Just so you know: this post is coming to you entirely devoid of pictures. If you came here hoping for images of gratuitous nursing, what’s wrong with you?
This isn’t that kind of blog. (If that kind of blog exists, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know). Move along elsewhere.
(This is not a service our church offers).
Anyway…
The kids spent the the night at their grandparent’s house, so Lisa and I did that thing that adults do when their kids aren’t around:
We slept in.
Dear God,
What was so wrong with the old normal that it had to be replaced with this?
The new normal.
It doesn’t feel normal at all. It’s like a half life–surreal, hazy, like I’m on the outside looking in. It looks familiar, but I don’t recognize it as my life. Who is this man who shuffles around in a stupor? Wait…
Can it be?
That’s me!
And me is not coping very well with this new new normal. I want to hide, cry escape when I see her–she who so loved life–reduced to a husk of her former self. The tears, shaking, anxiety.
It makes me angry.
“Why, God? She loves you. You who opened blind eyes, unstopped deaf ears, raised the dead… Where are you now?”
If this be mercy, it’s severe. Fill quickly the cup so we can return to normal. I want to see her smile, hear her laugh, be with her in the way a man is with his wife.
Quickly let this new pass so that we may return to the life we had. It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours.
And we knew how to navigate it. This unfamiliar landscape is an arid, broken place. Where is the water and shade? Whither the oasis?
God, you’ve got to do something, anything–anything other than this.
What was so wrong with the old normal? Must you take every bit of happiness, and turn it to dust?
I’m calling you out.
Calling you to account.
Not for my sake.
Or for hers.
But for the sake of the watching world. The world that hears, sees, wonders if you’re there. Are you?
Show yourself.
We need a miracle.
What do we do when the much longed-for healing doesn’t come? When hope is dashed again and again?
When God, whom we know has both the power and ability, to do something, doesn’t?
What do we do with this disappointment? Why does he seem so silent, hidden, unfair, unloving, uncaring?
Are things really as they seem?
“Who is this who darkens counsel with words without knowledge,” Job was asked? Who, indeed? God, apparently fed up with Job’s questioning, answered him in a very Socratic way:
With questions of his own.
It seems there were things Job, and by extension, us, simply couldn’t understand. Meaning that if God, and his purposes, could be understood, he wouldn’t be God.
From his perspective, things were well in hand; from Job’s, unremitting loss and suffering. And instead of cluing Job in, the book seems more of an object lesson for Satan:
Do your worst, I know Job’s heart. He loves me…
Blows me away everytime I think about it. Admittedly, we don’t have the (if one can term it that) the luxury of God appearing in a whirlwind; rather Jesus tells us “Blessed is he who has not seen, and yet has believed.” Put another way, we walk by faith, and not by sight.
We are put into the position of having to trust that Father does indeed, despite all appearances to the contrary, know best.
So what do we do when the healing doesn’t come? We join that great cloud of witnesses which surrounds us. It’s some rather august company:
Paul asked thrice for his thorn to be taken; it was not. Instead, he was told that “My grace is sufficient for you…” The entire roster of the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews eleven consists entirely of people who didn’t get what they were promised, only glimpsing it from a long ways off.
A certain petitioner asked that a cup be taken from him; it was not.
We know how that turned out.
So what do we do when the looked-for healing doesn’t come?
As trite as it is to say: we trust, and obey. Otherwise anger, bitterness, frustration, and hopelessness stand outside the door threatening to destroy us.
We walk by faith and not by sight, right? I know: easy to say. But how do we do this–walk by faith–when our bodies, and our minds, betray us? I wish I knew. The world, the flesh, the devil, illness make a fairly comprehensive case against God’s fundamental goodness. Why does he seem so absent when things fall apart?
Why does everything have to be a test of faith?
“Lord, I believe. Help thou my unbelief.” It’s hard, but I have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to.
And I’m sorry, folks: I don’t have any answers. I’ve only got an Answer. I wish it were more satisfying. Like God, who doesn’t want to be analyzed, but rather just loved for who he is, I don’t want to be constantly tested, tried, found wanting.
Like him, I just want to be loved. Right where I’m at.
How about you?
It’s not bad to feel ashamed when we’ve done shameful things. There is such a thing as a healthy regret. We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t.
This post is not about that kind of shame. But rather about the shame that we, the culture, and church project. The kind that makes us worry more about our reputations, than about getting the help we need.
