.

No surrendering means that I chose to say “no” to all the good things God has for me. If I shut Him out, there will be no healing of my heart.

Harder to bear than the stab in the heart, is the wound getting infected. By not speaking out my questions and not surrendering to his sovereignty I let pus in my heart and allow it turn my life around. The wrong type of around.

So I knelt down, cried my pain and let God be God. It took time. If I’m honest it’s not completely done yet. Because I still hear that quiet question in me popping in, once and again: “Why?”. I tell it that there is no answer and that I somehow need to be okay with that. And I learn again to be okay with that. And again. And again.

I chose to put God above me. I chose to trust that He knew what He was doing, even if I’ll never know for myself. Even if I don’t agree with it.

But this is, isn’t it? The reason why we worship Him is also the reason we sometimes anger at Him:

He is completely above us. Even if He has become human to know us, we haven’t become God.

He is above all. Which is why I turn my eyes to Him. Which is why He owes me no explanation. And I have to accept that.

“We do not know what to do, but

Our eyes are on you”

2 Chronicles 20:12

(This is just my experience and a bunch of thoughts that come from it. I do not pretend to be an expert at God, at grief, at prayer of healing. I’m a human who believes in God and gets it wrong most of the time)

Holy Saturday

(Robert Doisneau, Pluie d’été )

A friend of mine told me that she was “living in Holy Saturday”. It took me about 5 minutes to understand what she meant.

I realised then that I, too, was in the midst of Holy Saturday.

Good Friday: When all falls apart, the things foretold are accomplished.

Easter Sunday: When hope bursts out, like the blinding sun. The dead is alive and hope with him.

But Holy Saturday is the desert in between. The longest 24 hours in history. The saviour has died and there is no sign of hope being on its way. It’s dark, it’s a fountain of despair. People hold on to Jesus’ words and Jesus’ character. Everything collapsed and they are so close to giving up all together.

Holy Saturday it is. I am pretty sure there will be an Easter Sunday, at some point, but I don’t have a set number of hours to countdown or a calendar to cross days off. I stand in a limbo. I rejoice but I cry. I celebrate Easter Sunday. I cry in the waiting, having nothing else to do but to hope and trust in a God who is good but seems so terribly absent of my very heart.

His promises of a future and prosperity are still there. But are they all earthly promises? Is it for now or later? Is it a now and not yet?

Holy Saturday is about living in tension. Holding the past dear, grieving things that once were, moving on from the crucifixion. Keeping our eyes on the future, knowing that it will come with good news, refreshment and fulfilment.

But as for today, as for painful Holy saturday, you have to walk through it. Why pretend that it isn’t a sad day? Why being afraid of tears?

Us christians love tears when it’s during “ministry time”, we celebrate them as a solid sign of the Holy Spirit’s presence. But as soon as we step into a darker time of life, we shy away from tears, we label them “weak” and “unholy”. If we cry it must mean God’s doing something wrong and we can’t possibly comprehend accusing God of anything.

But Jesus wept (John 11:35). Jesus cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt 27:46). So if He did, why can’t we?

Walking through the valley of the shadow of death (Psalm 23:4) surely didn’t take David a day. Surely it was a long, weird, tortuous path, unpleasant which brought tears to his eyes.

I am learning to walk through the valley without pretending I am on a mountain top feeling victorious.

I don’t feel victorious, I don’t feel glorious or even blessed for that matter. I have days I even feel forsaken.

But I have this thing in my heart that tells me that it is a real shot at intimacy with God that I have right there.

Intimacy isn’t always warm and cosy. It honestly sucks to spill out negative feelings. I could cut God out of my confusion and struggle.

But something in me repeats that it is in the wilderness that He speaks to our hearts.

As I work things through, I realise that more than a job or a promising relationship/marriage, or even the prospect of children, I need God to speak to my heart.

I can stand in the rain with my broken umbrella, pretending I’m not soaked yet. Or I can let God cover me with his cloak and comfort me, even in my questioning of his purpose.

Holy Saturday is me, waiting, but chosing not to be waiting alone.

Lesson #1

The first thing I know now I didn’t know then is:

I don’t know a thing.

You start life quite innocently and, as years go by, you suddenly build yourself up into this presomptuous helpless teenager. You are 15 and you think you own the world because you know History facts, are not a drama queen and approach relationships with the somwhat wise mindset.

Truth is: You are just a nice, full of good intentions person who know very little about life. Some people your age have lived twice more than you, usually due to harsh circumstances. Others, younger, have twice your IQ and emotional intelligence.

You’re just not that far ahead.

But you don’t know that yet.

It took me years to realise that the biggest wisdom lesson was humility. And in mentioning humility as an acquired thing you instantly defeat the point. Nevertheless, it needs to be talked about.

The way I’ve experienced humility is mainly through plot twists. You know, those times when  the “big dream” is coming around and you are so excited and impatient you’re jogging on the spot? Then the “big dream” falls through. No reasons needed, it just does.

This happened to me over and over again since I went to university. I made a plan, I even prayed about the plan, it felt right. And it didn’t work. So many times it started to gain some type of comical factor. As if I were a cartoon character running very fast towards an open door which then slams right in its face and makes everyone but the character laugh.

Apart from the difficulty of feeling every door closing right on me, I learnt something:

I couldn’t go about in life so sure of everything and my understanding of it.

I started to unveil one of the most important lessons of my life: Knowing that the world is too big, life is too deep, intricate and complicated to pretend that you’ve figured it out.

I guess that made coming to God trickier but also simpler. If I didn’t have all the answers and my assurance was a goner, then I had to talk to him about everything.

It also meant that I was losing all my safety nets feel-good theories. God became my only guarantee.

Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still; teach the righteous and they will add to their learning. (Proverbs 9:9) 

The Bible says that the wise keep looking for wisdom and the fool never listens. And throughout the years, I learnt to stop and listen.

I learnt that I had to be wiser than yesterday and less foolish tomorrow.

Why I find myself starting this blog...

It’s not easy being 27, celebrating my sixth month of unemployment, single, with no idea of what the future holds and trying to fake it til I make it.

God is a big part of my life. In fact, he is the biggest part of my life. By this I mean that I cannot imagine a life without him. I don’t spend hours praying everyday, that I preached the Gospel on every street corner and am joy, peace and hope embodied. Quite the opposite. In fact the reason I’m here is because I not this person I wish I was, I am not as sorted and spiritualy balanced as I hoped I’d be by now. I’m in a mess, trying to get out of it and wanting to quit half the time.

Someone said to me today “But it’s not just about you, is it? It’s about what God wants for your life!” and it made me want to rage like there was no tomorrow. I didn’t do that. I held it in, brought a sassy line in and left it there. But something in me wanted to shout: “It IS just about me!” only to realise that 10 years into my christian faith, I was still making the same mistakes.

The truth is: I’ve learnt a few lessons already during this fairly desertic time if my life. And I’ve learnt a few lessons before. And I’ll learn a few more after. So I decided that I’d put them down, word them, try to work things through and understand how, sometimes, God and life don’t seem quite on the same page, but it doesn’t mean He’s not there.

So welcome to the positive mess that I am.