I have some big news and for those who read my last newsletter (The God of Lost Things) you’ll really get why. If you haven’t and want to subscribe or read the last one in the archives you can do that here–>
I may have been a child, traipsing about with the Himalayas as my backdrop.
I sang worship songs in a circle, my crisscrossed chicken legs splayed out in every direction. God was both nebulous and near. A common Holy thing. As ordinary and mysterious as anything. Spirit was something I understood could move people and be felt, something that whispered up against me with the calling of hope but not something I understood to belong to me or I to it.
I don’t know if all children have faith, I have a son who’s six and he questions every bible story. No flannel graph and Sunday school story is going to be robust enough to wrap up the loose ends and in all honesty, I’m thankful for my doubter. I didn’t ask enough questions as a child, I held them up in my frame, tucked down like a dirty secret. I never voiced my unbelief, my hard questions, my risky asks. I kept peace and kept quiet, and eventually found that I had neither peace nor quiet. The questions haunted me.
And doubt followed the unanswerable. In dark corners of shame and questions and how could my God be good when I hurt? So maybe it started there somewhere.
My story is long and complicated, as I’m sure are yours when you really get down to your truths and lies. Your deceptions uncovered and your years brushed off and rummaged through.
I came to Christ on a cracked and peeling linoleum floor, when in all my 16 years I couldn’t fathom a reason to go on. I questioned how to end my life without making a mess. I didn’t want to break my mom. She’d already been broken enough. Oblivion was really what I desired. An end to the pain. Or maybe it was finding my way back to the place where I didn’t doubt, a place where God seemed clearer. A place where I could belong to Him.
I write about beauty in brokenness because that has been my story. Every point redeemed, every pain ransomed, but it’s not a fast process. I’ll be 37 in September and I still doubt and hold questions in my chest just under my ribs, pushing them away from my lips into the darkest parts of my soul. I still try to hide from God, ashamed He’s shown me again and again that He is good and yet still I struggle to trust Him to care for me in abundance.
And here’s the strange thing. I know God will prvoide in some way or another.
But oh how I fear the desires of my heart. I have been trained to die to myself. I have been trained to look for every blessing in the midst of suffering, squeeze out every ounce of gratitude when my body or my mind is broken. I cock an eyebrow and sit back detached when people espouse to know that God will give them the house, the child, the dream job, the miraculous healing. I believe God can and does do all those things, but He’s not under obligation to me to make my dreams come true.
He is still good when the house burns to the ground, the child never comes, the job is tedious and demanding, and the body diminishes and fails.
And so I pray wide vague prayers that have more to do with my own heart and contentment than any move of God’s hand upon my circumstances or desires. I don’t ask for things often. I pray as if I don’t know Him at all.
A few weeks ago I was walking along with my friend, Amber and we were chatting about my childhood. I don’t remember how it came up but I told her we left the mission in Nepal and flew to Holland because I had been diagnosed with leukemia. And here’s where it got interesting. Because somewhere between leaving Nepal and the time in the hospital being treated for Leukemia, my tests came back with abnormalities inconsistent with leukemia and my blood counts were normalizing and while they didn’t say I was healed, they all scratched their heads and wondered if I had been misdiagnosed this whole time because that doesn’t happen.
“God healed you,” she replied in that easy southern drawl.
The words just slid off her tongue as if she had been put there to prophesy, to preach truth.
And then I went on to mumble something about how I didn’t know but maybe and I don’t have medical records from then and I was churning over the fact that she just named this miracle so easily as if you could pull down the heavens and claim your space among God’s most blessed and cherished and loved.
I realized I have never really claimed that God healed me. I have always explained it away in vague terms. I was diagnosed, they said I wasn’t doing well and prepared my parents for the probable loss of their child, and then I was getting better and nothing had been done but prayer.
I have never claimed that miracle. It seems too grand an experience to accept on my behalf.
I can claim God healed me from much of the shame I carry about being sexually abused and assaulted. I can claim God provided when He used tragic circumstances to bring me to know His love. I can claim God sees me when a peony blooms next to my hospital bed when I’m in agonizing pain.
I see God in the suffering but do I see Him in the miraculous?
I have learned to seek God when hope is planted and deep and crushed under earth unfurling with potential, I have learned to say my God is good even when I hurt, but do I see the bud blooming and still with no work left to be done but bask in light?
During our time in Holland, they wheeled me under the glare of hospital lights and turned my limp and fragile body sideways and my father held me curled as a hollow shell as they did the spinal tap. I hurt and cried and looked up at him and his eyes flooded with tears as I struggled against his restrain. He told me years later it was one of the hardest things he’s ever had to do because I was so little and didn’t understand how her daddy could allow these people to hurt me. At one point I cried out, “Daddy, make them stop!” He wished a thousand times he could have lifted me up and taken me home right then and there but it was for my own good.
I often still see God this way in my life. When I’m struggling against the trials, the pain that comes, the questions. I see God as my father who’s weeping for the pain, but holding me down to endure, for my good and His glory. Somewhere along the line I’ve relented to that. And only that. I’ve lost sight of the fullness of God.
We signed on the house this morning and if you don’t understand why it’s such a huge deal, here’s some of the backstory. Josh left work in his painter’s whites and signed the papers, eggshell beige splattered on his hand. He scribbled his name on the line that says to me, God will provide.
He has seen me and heard my prayers. I’m learning to ask.
God is that father, concerned about my good. But today God was something new to me. A side that’s always been there but I’ve failed to recognize. He is the God who healed me.
I’m learning God is the kind of father who brings home a brand new 10 speed bike in Cerulean blue for no other reason than it will bring his child such joy and happiness to circle the block with the wind in her hair, her face unfolding in a radiant smile. To hear her squeal when she hoists herself onto the seat and gets her legs pumping picking up speed. A God who not only sees our desires but places them there and longs to provide for them. The father who doesn’t shoo away his children’s dreams and prayers and hopes. The bike doesn’t make the child love her father.
The bike shows how the Father loves his daughter in one more way.
YES YES YES YES YES!!! The God of good things. I can’t believe it’s taken me so long to remember this. And to believe it. And to trust it. I’m over-emoting all over the place for you today friend!!! WELCOME HOME!
What Lisa-Jo said. ^^ 🙂 So very thrilled for you. Congratulations!!
Thank you Kate! I’ve been thinking of you because I know the FMFparty retreat is coming up! I’ll be thinking of you guys. I want to hear all the details of how it went when you get a chance. 🙂
I don’t know why it’s so hard but I don’t want to forget. When we got the call everything went through and we needed to come down to sign everything, even the mortgage people said they hadn’t seen it go through this fast. It was slow slow slow and I was trying so hard to trust God and hold onto hope but there were a lot of obstacles and then all of a sudden, it was finished. In the same way God needed to show you your house was all Him, I needed that too. I might become a home blogger. 😉
The house is one miracle, but that blue bicycle….you got me. May God continue to shower down blessings you can’t contain while the wind blows through your hair.
Hoping you get your blue bike one day and in the meantime see His love all around you. Thankful for you, Jody.
A mixture of quiet thanks and shouts of joy, my friend! I am so so so happy for you… and so thrilled at the (re)discovery of a God who pours out blessings –just because… because, well- He really IS a ‘Good, Good Father’!!!
And you need to come visit after we move!!!
Oh, Alia! I NEEDED to read this today! I’m delivering the sermon Sunday morning for the first time (first time ever to speak in front of men as well as women) and the pastor wanted me to talk about scars…my scars and how God has redeemed them. And although I know that I know that I know that God has redeemed my scars inside and out, it becomes so overwhelming when I try to figure out how to put it all in a 25-30 minute sermon. Sharing these bits of my story is looming so big, so I’ve been kinda stuck there. I really needed to hear from someone that has been where I’ve been so to speak and knows what words can’t say. Thanks for sharing.
Yes, I know how trembling my soul gets when I have to share like that but the word of our testimony is powerful. God is the great redeemer of lost things.
that part about squeezing out gratitude no matter how hard it is. I swear, I am going to write that blog post I have been threatening to write every November – “Why I hate Gratitude Lists.” I realized it’s because I was taught to be thankful in all things – that is in scripture. But somehow there didn’t seem to be any provision in my little black and white world to still acknowledge the pain while creating such lists. They seemed to cancel out each other. Do you remember the song “count your many blessings every doubt will fly. And you will be singing as the days go by.” Didn’t work for me so good.
Anyway, I loved reading this. and look forward to more and more of your story, Alia.
I totally know what you’re saying. It can feel like one or the other. I think God is big enough for our doubts. I also think joy and grief are not opposed. We can and must have both. But I totally get how it can seem like there’s not room for both and not being able to sit with and acknowledge pain is devastating in itself. You should write that post, I think that’s an interesting take on it and one I bet a lot of people struggle with. Thanks for sharing, Carol.
Beautiful! And something to ponder for a good while. Thank you!
Thank you Meredith. I’m still pondering it all as well.
Lovelovelove all this! So happy for you, friend, and so needed to read this perspective of yours today. Thank you for the reminder. God is good, and I need to remember to ask.
Thanks Tsh! You’ll have to come see it next summer when you’re in Bend. 😉 And yes, I thought I was asking but when I got back from Charlotte, I realized I really wasn’t. I was asking in sideways prayers that never really just admitted how much this house meant to me. Not like God didn’t know anyway. And so I straight up asked, and you know I’m not the name it and claim it type at all, but we signed a few days later when we weren’t even supposed to know for a few weeks. 😉 God wanted me to know He sees me and loves me. I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to really get that.
So happy for you. Love this. Congratulations!!
Thanks Anne! We’re thrilled. I told my husband I want floor to ceiling bookcases in our family room someday. I’ll fill them with all sorts of books you recommend. 😉
These tears you made me cry!! What’s that about?
I love you, you sweet woman, beloved of God.
I get that a lot. So maybe it’s me. I make people cry. And not always because I’m mean. 😉 Maybe it’s because you’re picturing my mom’s face when she gets to keep and plant her garden and have chickens and make things bloom. That’s enough to make me cry too.
“I see God in the suffering but do I see Him in the miraculous?”
This question stopped me in my tracks today. And then I found myself crying in the last paragraph. You’re right – the way I see God is the father holding me down when I’m screaming to him to make it stop. I’m still reeling, I think, and find it hard to have those other images. Thankful for Amber’s faith – and especially yours.
I needed this. Thank you.
It’s such a hard way to see God when you’ve known a lot of suffering. We see God as good despite the hard but to know His goodness in this way can be tough. To believe for it anyway. Amber’s words had that effect on me and I’m pretty sure she had no idea. We just kept on talking but I thought about it the whole way home and realized I need to ask like I believe God, like He’s a God that would heal me. In all the ways, not just physically but heal me enough to believe I am loved lavishly. I love you, friend. I see God’s hand on you, precious friend.
Here’s to claiming God’s miracles on our behalf! I love you friend and I’m so happy that you’re beginning this new chapter. God will provide.
Thank you! We’re so thrilled. Yes, miracles and miracles to get us here. I’m writing them down so I never forget.
We just sold our house this week. I’m resonating with ya’ … once again.
Hugs!
We must be kindred. Thanks for walking along with me.
Congratulations on the house – and on the extravagant healing! I love how Amber spoke that into you, gave you permission to believe that word for yourself and in your own story. Celebrating with you!
Thank you! Yes, Amber. She’s a prophet. She said it like it was nothing, it just passed in our conversation but I pondered it for days afterwards and realized I’ve missed out on the fullness of God and His love in my life with my explanations. And thank you for celebrating with me! I’m thrilled to be finding my way home in so many ways.