Find your Breath

7
Oct

Sometimes the only thing to do is breathe.

The world is crumbling and the things you thought would hold start to wobble, their stable bases shifting just enough to set them off center.

You get through a few hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then the wobbling begins again.

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Sometimes there’s a lull, a quiet period when you start to think things are back to the way they used to be.

Part of you goes back to your routine, welcomes it.

Part of you settles back into the way your life used to be.

The roaring silence becomes part of your soundscape, the elevator music in the background of your day.

You start thinking maybe you’ve turned a corner. You start thinking things have settled into a new pattern. It’s not the pattern you’d wanted or what you’d ever imagined you’d be dealing with, but you can adjust. You can learn to deal with it. You’re strong, you’re resilient. You’ve got this.

You got this. Right?

Sure, right. You got this, until something else layers on, something new and terrible, one more spike to the system and then —

Naw, that was a blip, the exception. You get through a few more hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then it begins again.

Tip…tip…wobble…

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It’s not as simple as just praying through it. It’s not as cut and dried as just “giving it to the Lord” — remember those tactics? There was a time when those were the first things you turned to. There was a time when you’d follow the formula and even innocently twist your thinking to make the outcomes align with what was supposed to happen.

That only worked for so long.

After a point, you began to see the inconsistencies. After so many repetitions, you started to notice the things you weren’t supposed to question.

The great slow unravelling had already begun when the real life crises set in.

It wasn’t right to expect God to answer prayers, even on behalf of his most faithful of servants. We’re not supposed to treat God like a vending machine or Santa. You knew that, you tried not to approach faith that way. It made sense that a loving God wouldn’t want to have his loved ones treating him like an uncle visiting from afar, asking for bobbles and souvenirs. But the most human part of you screamed it out anyway: “Why don’t you DO SOMETHING!” Surely this wasn’t something inappropriate to ask, to beg. This was a most basic of needs. You pleaded, “Do something.”

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The old routines no longer served. You weren’t content to just go through the motions, but you weren’t content to disregard the truth of your experience, shaded as it may have been. Your beliefs were so ingrained you didn’t realize the English you spoke was a dialect unintelligible to many.

So you sought the new-to-you.

You sought the ancient.

Rhythms, air, pulses, seasons, wideness, candles, walks outdoors, grace and ritual.

When even these demanded too much energy, you returned to your breath. When the ache of loss and hardship threatened to upend you, you knew you could still breathe. The one breath you knew you could take, the one breath you could use to slow time, slow heartbeat, slow thoughts, slow it all down. That one breath would be the thing you could give yourself when nothing else seemed to help.

Just one breath.

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This doesn’t make it all better. Loss is still there, grief is still there, heartache, powerlessness, smallness, are all still there.

Getting through a moment is sometimes all you can accomplish.

Getting through one moment can be an enormous struggle.

One breath, if you can give yourself one deep, cleansing breath, you’ll find you can give yourself another. And in those breaths, you can find the strength to move forward. It’s already in you. You have to pause and breathe in order to find it.

When fear threatens your Freedom

8
Sep

fear

control

the unknown

distrust and uncertainty

constrict your heart.

You lie awake in the night,

shutter your windows, bar the door and creep thru the house in darkness.

Fear throws threats around your head, wraps chains that trip and limit.

We are not made for this binding.

We are not made to be bound.

We are made for freedom.

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When the fear threatens to crush your heart and steal your joy,

Push back.

Drop your head,

Grit your teeth and barrel forward.

Charge ahead and refuse to be crushed by the weight of the “what-if’s” and doubts looming large.

Breath deep into your gut and let the air expand you — press out against the pressing in.

Close your eyes if you must.

Do it while your hands shake, but do it still.

Pretend you’re as confident as you wish you were, and soon you’ll forget you aren’t that confident. You’ll forget the racing thoughts, all that might happen, as you see the beauty of what does happen. Even when it doesn’t all go right, even when things are hard and the unknown remains unknown, or worse — your fears become reality. Even then, you are made for freedom.

Model it. Exemplify it. Pass it on to your children, your friends, your loves. Inspire it in others, this freedom of a person known and loved by the Author of knowledge and love.

You are known. You are loved. You can do this. Let’s say it to one another until we begin to believe it. We can do this.

Today was our first day of school, and this post came out of a lot of my nervousness about the start of school, which is complicated by health concerns for one of our kids. I have to really push back against operating out of fear. I hope we can help each other reject that fear and embrace the freedom we are meant for.

All of that to ask: how was your kids’ first day of school?

Charleston, Voices and Fear

20
Jun

There has been a lot of appalling news in the last two days, news of death and racism in a place that offered sanctuary to the very person who betrayed nine innocent people to their deaths. He sat there, basking in Mother Emanuel’s hospitality, and then opened fire. He came into a place that has traditionally been a place of refuge and basically defiled that sense of safety.

What can I offer to this conversation?

What words can a white woman add to make one whit of difference in the face of such monumental tragedy?

We are not made for fear, friends. We’re not made for despair. We’re made for so much more.

Events such as natural disasters, a child diagnosed with a chronic disease or health condition, a violent crime, a national crisis, these make us ask where the light is or what our society’s coming to. When brothers and sisters in a church are gunned down, it makes me ask where God was. Someone can try to answer that God was in the midst of the victims. Maybe He was. Maybe this evil man would have taken even more lives. What I know is that we need not fear one another, though we may not look the same. And people who are white like I am need to assert our voices in opposition to racism, be it overt or subtle. And if we fear that which we do not know, then it’s time to get educated. We need to know our history and acknowledge our implicit role in a system that has been discriminatory and has given whites advantages that we’ve profited from without even noticing.

What I know for sure is that God has not given us a spirit of fear.

Even when it feels like the fear is crawling up the back of our necks, even when it makes breathing hard, or makes a hard, cold little home in our chests.

God has not given us a spirit of fear.

That also means we can’t be afraid to wade into the conversation, afraid we’ll say something wrong or we’ll offend someone. If I come as a learner, asking to be invited to the conversation so I can listen and become aware, that’s an entirely different posture than coming in to negate someone’s position or make myself come of looking shiny and free from playing any negative role.

That said, we should hear voice of people of color who are living the experience. Please read what these good people are writing about the Charleston killings, and about the issue of race in the United States.

Osheta Moore at Shalom in the City

Austin Channing Brown

A’Driane Nieves curates amazing articles and pieces and writes about it here.

If you’re on Twitter, you can follow Deray McKesson.

If you want to “do something” to help Emmanuel AME Church minister to it’s congregation and continue its ministry in Charleston, you can consider donating to one of these organizations.

Let’s be in prayer for Charleston, for Emanuel Church, and for the families of these nine victims. And if you needed a soundtrack of inspiration, I’m leaving you with a throwback song that pops into my head whenever I think about not living in fear. Click here for musical fortitude in the face of darkness.

Be well, and live in freedom and love today.

Edited to add: this Amazing reading list , which comes from the African American Intellectual History Society website. Here’s their introduction of the reading list:

Here is a list of selected readings that educators can use to broach conversations in the classroom about the horrendous events that unfolded in Charleston, South Carolina this week. These readings provide valuable information about the history of racial violence in this country and contextualize the history of race relations in South Carolina and the United States in general. They also offer insights on race, racial identities, global white supremacy and black resistance. All readings are arranged by date of publication. This list is not meant to be exhaustive; please check out the #Charlestonsyllabus hashtag and the Goodreads List for additional readings.

Mile Markers Part B – Facepalm

16
Jun

Oh man. You are helping me face one of my worst fears: publishing a blog post by accident. I’ve been blogging for like five years now and I believe this is the first time I’ve messed this up this badly.

**shrieks in terror as she realizes her fear has come true**

That’s what I get for working on my phone and thinking I could easily pop over and save a draft of a post and instead I published it before it was complete.

Deep cleansing breath.

Ahhh…

There. Better.

Now that we’ve bemoaned my mistake (complete with an actual facepalm here on this side of the computer) please allow me to share the revised all-in-one version that I posted in two portions yesterday.

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Signals of prayer.

My friend Kim’s daughter is getting married this weekend. Let it be known that I am only 40 and none of my children will be getting married any time soon. My friend isn’t that much older than 40, but she got an earlier start than I did, and so her daughter (who is also getting an earlier start than I did) is getting married. Maybe I was a late bloomer. 🙂

Getting married is a mile marker, a major life event. It changes you, makes you open your life to someone else, making their growth and their desires and their health equally as important as your own. You may, heaven forbid, one day find yourself unmarried, but from the moment you take those vows, there’s a kids before and a life after.

I have another friend (yes, I have more than one friend, smarty pants, and for that I am grateful) who’s daughter and husband just bought their first house. Say what you will about the mortgage and banking industry, debt or the stereotypical American Dream, but buying your first home is an entry point into full adulthood in the eyes of many. The ability to be deemed creditworthy of making such a long term investment says something about your stability and responsibility. It’s a mile marker, and even if you sell the house and decide not to own a house again, it’s life event and it shapes your attitudes about a whole myriad of subjects.

Another friend of mine is walking alongside her mother through the process of being diagnosed with cancer. Have I mentioned lately that cancer sucks?

I’ve started wondering if cancer is going to be another mile marker in our lives. Is it something everyone will face? Is it another common experience that forever changes us?This time it isn’t something we enter into with any choice, and we’d certainly reject it if given the opportunity. Even if we are bystanders we are impacted, and our sense of safety and invincibility is sent spinning.

It would be nice to think that as we continue through life we are granted immunity from loss and grief, and there are definitely monumental life events that are full of joy and deep contentment. But I’m starting to realize…or maybe I’m just wisening up to what everyone else already knew, that just as happy mile markers are a part of life that should be expected, perhaps difficult ones are too. If we begin to accept the idea that they’ll visit us eventually, maybe it can take the surprise out of their arrival.

Resilient Heart

Playdough and other gray Areas

21
Apr

http://mrg.bz/DLazQs

We are such a comparmentalizing, either/or people, arent’t we?

We want each washcloth to be folded and neatly stacked. If we could give each one its own zip locked, mesh, linen bag, that would be extra comforting. That way, it won’t come unfolded, get wrinkled, or tumble out of the linen closet when we open the door. It will stay contained.

Decided.

Resolved.

Tidy.

But what if the stack tumbles over, the bags come unzipped?

To use another analogy, what if the play dough colors get put away in *eek!* the wrong containers?

Clay will become swirly, a merry mix of blue, green and red, yellow and purple to make **double eek!** a warm shade of gray. (All you play-dough separators out there — and I KNOW you’re out there — this is NOT directed at you personally. Go with the analogy okay?)

We don’t like gray much, do we? We want the colors (and people and ideas) to stay obediently in their places.

Moms stay in the home.

Dad’s are the bread earners.

Women are the ones who communicate emotions.

Men want respect above all else.

Men are the analytical thinkers. Women’s views are skewed by hormones and feelings.

We can do only one role well, or other roles will suffer.

Or we apply this to issues of faith, wanting there to be an “in” club and an “out” club. Because it’s not fair if I do all this work to be in the “in” club only to find out it’s ALL the “in” club, is it? And those gender role stereotypes come heavily into play in the church, even when we think we’re being forward minded.

What if we were able to see the beauty and relief of gray?

What if we focused on the coolness a shadow provides after the burning rays of the sun?

What if we admired the texture of an elephant’s skin instead of criticizing it for being less vibrantly colored than an exotic bird?

What if we valued the creative process of expression that produced that marbled mix of all colors when a child finished with that clay, instead of painstakingly separating out the colors and returning them to their yellow containers with corresponding lids?

It seems that some people feel that to not know the answer to a difficult question is indicative of not knowing the answers to any questions, and this inhibits them from seeing an opportunity to learn more or reexamine long-held suppositions. It makes people more uncomfortable to sit with the question than it does to spit out an answer they haven’t thought about in years.

What if we were okay with the question, even if that left us in the gray?

Lots and lots of questions here today, but I’m going to be bold and ask one more: what is your take on this? There, I did it. That was just one more. I’m a woman of my word. 🙂

Medicine is a Practice

20
Apr

The following is a letter sent to me by a friend I’ve known for more than twenty years. After I read it, I asked her permission to post it here for Medical Monday. It’s a honest perspective from someone in the medical field who has walked alongside people in some of their most vulnerable moments. The only edits I made were in paragraph breaks so it would be easier to read on a screen.

Thank you, Kris, for your friendship and for allowing us to hear how your experience with your dad shaped the course of your life.

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TC,

I was so sorry to hear that your child has been diagnosed with diabetes. Not because I don’t think that you can handle it, just that it is a long road and must seem quite overwhelming after just losing your dad.

I work in Medicine, the practice of medicine and although we wish we had all the cures there are some things that we can only help, not cure. As I am sure you recall, my dad had a seizure when I was in 8th grade. It changed our family forever. Dad was no longer a larger than life person, he was mortal, frail and they said he could die at any time. Living with death knocking at our door became a horrible reality as we watched him, waiting for the next big something that would take his heart out completely after the first episode had weakened his heart so severely.

He lived, and I do not pretend that I have been through the grief that you have had to bear, however knowing someone close to you can go at any time….. well it shook my whole world.

I had no safety net.

I had no place to curl in the security of this world.

I had to lean into the eternal. I had to look at what does last, knowing every breath could be our last. It was a horrible and wonderful place all at the same time. Those moments, days, months, years of waiting to see if my dad would live created a hunger for the eternal. They created a place in me that hoped to help others as they live with things nobody can cure. They created a space inside that hungers only for what really matters and what will truly last forever.

I work with bodies, broken bodies. Ailing health and diagnosis that don’t become a distant memory, however in the midst of all that tragedy the light of the eternal shines bright. The hope that we are not home yet, and as my daughter said yesterday, there won’t be anybody crying in heaven. No more pain, no more sorrow. The Lord that we cannot fully understand sent his Son to die so that we could have an eternity with no more pain. I live my life in medicine in hopes that I can always give a glimpse of what really matters to the patients I see. I take care of ailing bodies hoping they know the One that will make them whole and complete. I try to be joyful, but I cry a lot with those who mourn and those who have broken spirits. The fact that God loved us enough to save us by sending His son to die, that hits home so much more when you have lost someone close to you.

So in honor of medical Mondays, I say medicine is a practice, and we are all on the same team. Trying to help as much as we can and yet remembering that on our knees is where the real help comes. Medicine is wonderful, however God is always in control. So thankful that He is a God that loves us, even if we don’t always understand.

Love you friend, keep clinging to Jesus. -Kris

Hard Skin and Dragon Scales

27
Mar

I previously shared this on the Story Sessions website, which is no longer active…so I thought I’d share it here. Hope you find something in it that encourages you.

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“I was just going to say that I couldn’t undress because I hadn’t any clothes on when I suddenly thought that dragons are snaky sort of things and snakes can cast their skins. Oh, of course, thought I, that’s what the lion means. So I started scratching myself and my scales began coming off all over the place. And then I scratched a little deeper and, instead of just scales coming off here and there, my whole skin started peeling off beautifully, like it does after an illness, or as if I was a banana. In a minute or two I just stepped out of it. I could see it lying there beside me, looking rather nasty. It was a most lovely feeling. So I started to go down into the well for my bathe. […]

“Well, exactly the same thing happened again. And I thought to myself, oh dear, how ever many skins have I got to take off? For I was longing to bathe my leg. So I scratched away for the third time and got off a third skin, just like the two others, and stepped out of it. But as soon as I looked at myself in the water I knew it had been no good.

“The lion said—but I don’t know if it spoke—‘You will have to let me undress you,’ I was afraid of his claws, I can tell you, but I was pretty nearly desperate now. So I just lay flat down on my back to let him do it.

“The very first tear he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart. And when he began pulling the skin off, it hurt worse than anything I’ve ever felt. The only thing that made me able to bear it was just the pleasure of feeling the stuff peel off. You know—if you’ve ever picked the scab of a sore place. It hurts like billy-oh but it is such fun to see it coming away.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” said Edmund.

“Well, he peeled the beastly stuff right off—just as I thought I’d done it myself the other three times, only they hadn’t hurt—and there it was lying on the grass: only ever so much thicker, and darker, and more knobbly-looking than the others had been. And there was I as smooth and soft as a peeled switch and smaller than I had been. Then he caught hold of me—I didn’t like that much for I was very tender underneath now that I’d no skin on—and threw me into the water. It smarted like anything but only for a moment. After that it became perfectly delicious and as soon as I started swimming and splashing I found that all the pain had gone from my arm. And then I saw why. I’d turned into a boy again. You’d think me simply phony if I told you how I felt about my own arms. I know they’ve no muscle and are pretty mouldy compared with Caspian’s, but I was so glad to see them.

“After a bit the lion took me out and dressed me—”

“Dressed you. With his paws?”

“Well, I don’t exactly remember that bit. But he did somehow or other: in new clothes—the same I’ve got on now, as a matter of fact. And then suddenly I was back here. Which is what makes me think it must have been a dream.”

“No. It wasn’t a dream,” said Edmund.

“Why not?”

“Well, there are the clothes, for one thing. And you have been—well, un-dragoned, for another.”

“What do you think it was, then?” asked Eustace.

“I think you’ve seen Aslan,” said Edmund.

~Excerpt from Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis

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There was a period of my life when I wore an extra skin emotionally as if it was heavy chainmail or a coat of dragon scales.

It was knobby, thick, suspicious, sarcastic, and dismissive.

I grew this layer of protection over time. The barrages of arrows whose poisoned tips bore insults hedged as jokes about my body, necessitated this thick skin – the arrows didn’t hurt as much when they met hard scales. Snide comments about my lack of intelligence or critical thinking skills couldn’t meet their mark when repelled by bony skin. The repeated defense of my family’s expectations or my role as the pastor’s daughter, the constant sense of being different than everyone else, called “weird” for my sense of humor or mocked for my vocabulary, these things built layer upon layer of cartilage armor.

I was quick with a joke or a biting comment, even if it was about me – better to be aware of my weakness than to let others announce it.

I became skilled at assuming the twist of a statement, rather than believing it was said straight. It made me paranoid about what any sentence meant.

I grew weary with the analyzing, stony in the silence I adopted rather than open myself to hurtful responses that were bound to come, should I offer the opportunity.

Any gentleness I once had slowly shrunk and hardened until it was only a pebble.

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In the excerpt above, Eustace’s dragon scales are the result of greed and selfishness.

My scales were the result of a perceived need for self-preservation and protection.

The image has returned to me time upon time, the image of scraping away dragon scales, peeling them back as a snake slips its skin. The effort of learning a new way to relate to the world, the hard work of retraining my brain synapses so messages wouldn’t travel the same well-worn canyons, and the strain of finding new thought patterns felt like ripping off layers. I worked to allow myself to believe the compliment that came from the lips of the one I loved, rather than hearing its reverse, and the awareness that the former was still my first response, felt like Eustace when he thought he had scratched away the dragon skin, only to discover he was still wearing it. Try as I might, my best efforts only removed the outside layers with no impact on those that were thicker, those that were deeper.

There comes a point when, if we want real change, we have to admit we can’t do it ourselves.

We have to lie down in the grass and allow Aslan to undress us.

It feels vulnerable and intimate.

It feels defenseless.

It feels like a death.

And it can hurt like a bitch.

While we lie there, letting our defenses be stripped away, we might feel like we’d rather continue wearing the dragon skin, except for the sublime gratification that comes with the removal of it, like peeling a long strip of wallpaper after you’ve been laboring and only getting scraps, or the feeling of finally getting all the snarls out of your daughter’s beautiful long hair so you can drag the comb through it unhindered. We become our truer selves, closer to our clearest essence, unhindered by the bulky armor we accumulated. Only once it is removed are we released to feel earth on flesh, breeze on face, and warmth of embrace.

It is only once our dragon scales are removed that we learn the strength of being vulnerable, the confidence that undergirds gentleness and the freedom that comes when we are our most unfettered selves.

2 Corinthians 3:17-18 (NKJV) “17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.”

Legitimate Journeys

20
Mar

There are people who are solid in much of what they do. They have a plan, they stick with it. They don’t question the “why” of things, and they are content. Their journey is sincere, their faith is genuine, and they’re dedicated, upstanding members of their communities and their lives. That journey is a legitimate journey.

I’m realizing I might not ever be one of those people.

Instagram: tclmn

That’s not to say I’m the opposite of them. I’m also sincere and genuine. However, it appears that my journey might look much different than theirs, specifically my journey of faith. My faith is real even if it’s messy, and I must work to affirm that my journey is also legitimate. It takes a certain amount of vulnerability and willingness to admit that I’m more like “one of these kids is doing their own thing” as the PBS show used to sing. I don’t know that I aspire to become more like the non-questioning-types, but I just sort of assumed it would eventually happen, that maybe along with maturity or a certain number of years I’d mellow into a version of myself that’s closer to them. I’ve long known there are seasons of faith, times of drought and times of plenty, and that over the course of a lifetime a person will see ebbs and flows. I just thought I’d out grow the tendency to ask why.

Let’s just say, It ain’t happening.

It appears that I am born to question, to wrestle, to see inconsistencies between what was said and what was then implemented, to be able to hear Christian-ese even though I’m steeped in it. It’s not something I try to feed. I try to be careful to not base my worth or identity on going against the stream. It’s just something that keeps coming up.

It’s like when you suddenly become aware of a beeping coming from another room of the house when you’re trying to have a conversation with someone. You can’t NOT hear it until you break off your conversation and investigate the beeping (and in this example, turn it off).

It seems my ear may be tuned to the beeping question why.

It also makes me wonder if other people can hear it, and are just trying to act like they hear nothing.

Can you recognize different seasons of faith in your life? What season are you in right now, and how can you tell? What questions do you find yourself asking when it comes to matters of faith?

Keep your Head

8
Feb

Instagram: @tclmn

This is a season for keeping my head down, for putting one foot in front of the other and getting done what needs doing.

It’s a time of prioritizing, and if you come over and the house looks a shambles, then know that I decided something else should get the attention.

If your phone hasn’t been showing my number calling you, it’s nothing personal; it’s that other people had to come first.

The ring grows tighter, and it now only accommodates a small number of people, but those people’s needs have ballooned, filling the ring until there’s very little space to move about.

You can’t see more than the crown of my head as I lumber along with my eyes to the path, not looking left or right, eyes to the ground so I don’t misstep or get distracted from my top priorities by the allure of rest or levity or abstract thought. This is a time for focus, days broken into bits, formulas and ratios, numbers numbers numbers.

It won’t always be like this.

This will stabilize. This will alleviate. The intensity will subside and when that happens I will lift my head up and take in the sights around me.

For now I must keep my head down, because that’s what must be done to keep my head.

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It’s not Friday, I know, but this is a link-up with Five Minute Friday and Kate Motaung. You can find out all about it here along with reading some of the other posts. I’d welcome your comments, specifically about times when you’ve just had to keep your head down and do the thing that needed doing.

In the meantime, this is a good, on-topic song with a fun video you might enjoy — I did. http://youtu.be/ADP65wbBUpc

If this is God’s economy, I might want to go Off-Grid

20
Jan

The kingdom of heaven is a flurry of paradoxes. Paradoxi? Paradeux? Anyway, multiple instances of a paradox, such as:

Lose your life to gain it.
Become like a little child as an adult.
The last shall be first.

These things don’t make a lot of sense until they are exemplified by Jesus, and then they become clearer. Even then, it takes a long time and many occasions of re-learning to figure how they work themselves out in our own lives.

Here’s one that gets some air time as people grow up in the church:

“I have told you these things so that in me you will have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

From this and from the church tradition I come from, we are taught to expect challenges, persecution, disappointments, and other stuff-of-life. We are also taught to remember that ultimately these present circumstances are conquerable, or at least we can endure through hardships, because Jesus lived through life and ultimately overcame death. We don’t go through these things alone, because the Holy Spirit, The Comforter, walks alongside us.

We’re taught that because Jesus’ turned on its ear the natural sequence of things (i.e. dead and you stay dead) that means He can help us overcome any circumstance we’re facing. If Jesus overcame death, then we don’t even need to trouble ourselves with worrying about anything as severe as that (which is really supposed to be a minor hiccup in the overall journey of our souls if we have “dealt with our salvation”), much less anything smaller in scope.

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As part of the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew 5:45 Jesus says that God “causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.” It’s stated in the context of loving one’s enemies, a.k.a. out-loving pagans and tax collectors who love the people who love them and greet their own people.

In my own church tradition, this passage has been used to focus on loving those who are hard to love, rather than focusing on provision in the natural order being given to people who are unjust. ‘Cause really, who wants to think about nice things being given to mean people? Sometimes the question comes up, “why do good things happen to bad people?” but we like to gloss over that one with the assumption they’re cheating the system somehow, they’ll prosper in this life but pay for it eventually. This justice system is supposed to cut short the question, and somehow people are left to almost hope the jerks DON’T end up following Jesus because then they will have double cheated the system, a “they’ll get theirs eventually” mentality. Sick huh?

And yet, the recurring question people often have is: “Why do bad things happen to good people?” The answer given is, often citing the book of Job, is “Who do we think we are to question God’s decisions?” or “Why not?”

I’ll tell you why not, and I bet quite a few other people can tell you why not as well.

Because it seems to me that while God doesn’t “owe” any human anything, it wouldn’t hurt the balance of the universe to throw a bone to someone who has actively worked to advance the Kingdom for his entire adult life.

It would be a rad miracle if a committed follower of God would be healed and that miracle could further the faith of others, being able to be sited as evidence of God’s provision for the people who serve Him well.

Because in a world filled with corruption, abuse, manipulation and malice, a person who is free from those things is a keeper, someone who’s existence you want to prolong.

That’s why not.

Or, if you’d rather, lets step back from the long goodbye and work with something serious but less “complete” — say, chronic illness.

How is it that God can’t see His way to giving a pass to people who love Him, people who are innocent, people who are young, people who maybe made some mistakes but admitted it and got things cleaned up, figured out, squared away?

How is it that a person who is doing their best to live right and follow God is allowed to suffer?

Or if you’d like, zoom out even further. How can it be that groups inflict horrific abuses against other people, who’s only “crime” is not believing the same things as their oppressors? Who’s only disobedience is wanting to go to school and learn to read regardless of gender or age? Who’s only “offense” is being born with a certain skin color? Why are these people allowed to be attacked, afflicted, and abused in ways my heart can’t begin to imagine possible?

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Provided by Death to Stock Photos

If this is God’s economy, I want to go off-grid. If this is the way God protects the innocent, then who needs that type of anti-protection? If this is the way God sets the world a-turning and then sits on His anthropomorphic hands, then how can a person in good conscience worship such a God?

It’s a crisis.

It’s a questioning of everything you’ve up-until-now taken as true.

It’s an untethering from the shore you thought to be solid, a setting adrift into a lonely ocean filled with perils. And the place you left for the Holy Spirit to accompany you because that’s what you were assured, that place remains empty.

We are tested to our breaking point. We are pushed past our own endurance. We are asked to remain faithful in the face of all the evidence showing us that it’s a one-sided contract.

And yet…

My heart turns to prayer. Instinctively. Without stopping to reason out whether it makes sense or not. Without asking if it actually “changes things” like the old bumper stickers claimed. Is this a result of long-term conditioning or genuine spiritual instincts? Am I so desperate that in order to not do nothing I return to prayer even if it’s prayer to a God that’s got me spittin’ mad?

There’s no good answer. My faith is so entwined with my life that even when I’m mad, doubting, or complacent my posture continues to be turned towards Jesus. In spite of myself, when I am ready to wash my hands of big-g God, I want to still work something out with Jesus. Somehow I feel that He gets it, that He can make it clear to the Father, between Jesus and the Holy Spirit they can make God come around and DO SOMETHING. Maybe it won’t be something for me specifically, in fact I’m coming to realize it probably WON’T be for me. But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. That doesn’t mean that Good can’t still act and act swiftly. Somewhere in our collective subconscious, we still hear God’s whispers of hope and kindness, even on a small scale, within our own circles of influence.

So I won’t go totally off-grid, not yet. I will wrestle with God and faith and be as honest as I can about how crappy everything seems, because God can handle that. God can handle me, in all my contrary, questioning, fight-picking. And believe me, if He can handle me, I’m 100% sure He can handle you.

Do questions like these make you want to duck for cover? Does your faith allow for questioning or doubts? What do you do when life doesn’t line up with the beliefs you’ve held for a long time? I’d love to hear some of your story in the comments.