This week has been rough in many ways. So much tragedy has gone on and it breaks my heart. I am reminded of my post Emotional Hockey by Moonlight, how I was at a loss for words. Today I have to speak up. I have read many articles and blog posts by people speaking out on current events and the vicious responses by those who disagree. But I still must speak.
I don’t want to join in all the political hoopla so this post is not about that. Nor do I have any desire to join all the fighting about whose lives matter and why we should or should not jump on that wagon. So this post is not about that. I don’t feel I have value to add to those issues.
My heart is breaking for things that are of a more personal, every day in your face kind of thing. The kind of thing where you either know the people personally or know someone who does, or it is in the headlines of the free local newspaper. The stuff that is more in our own space. Things like the headline about a twenty-one-year-old young lady in my city that died of bacterial meningitis. Things like a friend of mine with three co-workers enduring tragic losses. One lost her thirty-year-old daughter and two-month-old grand-daughter. The daughter was holding the baby and when she died she slumped over and smothered the baby to death. Another one lost her four-year-old son. And the other lost her thirteen-year-old son to suicide.
Awful
Awful
Awful
It is a time to weep!
When these types of things happen people often ask “Why did God let that happen??”
I have asked that question myself in the past. In fact, I have actually blamed God for many things – like the death of my grandmother. I prayed and she died and I blamed God. I was only 13. I was so mad. I was so hurt. Why didn’t he listen to me pleading for her life? Why did he take her away from me? I needed her!!
Questions. Questions. Questions.
Many years have passed since then. I have passed through a time in my life when seeking those answers took me on a journey trying to prove God didn’t even exist because I was so mad at him. I failed in my quest. Like a child who is throwing a tantrum out of pain and grief hits whoever is trying to comfort them until they lose their strength and fall into the comforters arms, I attacked God. Until I fell and he caught me. I still didn’t have the answers I wanted so badly but I had something I had previously lost. Hope. I had a ray of light in front of me coaxing me and wooing me. There were many dark things in my life that hindered me from seeing what God was trying to show me. But when I focused on the light I could continue to breathe, continue to hope. It took a long time. Trust came hard. I have a strong skeptical streak in me.
Why did God let my grandma die? I still do not know. But this I DO know – God did not murder my gramma as I had accused him of. No God did not do that!! He didn’t have a contract out on her head. He didn’t say “times up – gotta come home now”. He didn’t need a flower in his garden. He didn’t turn her into an angel. Nope, I don’t believe that. The Bible says that people are destroyed due to lack of knowledge. I believe there are things that I do not know that could have allowed her to live longer – but – I didn’t and still don’t know them. I cannot go back in time. I can take what I have and learn and go forward and try to help others in pain.
Some people like to say in response to tragedy that “God has a plan”. Some people enduring the pain say it themselves. They say it helps them. I am glad it helps them. It does not help me. Although I also believe that God has plans, I do not believe that his plans include 21-year-olds dying, 30-year-olds dying, babies dying…etc. I believe what the Bible says about Gods plans – that they are to prosper us and not to harm us, to give us hope and a future.
So when things go horribly wrong I may not understand, but I believe God is not the problem. To the contrary, I believe he has the hope, comfort, and plan for recovery that we all so desperately need. When we believe that the one who is supposed to be helping us is the one who is hurting us there is only pain. I lived there for a long time. I have moved. I still have more questions than answers. But now I have trust.
A man once came to Mother Teresa and asked for prayer. She asked him what he wanted her to pray for. He said clarity. She said no. He responded that he thought she had clarity and he wanted it also, so why wouldn’t she pray for him to have it too. This is what she said:
“I have never had clarity;
what I have always had was trust. I will pray for you to trust God”
Mother Teresa
Have you dealt with these questions? Do you feel you have answers?
What do YOU believe?
Please share your thoughts in the comments.
Wow, Danielle, this is very powerful, very clearly written, and very insightful. This is a point-of-view that I don’t think I’ve ever heard before – and what surprises me is that I agree with you. I don’t think those things are part of His plan, but I do believe that when they happen, He is with us, will help us live through it, and will continue His plans for us despite it.
This is a question I’ve been asked many times before (I’ve even asked it myself), And I never know how to answer, because I don’t believe He murders people, like you said. But I also don’t know the mind of God, so I can’t speak for Him.
This is a truly wonderful fight piece. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you Reagan!
Great post Danielle! It took a lot of courage to share those personal examples. I also appreciate that you have taken a stand. There are many times that I have heard people blame God for things and I have wanted to shout “God didn’t do that”!
Thank you Michael!
Great words of insight Danielle ,love your ministry.
Thank you Glenna!
Outstanding Danielle! Honesty, and heart spoken TRUTH! Thank You!
Clarity! Yes, we must have and require ,”clarity” to our life journey. The world is attacking our every fiber in which we ” Trust”; therefore that confirms we must TRUST & OBEY God alone.The devil wouldn’t fight so hard for us to loose that Trust!
Listen to your small still voice inside and our Father God will guide you. Jeremiah 29:11 ” For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, ” plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and future”.
Now is not the time to react to the ways of the world. We must Pause, Process, and Pray for God to lead us.
Be blessed Everyday,
Ruth
Thank you Ruth. Although I would like to have clarity in my journey I find it mostly lacking. I have come to understand that if I choose to believe in a God that claims to be “eternal” then my finite mind is too small to hold the clarity I so desire. Therefore the need of trust. But we cannot truly trust someone we believe is doing random acts of violence against us. Hence my post. Thank you again!!
So beautifully written, and yes I as well have asked and been asked that very question many times….although I do not have full understanding.. I KNOW God is Love, and I have faith and trust and believe in Him and his goodness. Thank you for sharing your heart!
Thank you Christy.
Interesting that last night we watched a movie that had a similar concept. The man explains: when you pray for courage God gives your the opportunity to be courageous and when you ask for strength god gives you the opportunity to See your strength. So many questions, so many theories. My theory is that if you can trust you can have peace. I do my best to trust. Thanks for your invite.
Thank you Nay. “If you can trust you can have peace” LOVE it!!!
Anyone who has been raised with tales of gods or God passed down to them by their culture, their parents, and/or their peers has at one time or another likely asked themselves the questions you pose here. When I held such beliefs, I did, and I know many others who have as well. It has been 22 years since I put aside such beliefs and rested in not knowing. Although, I am in strong agreement with your conclusion, that deities or a deity is not to blame, my reasoning differs from yours.
You asked, “What do YOU believe?” Here goes: I believe everything that lives dies – with the possible exception of tardigrades. There are no guarantees for another breath of air, let alone a long life. This reality has led me to the conclusion that life is beautiful. What makes it so is its finite quality.
Mourning, grief and bereavement are evidences of our love for the deceased, they remind us of our mortality – that we have an end – and they are evidences of this truth…that life is beautiful.
Thank you for sharing. I appreciate your honesty. I wholeheartedly agree that life is beautiful and that grief is evidence of love. I have these 2 quotes in my Ebook A Bird Named Payn:
“Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.”
Earl Grollman
“Grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief there was great love.”
Unknown
Also – I had to google tardigrades – thanks for the new word in my vocabulary! ;o)
Very well said! I believe that God USES everything we go through for our good.
Thank you Sherri. I agree. He wastes nothing. I have often thought of how Rumplestiltskin spun straw into gold, God can take awful things in our lives and make them beyond useful – when we hand them to him to do so. That is where the trust comes in.
Such a wonderful post Danielle. I can so identify with so much of what you have written. I have had both tragedy and trauma befall me in my lifetime and I too once blamed God. I never blamed Him for causing it – but for not stopping it!
I have learned that I am asking the wrong question when I ask “Why?” Instead I have learned to ask What? And How? What do you want me to learn from this? How can I use it to grow and to help others?
I also believe that God is ALL GOOD and he wants nothing more than goodness for His Children.
I also believe that since the fall recorded in the book of Genesis we now live in world filled with sin,
pain, heartache, brokenness,sickness and death. This is the reality of the fallen world we live in.
But the other side of that reality is that God sent Jesus to pay our sin debt and to give us hope and a future – not one without pain – but in spite of the pain.
I have and continue to learn that God is not the author of pain and heartbreak but rather is walking along with us through it. It is a difficult journey but one that we don’t walk alone – He is with us! And he provides others to walk with us.
Thank you for being one of those willing to walk alongside others and encourage them in their journeys – such a needed and wonderful gift – far better than the platitudes that some give so easily as answers to questions they themselves have never faced. Blessings on your journey!
Thank you for sharing Terry. It is indeed wonderful to be able to trust a God that is so in love with us and willing to help us. It took me a long time to see him like that. It makes my heart happy to help others experience The LOVE that Heals. Thank you.