I grew up in the church, and in a family where beliefs were taught as fact. There wasn't room for questioning because, to my parents and grandparents, truth was black and white. God could be understood. Right and wrong was easily decipherable. The churches we went to believed the 'right things.' Other denominations, faiths, practices- those that didn't line up with ours- were wrong. I was taught to defend my faith. I was taught all the answers. I embraced all of it strongly and proudly spoke out on those beliefs. Doubting was for the uneducated- if you learned enough of the Bible you didn't doubt.
A few years ago, when we began the process to adopt 2 children from Haiti, my beliefs still mostly lined up with what I'd been taught as a child. I had no idea that this journey would be the start of undoing most of what I thought was non-negotiable.
I'm not a patient person. Impatience is definitely a serious fault of mine. Adoption requires waiting and offers very little control. Adopt from a third world country and lack of control cannot begin to describe the reality of waiting and wondering while longing and worrying. I didn't do it well- the waiting. Maybe, in hindsight, even my weakness in this area served a greater purpose than to just make me feel like a loser as a Christian. Maybe it was part of God's design to begin tearing apart my misconceptions of Him- to reveal a God who truly is too big for me to even try to comprehend.
Visiting a third world country will also mess with a person's mind- especially a person who has grown up believing that doing the right things will produce the right results. Add to that that I am a person who lives in one of the wealthiest counties in the nation- which makes it, far and away, one of the wealthiest communities in the world. Culturally- almost all of us here, even if we won't admit it to ourselves, believe that we somehow 'deserve' the things we have. Being served a plate of food at a restaurant that has a stray hair in it can be the ruination of our entire day. Visiting Haiti got me thinking- and wondering- is EVERYONE there just NOT doing the right thing? Do NONE of them deserve more from God? Does He even hear their prayers? Why is there such a VAST difference between my contaminated but gargantuan-sized plate of steak and potatoes and their endless days of NO food?
And there I was, trying so hard to 'obey God' and bring two children out of the muck and mire to a markedly better life in suburbia USA and no matter how much I begged, He wouldn't intervene and hurry up the process. They remained there for more than twice the amount of time we were told we'd wait. What about that verse, 'ask and you shall receive?' Hmmm?? What about that, God? And wouldn't here be far better than there for these kids, God? Why would you leave them hungry, thirsty, unloved and unsafe for so long?? I knew all the verses in the Bible that spoke to these things- verses that said God is a rescuer. He is love. He takes care of children and the helpless. He demands that we, as His followers, join Him in these endeavors- and yet, at least in my understanding, He wasn't pulling His weight. He wasn't coming through for them or for me.
And so, in spite of all that I knew that I knew, I started doubting God. I started wondering...
