A Whole Lotta Questions

A Whole Lotta Questions


I cannot tell you how many questions I've asked God since we lost Hannah. Over and over and over, the questions rise up like tsunamis of unrelenting grief and pain. They bombard my mind constantly. One of the hardest things I've had to accept is that I will never know the answers on this side of Heaven. It is really hard to be okay with that.


I've prayed for both of my girls all their lives. I have pleaded with God to keep them safe and never let any harm befall them. I've asked Him to guard their hearts from deception and keep them in His will. I've begged Him to give them peace of mind and help them always know and remember their worth.


I have prayed for God to send them the spouses He handpicked for them. I trusted that He would do all those things and more. Since my girls were born, I've never once doubted His love for me, my girls, and Bryan. Through every hardship and difficulty in life, I've seen His goodness and stood firm, with no fear of the future.


Until one day.


In one moment, it seemed my whole view of God was shattered.


How?


God, why would You allow this to happen to my baby girl? To us? To our whole family?


GOD, I TRUSTED YOU!


As I said before, I have prayed for Hannah her entire life. We have loved her with every fiber of our being. We tried our best to provide everything she could possibly need or want. We always affirmed her and told her how beautiful and gifted she was. We smothered her with affection. We sent her to Christian schools, and when she wanted to attend The Ramp School of Ministry in Hamilton, Alabama, to pursue her calling as a worship pastor, we made it happen.


God, what did we do wrong?


SILENCE


So God, why pray to You? What good does it do to pray if You are going to do whatever You want regardless? If You are going to allow the enemy of our souls to touch our lives? Why couldn't You just heal her depression and take away every negative thought? Why couldn't You allow us to see her depression so we could do something to help? Why were we blindsided?


I'll admit that my pain has been so great that I even began to yell, "God, are You even there? Do You even exist? Do you see me?"


I'm ashamed to admit that I even accused Him of not loving or caring for me.


And still...


SILENCE


Tears and more tears. Uncontrollable sobs. Sitting for hours, staring out the window, wishing I could hold my baby girl just one more time. Devastated. Crushed. Desperate. Begging God to let me wake up from the nightmare and see her walking through the door saying, "What's for dinner, Mom?"


NOTHING


Then I look at the end table next to the loveseat where I'm sitting.


My Bible.


Angrily, I snatch it up. I want to toss it across the room in a fit of rage. But instead, I open its pages and begin to read.


I can't begin to tell you what I was reading or where I was reading, but the Holy Spirit began to speak.


Even in our anger and harsh questioning, God doesn't get mad at us. We might as well let it out, scream it or shout it. He knows our thoughts anyway.


YOUR TURN. BE QUIET.


Sometimes we have to quiet our hearts and just listen.


In the midst of our pain, in the millions of swirling questions, we must stop and breathe.


After reading for just a little while, I quickly grabbed a pen and began to furiously scribble out the words that were coming to my heart and mind. I'm sharing them with you now in the hope that they will comfort you in your questioning as well.


Run to Jesus


In our hurt and grief, it's often hard to spend time in the Word and with Jesus. But it is only with Him that we gain peace, heart healing, and clarity of mind.


Truth steps in and shines a light where hurt, anger, bitterness, and despair lurk in the dark hours, seeking a way to creep into our hearts.


I've never felt the darkness struggle so relentlessly to break into my mind and thoughts until now. But at the same time, I've never seen my Savior glare so fiercely at the darkness.


He stands as a Champion over the darkness, overpowering it with one tiny stray beam of piercing light.


The darkness gasps as He sweeps me away from all harm and quiets me with His love and compassion. He shelters me, comforts me, and cries over me with empathetic tears.


He whispers confirmations of His ever-present power to show mercy and give grace, and He covers me with hope, love, and peace beyond my ability to comprehend.


I'm confounded by how He deals so fiercely with the enemy and so gently and tenderly with me.


Finally, my thoughts are stirred to remember His great love that He has lavished upon us all. That same love that drove Him to willingly endure unimaginable pain, even death on a cross. And as we drove in the nails, He looked beyond it all and asked the Father to forgive us because we didn't know what we were doing.


His one desire was to destroy the works of darkness, and that unfathomable separation called death and the grave.


HE PAID IT ALL.


And through His all-sufficient sacrifice, He defeated that once-foreboding darkness and eternal separation to which we all were destined.


His blood has covered all our sins. We were bought with a price. We are His, and nothing can separate us from His great love.


So now He glares at the darkness when all Hell seeks to wreak havoc in our minds and provoke pain in our souls. His heart burns with anger at the darkness because He knows, better than all of us, that death is a liar.


The debt has been paid. The victory has been won.


Jesus IS the Champion.


Satan, and his companion death, are both liars. Satan loves to torment God's children. He drives us to question the One who truly loves us, sees us, and feels the pain we feel.


Satan wants us to remain angry with God. He wants to keep us from God's Word, lure us into the darkest nights, and prevent us from experiencing the peace that comes from truth.


Jesus has given us hope, and Satan has set out to steal it. He attempts to make us blame God instead of realizing he, Satan himself, is the source of our pain and suffering.


So in our striving, our questioning, and our wrestling with God, Jesus deals with us so tenderly. He sings over us and speaks peace, reminding us of the hope we have in Him and the promise that we will be with our loved ones who have gone before us for all eternity.


So yes, it's okay to question God. Sometimes we need to wrestle with Him and with our questions.


He will never fail to love us. He paid far too high a price to adopt us as His own and then abandon us. He sympathizes with us in our weakness, and He knows us better than we know ourselves and loves us just the same.


Spend some time in His presence today. He can handle your questions.


But also remember: this life is just a vapor. We will be with our loved ones soon.


And oh, the times we will have.

"The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.”
Zephaniah 3:17 (NIV)

"No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.  For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers,  neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."
Romans 8:37-39 (NIV)