I know that at some point in my life I read the Judy Bloom book about Margaret. I couldn’t tell you what it’s about at ALL. Something about periods? I also think there’s a movie coming out, or maybe it came out already?
BRB — going to go check the google.
OK, it’s about a 12-year-old girl growing up in the 70s in a non-religious home with a nominal Christian parent and a nominal Jewish parent. She prays, but not having grown up with the surety of religion, she begins her prayers with, “Are you there God? It’s me, Margaret.”
I grew up with Jesus being a fact of life. One of my earliest memories is my brother dying three weeks before I turned three, and being told that he was in heaven. Toddler me naturally wanted to visit him, and happily asked Jesus into my heart so that I could see my brother again someday.
My parents ran the youth group at the church we attended when I was a kid, and every Christmas we’d build a replica of the barn where Jesus was born, complete with a manger and all of us in Bethlehem-style costumes circa 3 B.C.
Starting in middle school and through high school, I went to church camp for a week every summer, and every Wednesday night was dedicated to youth group. In high school I was part of the Christian Club, I organized our school’s Meet Me At the Pole, and DC Talk, Jars of Clay, and Newsboys played on repeat on my Sony Discman.
“It wiggled around like marmalade jelly” is seared into my brain forever.
After high school I got swept up in a whirlwind romance with a young man who claimed to be everything I ever wanted in a Godly husband, and got married at 19, in a seminary chapel, no less. I was a STRONG Christian. I had no reason to doubt anything.
In the past 20ish years, I’ve questioned the existence of God many, many times. The most hurt I’ve ever received in my life has been at the hands of so-called Christians. I sat in a church for years that preached that a woman’s most important role in the kingdom was to serve their husbands.
I literally once heard a sermon in which the pastor preached about how special moms were, because they helped their sons get ready for church by finding their socks.
When I stood up for women, I was officially reprimanded by church leadership. They even once had a meeting over whether or not I was “allowed” to keep my free-lance writing job. I laughed in their faces and told them how magnanimous they were when they decided that I’d be allowed to continue publishing my words in exchange for pocket money.
I wasn’t even allowed to leave that church — they excommunicated me in a display so brazen that it would’ve been humiliating if I hadn’t been so over their shit by that point.
The first weekend after I completely turned my life upside down in May 2013, I went to another church I had been wanting to attend for some time. The pastor preached about the all encompassing love of Jesus, and how God preciously held my soul in His hand and washed love over me through the sacrifice of His son. There is now no condemnation for those who belong to Jesus Christ.
I wept. I knew everything would be ok. My faith in the Creator had not been shaken.
Then came the next decade, in which I have begun many, many prayers with, “Are you there God? It’s me, Jenny.” Because why the hell would God pull me out of a bad situation just to throw me into new, unforeseen challenges?
I wrote a few weeks ago about my penchant to bitch and moan like the Israelites who had literally been pulled out of slavery, only to complain that they were thirsty in the desert. Over the past decade, I’ve had some really angry moments at God. How could you do this to me, Lord? Are you even there? How could you be THERE and allow this to happen?
The only reason I have kept coming back to Christianity is because I don’t believe everything came from nothing. There has to be a creator involved somehow. Something had to CREATE the universe and everything in it, at least in my humble opinion. And the only thing that makes sense to me, historically, spiritually, and scripturally is Jesus.
What can I say? Jesus broke all the religious rules and I love me a good rebel. He cared for children, widows, and divorcees, the occupants on the lowest rungs of society at the time. When the Pharisees tried to trick him into looking dumb by asking what the most important commandment was, he clapped back that the first was to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul, and the second was to love your neighbor as yourself.
Even with that knowledge in my head for decades, I’ve struggled, and I’m still struggling now with why God allows bad things to happen.
The only answer I can come up with is that He doesn’t “allow” bad things to happen — but He did give us free will. And there is no amount of love and faith I can have for Jesus that will change the way that some people choose to treat me or my family.
But that love and faith can see me through the hurts.
A running joke between Justin and me is to call “pre-crime” on each other. Remember that movie Minority Report? The three beings in the milky pool would have visions of crimes that were yet to happen, and then Tom Cruise would go arrest them before the crime had been committed.
So I might say something like, “Could you please take the trash out before you forget?” and Justin will say, “Pre-crime!” Or he might ask me to be ready on time for an important event, and I’ll call “pre-crime” on him.
With things being calm and happy in my life right now, I realize that I’ve been pre-criming God a bit. From a human perspective, I get it. The last time I felt this at peace and happy with life was in February 2020, right before the entire world went nuts and my family was one of the ones deeply impacted by the insanity. I keep wondering, “What’s going to go wrong now? What colossal hurt is headed my way?”
From a spiritual perspective, I am trying to remember that even through the tremendous trials since then, God has not abandoned my family. He has provided for us every step of the way. He provided new streams of income to replace ones that were lost. He opened the paths for new friendships when old ones fell apart. Through every challenge, He has provided a miracle answer.
I’ve stopped praying to know if God is there or not. Now I pray for faith to depend on Jesus to see me through whatever hardship is coming next. Maybe it will be next week, next month, next year, or even a few years from now — a few years of calm and peace would be SO NICE — but as sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, it will come.
No one said life was fair, and it certainly isn’t easy. But instead of being overwhelmed by the unexpected hurts of life, I am trying my darnedest to change my inevitable prayers from “Why me?” to “I’m really excited to see how you’re going to use this for your glory, Lord, because right now it really effing sucks.”
But honestly it would be nice if things could just go smoothly for a while. ;-)
I think the "why" questions are most often not answered in this life. If you read the book of Job, he was never given the answer as to why God allowed all the tragedies he suffered. We know the "behind the scenes" information. Job did not. He was given, basically, "I am God. You are not." Difficult words. But it's reality. And yet, He is not just all powerful. He is good. It doesn't feel that way sometimes. But neither do children feel their parents are good when they're taking them to the doctor or disciplining them or saying, "No" to something they want to do that you know will only harm them. They can't understand the way of adults. Neither can we, with God.
I think we have to come to the place where we say:
Job 13:15
"Though he slay me, I will hope in him;"
He is also big enough to handle our doubts, our anger, our meltdowns. Be honest with Him:
"yet I will argue my ways to his face."
This life is HARD. But as you said, Christ is the only one and the Bible the only thing that makes sense of it all... even if, at times, it doesn't make sense. Sometimes, the only thing to hold on to is the fact that Jesus suffered too.
When I was a kid we used to sing "Kids, under construction, the Lord might not be finished yet" in Junior Church. This simple song taught me that we are a work in progress, and that the difficulties of life have a divine purpose. Later in life, I have now learned that the difficulties are so full of purpose that we should rejoice that we have them.
Feast upon uncertainty.
Fatten upon disappointment.
Enthuse over apparent defeat.
Invigorate in the presence of difficulties.
Exhibit indomitable courage in the face of immensity.
Exercise unconquerable faith when confronted with the challenge of the inexplicable.
In partnership with God, nothing is impossible.