today i got up just before the sun to talk to God. there was a beautiful sky, the coming light. the changing from night to day. He is all about new beginnings in a real and deep way. i know that. and if i get up early enough, He reminds me. it's so worth it.
as i sat out on the porch, alone, watching the day begin, i truly felt nothing but joy. i had no great reason, just the moment itself. cool air. the fading darkness. the early light.
and i listened to that transition and i heard: "God doesn't make mistakes". He doesn't make mistakes. i sat with that for a while to be sure i believed it, because that's huge. i mean it has ramifications.
it's opening a can of worms about suffering and why God allows it and is it His will or not and what kind of a God would... to which i say i don't fully know. but what i'm pretty sure about is that we are put on earth to find God. and when we find God and i mean really find God - like we want to sit and have a conversation with Him/Her, not like we decide to go to church, not like when we find religion - when we find God and begin to know and trust Him, we find Joy.
but we don't have to. by all means it's our choice. we can try to make our own way and generate our own version of happiness. which people do all the time, successfully, but i think God has so much more for us. we can be really busy at doing many other things- like working hard and sacrificing things for that, like making money and enjoying that, like focusing on our relationships, like traveling and building things and making things and reading and writing things. good things. all the parts of our life can distract us from finding God, or they can be used to point us to God. the things in our life are not bad. but if the main purpose on earth is to find and know God, the paths that take us through suffering are part of that and they are often a more direct route.
i don't think God meant it like how we think of it. i don't think God wants us to suffer and come crawling to Him. i certainly don't think suffering is anything related to a punishment. sometimes we suffer because of the natural consequences of our choices, but often suffering is random, or because of someone else's choices.
God didn't fall asleep when Zoe was conceived. He knit her together in my womb and she is fearfully and wonderfully made- with her scoliosis and her sprengels shoulder and her autism- because God is so much bigger than our little made-to-last-80-years bodies. He made me with a straight back and even shoulders and a neuro-typical brain, and a great need for attention and affection and a tendency to be secretly selfish, and a great many other struggles. mine are just invisible.
so much of life is about avoiding suffering at all costs. i get that. do i wish for zoe that her world could be easier? that she didn't have a limp? that she understood facial expressions? yes. but i wouldn't change her because i am small and only see so far. because i'm often wrong. because i don't know in this great spinning world the potential importance of her challenges for her path to God, or mine, or anyone else's, maybe yours.
what about the most vile of crimes? does God allow those? yes. because people have choice and people hurt other people and we should do everything in our power to prevent and protect. can God heal the deep wounds from those crimes? yes. fully. with the tears that He cries while holding us in our pain. does God love the person who inflicted those wounds? yes. fully. as unfathomable as it seems He can't help Himself, as i would love my most broken child at their worst.
what about illness? why does God allow that? in a child? a young parent? i don't know why except that sometimes we don't make it to 80, we all end. the great suffering that comes from that? i think it breaks God's heart too. but He doesn't avoid it, He joins us in it. and i have felt His tears and arms when i've walked though some of this suffering.
sometimes our best intentioned responses to potential suffering can move our paths away from His plan and make it harder to find God. when i was pregnant with jude and things looked very bleak, that he would be severely handicapped, many people mentioned abortion. it was their best intentioned response to help us avoid suffering. yet i would have missed encountering God in a powerful way- during the dark days that followed. i would have missed the opportunity to see miracle. my world would have gotten a bit smaller, a bit more controlled, a bit less about the mystery. and with out a jude.
when we open ourselves up to suffering we open ourselves to experiencing things beyond us. we gain a perspective that is only from the privilege of loss. when we die all our small deaths, of unmet expectations and dreams lost, we free ourselves to see a much bigger world. blinders come off and what kept us tethered or treading water in our understanding of what's important, changes.
from that place i can thank Him for all of life. from a place of trust and some personal experience, i can say thank you even for hard things, because i know God doesn't make mistakes.
as i sat out on the porch, alone, watching the day begin, i truly felt nothing but joy. i had no great reason, just the moment itself. cool air. the fading darkness. the early light.
and i listened to that transition and i heard: "God doesn't make mistakes". He doesn't make mistakes. i sat with that for a while to be sure i believed it, because that's huge. i mean it has ramifications.
it's opening a can of worms about suffering and why God allows it and is it His will or not and what kind of a God would... to which i say i don't fully know. but what i'm pretty sure about is that we are put on earth to find God. and when we find God and i mean really find God - like we want to sit and have a conversation with Him/Her, not like we decide to go to church, not like when we find religion - when we find God and begin to know and trust Him, we find Joy.
but we don't have to. by all means it's our choice. we can try to make our own way and generate our own version of happiness. which people do all the time, successfully, but i think God has so much more for us. we can be really busy at doing many other things- like working hard and sacrificing things for that, like making money and enjoying that, like focusing on our relationships, like traveling and building things and making things and reading and writing things. good things. all the parts of our life can distract us from finding God, or they can be used to point us to God. the things in our life are not bad. but if the main purpose on earth is to find and know God, the paths that take us through suffering are part of that and they are often a more direct route.
i don't think God meant it like how we think of it. i don't think God wants us to suffer and come crawling to Him. i certainly don't think suffering is anything related to a punishment. sometimes we suffer because of the natural consequences of our choices, but often suffering is random, or because of someone else's choices.
God didn't fall asleep when Zoe was conceived. He knit her together in my womb and she is fearfully and wonderfully made- with her scoliosis and her sprengels shoulder and her autism- because God is so much bigger than our little made-to-last-80-years bodies. He made me with a straight back and even shoulders and a neuro-typical brain, and a great need for attention and affection and a tendency to be secretly selfish, and a great many other struggles. mine are just invisible.
so much of life is about avoiding suffering at all costs. i get that. do i wish for zoe that her world could be easier? that she didn't have a limp? that she understood facial expressions? yes. but i wouldn't change her because i am small and only see so far. because i'm often wrong. because i don't know in this great spinning world the potential importance of her challenges for her path to God, or mine, or anyone else's, maybe yours.
what about the most vile of crimes? does God allow those? yes. because people have choice and people hurt other people and we should do everything in our power to prevent and protect. can God heal the deep wounds from those crimes? yes. fully. with the tears that He cries while holding us in our pain. does God love the person who inflicted those wounds? yes. fully. as unfathomable as it seems He can't help Himself, as i would love my most broken child at their worst.
what about illness? why does God allow that? in a child? a young parent? i don't know why except that sometimes we don't make it to 80, we all end. the great suffering that comes from that? i think it breaks God's heart too. but He doesn't avoid it, He joins us in it. and i have felt His tears and arms when i've walked though some of this suffering.
sometimes our best intentioned responses to potential suffering can move our paths away from His plan and make it harder to find God. when i was pregnant with jude and things looked very bleak, that he would be severely handicapped, many people mentioned abortion. it was their best intentioned response to help us avoid suffering. yet i would have missed encountering God in a powerful way- during the dark days that followed. i would have missed the opportunity to see miracle. my world would have gotten a bit smaller, a bit more controlled, a bit less about the mystery. and with out a jude.
when we open ourselves up to suffering we open ourselves to experiencing things beyond us. we gain a perspective that is only from the privilege of loss. when we die all our small deaths, of unmet expectations and dreams lost, we free ourselves to see a much bigger world. blinders come off and what kept us tethered or treading water in our understanding of what's important, changes.
from that place i can thank Him for all of life. from a place of trust and some personal experience, i can say thank you even for hard things, because i know God doesn't make mistakes.
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