O Ye of little faith...

In my last blog I wondered aloud if we “the saints of God”  stuff some of our emotions as we are afraid they will reflect badly on God.  Now I am sure there were a few of you solid to the core and steadfast saints who were thinking…”no she is worried it will reflect badly on her, and she should not be blaming God for her immaturity... O Ye of little faith”.  Not to worry I was not offended by your silence,  I hope you were not offended by my thinking out loud.  I have tossed this idea around for a few days and I am still wondering if we are doing ourselves and others in the body  of Christ a disservice by not dealing with this issue more openly.  I by no means want to imply I have a solution to this enormous problem but maybe if just a few of us “saints” admitted aloud this simply truth... our heart, mind and spirit don’t always line up at the same time every time something bad happens in our world and sing hallelujah... maybe we could spare a few new believers  some unnecessary  pain and condemnation.  Being a woman who was never afraid of causing drama in her past  (rather enjoyed it at times to be honest) I am going to blog about this a little more so here are a few of my thoughts on the subject. The one verse I have most often pondered on in the last 8 months is  Job 13:15

“ Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. Nevertheless I will argue my ways before Him.”

 We who have been around the “church” for more than a minute have heard this great statement of faith. We mutter it under our breath in our moments of personal disaster, we chant it as if the longer we say it, we will instantly feel the same way (a poof of insta faith for you and me), we even use it as some kind of  prayer when dealing with difficult people.  But do we really have a true concept of what suffering is on the level of what Job experienced?  I don’t believe until you have experienced the loss of a child or a  beloved spouse do you even come close to understanding his anguish,  loss of this kind is the most personal of losses.  I  also believe we miss a BIG step in the process  of how Job went from his loss to the  moment of being able to utter this great statement of absolute faith and hope in God.  The first 11 or so chapters of Job consist of God giving Job over to the devil for testing, Job’s loss, his despair, depression, questions of why God why and his loving friends explaining to him how he somehow must have brought this on himself.   It isn’t until we get to Chapter 12 that Job really starts coming to a place of understanding that God is still God and finally in Chapter 13 he is able to declare in the mist of his disaster his faith and hope in this God who has let the devil have his way with him. Go read it for yourself… I personally was blown away.  If  Job took a few days or 13 Chapters to get to this place why are we as the body of Christ afraid to admit even for a second we have moments where we like Job say: 

For what I fear comes upon me, And what I dread befalls me. “I am not at ease, nor am I quiet, And I am not at rest, but turmoil comes.” (Job 3:25-26)

“Therefore I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. (Job7:11)

“Have I sinned? What have I done to You, O watcher of men? Why have You set me as Your target,

So that I am a burden to myself? (Job 7:20)

I want to think I am special and one of a kind, but even my ego is not big enough to think that I am the only one who has felt  this way.  I know I am not the first women who has lost her husband in the prime of their lives and didn’t lay down and say okay God now what; and EXCUSE ME, but don’t You think this is just a bit unfair!  Does this make me an immature believer?  A faithless child of God? A backslider?  Or a threat to the body of Christ in general?  No I think it shows I am just what I am… a woman who loved her husband and misses him. I heard something shortly after losing my husband… “what do you do when your circumstances do not line up  with your theology? You need to stop asking God why and start asking where is He in your circumstance.”  I think this is what Job did and I think it is what I am doing as strange as it may appear to some.   I am not afraid to ask why or where, no more than I believe HE is afraid of the question.  I like Job have come to a place of trusting that though HE may slay me I will trust HIM, the GREAT I AM. HE  is big enough to handle my hurt and love me (and not slay me)  just as I am even when I dare question HIM. I am thinking ole Job knew that as well!  I think that we as the body in general may fear such honest questioning of God because we don’t have the answers in the natural to fix such anguish.  We on some level are still unable to wrap our finite minds around an  infinite God that can handle not only the questions, the anguish, and the feeling of betrayal yet still be able and willing to love and heal that very anguish and then use that same child to pass the lesson on to others just as He used Job to pass it on to us!

Things that make me go………. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM! 

There are going to be bad days!

There  are going to be bad days… there is no other way to say it.  One thing I have learned in dealing with cancer and losing my husband is that there are going to be bad days.  I had one of those days today… I have lost a lot in the last year and it appears that the loses are not done just yet.  I have spewed my emotional hurt and ugliness all over fb and then I tried to turn it into some type of lesson for others to learn from. But the simple truth is… I had a bad day.  Grief is funny like that it will not fit into a neat little time frame, a certain outline or even into one’s own theology at times.  It just is what it is… unreasonable pain because of the loss of a loved one.  In my case the loss of my soul mate and the gentlest / strongest man I ever met.   I have many issues in my life at the moment I have no control of  and the one person who I always depended on to help me walk through the unknown with is now gone and I feel so alone.  I call around looking for answers from friends and family, yet none of the answers I hear satisfy the hole in my heart… because it is not what I am really looking for.  What I am looking for I can longer have on this earth… his laugh to ease my way, his smile to tell me even in messes of my own creation I am loved, his hand to hold in the dark that reassures me even when it appears the whole world has gone to hell in a hand basket I am not alone.  I heard something earlier this evening that messed with my own theology… “give it to God be quiet and wait for Him to move.” Sound advice… advice I have given in the past, but here is the dilemma… I am a wounded woman who has just lost her husband and I have forgotten temporary how to trust.  Grief will do that to you… many a mature saint may never admit it but I can’t believe I am the only woman who has ever yelled her feeling of betrayal out to God after the loss of her husband way sooner than she had planned.  I have lost my place in this world… I am no longer his wife, I am now his widow… but each morning I wake still feeling as if I am a wife yet the man I want to be a wife to is now in Heaven and my heart breaks a new.  I fully expected to grow old with my Bobby…not grow old missing him.  We were supposed to grow old together, so old that one day the kids would have to take us out on our annual fishing trip to Natchez Trace.  Now I feel as if I will never be able to go fishing again for fear of the pain of missing him it will bring. All the assurances of it will be okay, it will get better don’t always penetrate the fog of pain that surrounds my heart. Did I mention there are going to be bad days. There are no words to wrap around how it feels… each person is different in how they deal with their grief; but I am going to bet even the most mature of the mature saints have bad days.  Sadly I wonder if we are so afraid it will reflect badly on God that we just stuff it instead of owning it for what it is.  Funny thing is the Word clearly says… there will be trials and tribulations… so where is the line between just spewing and being honest about our emotions?  I am trying to find the line even in the mist of the bad days…. I still have a deep desire to know I am not too far away from my Father’s will for my life even on the days I am not sure how much I trust Him.  Maybe just maybe the admitting of my lack will help me better see the way in this new season of my life!  My heart doesn’t understand… but my spirit still cries out to trust You Lord!