In Spite of My Arrogance

After several tries with different counselors, I was referred to one early this year that I've been seeing, with Jason, a couple of times a month.  When I tell you about our first experience with him, you'll wonder why I ever went back.

During our first appointment, within the first 20 minutes, as I was trying to explain all the things in our lives that weren't working- and all the things I had tried in desperation to fix those things- and all the ways none of those efforts were helping in any way- he looked at me and said, 'Laura, I'm going to say something to you that is not going to be easy to hear, but you need to hear it... you are an incredibly arrogant woman."

What?  Who says that to another human being?  Well, I guess he does.

My core immediately resonated with what he said.  I didn't know, in that moment, exactly what he was referring too- I just knew he was right.

He went on to explain that I had been talking and talking about all the things I was doing to fix our problems.  I believed that it was in me to change it all.  I just knew that if I found the right book, the right formula, the right counselor- I could fix all of it.  I could even make the other broken people in my life better.

I'm a fixer.  It's what I do.  It's my first desire when I hear a problem.  I want to right it.  It sounds good in theory.  It sounds charitable and generous and wonderful.  Except that most problems aren't any of my business.  And the problems that are my business, well, I haven't actually been able to fix most of them.  And truly, if God is God, than most things should be handed over to him, right?  If He is God and I am His dependent, than shouldn't I be looking to Him for all the answers rather than myself?  my power?  my ability and knowledge?

Several months down the road, at another appointment, I was expressing my continued frustration with one relationship in particular.  I have been so angry with this person.  I have regularly wished that I could walk away from the relationship- but I've known that that wasn't right.  It wasn't an appropriate response.    In fact, I knew that if that was the choice I made, I would live in guilt and regret and shame- not in the relief or freedom I was wishing for.

Our counselor asked me to take some time to really examine what my expectations were in the relationship.  As I started to list what first came to mind, he shook his head- no.  I was talking about how if this person was honest, if she was pleasant to be around, if she wasn't manipulative or selfish or ...  if she was just better- than I could like her and the relationship would be great.  No, he said, those things were not at the core of my expectations.  They were not what was actually making me so angry.

As I thought about it more I realized that it was still my arrogance.  I was mad at myself for not fixing our relationship.  I was furious that I wasn't being the right person, loving the right way, modeling the right things.  Instead of recognizing the grief and pain that are so much a reality in this relationship- I have just wanted to fix it, and when I couldn't, I didn't have it in me to admit defeat- I simply placed the blame on her.  Surely, if it was in 'my' power, all would be right with the world.

I'm slowly letting go of the anger and trying to be real with the grief and pain.  Its hard work, but right now, in this place, she and I are in a better place then we've ever been.  None of the circumstances have changed.  She's not doing anything different.  I haven't fixed anything.  I'm just recognizing truth and letting go of the lies.  I believe that it is God who has allowed me to see into the depths of this.  I'm so thankful that, in spite of my arrogance, He's gently, and humbly, still drawing me into Him.  I won't change her.  I won't even change myself.  But I think He might- and that is a far more hopeful place to be then I've been in for many years.

In Spite of What I Don't Know

If you allow yourself to question one or two verses in the Bible that don't seem to be 'true' in light of your circumstances, odds are that you might start to question some more verses too.  And, in spite of yourself, you may eventually find yourself asking the really big question, 'Is the Bible really the Word of God?'  Yikes.

It just feels safer to never go there.  The world is a lot prettier if it either makes sense or you just don't question it.  A lot of Christians prefer to say 'we don't understand it all, but that's just how God designed it.' Well, what if you do start to question?  What if, in spite of what you've been taught, you start to wonder?  Does that make God mad?  Is He offended by that?

I've done more questioning and doubting in the past couple of years than in all the rest of my life combined.  And I feel more at ease with God than ever before as well.  I haven't been struck by lightening.  I haven't been cursed with the plague.  I think God might just really love me.  I think He likes it when I think and wrestle with hard questions.  I think He has encouraged me to use a big shovel to dig down past all the stuff I've been told to believe- to find a treasure chest filled with what He really is.  What is most true about Him has been buried in my heart underneath a whole lot of legalism and 'good ideas' and half-truths.  And I'm finding that what's most tangible to me is His love.  And what He most wants me to be about is His love.  And that what I most desire from Him is His love.

I haven't made peace with the Bible yet.  I'm not convinced that the earth is new.  I think it might be older.  I think that God may have created evolution as part of the cycles of this planet- but I don't know for sure.  I'm not sure that we've interpreted a good deal of the Bible correctly.  And if we haven't, then it's possible a whole heck of a lot of our doctrine is WRONG.  I don't know, but maybe we've judged people for their lifestyle choices based on wrong interpretations.  It's all a bit of a mess in my head right now.  I still read the Bible.  I still ask God about it.  I still want to know.  I'm just not sure I will.

Here's what I feel sure of- I don't have to know.  I probably won't know this side of heaven.  And if I can't be certain, than I surely shouldn't judge.  I am only convinced of God's love for me.  For you.  That's it. That's all I feel like I know.  And so, in light of that, I desperately want you to learn to love me as He does- without judgement.  And I desperately want to learn to love you as He does- without judgement.

What if, in spite of what we don't know, we let God show us what He wants us to hold to?  For me, right now, all I feel like I have to hold on to is His love and so- that is all I have to give.  I still have to shove the debris out of the way a lot.  I still get caught up in my old patterns of judging and thinking in black and white.  But I feel most at peace when I'm abiding in His love and giving it away.

In Spite of My Doubt (Part 3)

Anger is usually a secondary emotion, right?  I was so so angry.  But really, I'm realizing, I was grieving and disappointed and afraid.

While I can look back and see that I was doubting, I don't think I had admitted that to myself.  I was just mad at God.  At the God I knew.  He wasn't fulfilling His side of the contract that I had imagined with Him.  He wasn't 'blessing' my sacrifices.  He wasn't making life easy on behalf of the risks I had taken for Him.

And so I was afraid.  I couldn't yet admit that maybe the God I had fashioned for myself didn't actually exist.  That was too scary.

A few months after the death of our precious baby girl and the death of my dreams of her in our family, I read a book that has made it possible for me to continue to journey with God even when the days came during which I questioned if He was even a reality.  The book is called Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb.  There was so much about the book that spoke directly to my struggle- but one thing he emphasized over and over again has stuck with me for over 3 years now.  The idea is that we daily long for our comfort, our ease of life, our 'happiness' over knowing God- and God, knowing how much we sacrifice to settle for those things, sometimes uses deep pain and discomfort to bring us to the end of ourselves so that we will learn to want Him far above all those lesser things.

I admit- if I could have easy kids, no grief, lots of money, no pain... I would snatch those things up and run!  I wouldn't look back to see where God was or if He had a different path for me.  I would just run.  Why?  Because all of that sounds easier and far more comfortable than the opposites of those things.  Without God getting in my face and proving to me that no true joy can be found apart from Him, I wouldn't look further than those and other 'nice' things to just be happy.

So I clung to the things I learned in that book.

And, I started to recognize my doubt.  I started realizing that who I thought God to be- He wasn't.  The fear that that created in me was sometimes almost crushing.  I couldn't imagine a world without God- but I knew He wasn't who I had always thought He was.  And, the more I tried to figure out who He was, exactly, the less clear He seemed.  There were many times that I would weep as I tried to express my fear and doubt to Jason.  I would feel a life-threatening fear that grabbed me at my core.  I was so afraid of a life without God- but no one had ever told me how to believe in a God I couldn't define.

I won't tell you that there has been a resolution to this.  I'm still seeking.  But God has given me a sense in my soul that He is and He's always been exactly who He is- even when I thought He was someone else.  Even when I can't understand.  Even when I find out things about Him I never would have believed before.  God is God.

This shift in thinking has opened my heart to accepting others in a way I never have before- because one thing I'm still sure of is that God loves me.  He loves.  He is Love.  And if He is in me- than I will love too.  The people I have met and the stories I have heard over the past couple of years have convinced me of His love and of His desire for me to love as He does.  His love is my desire and what I cling to- even when I am sure of nothing else about Him.

In spite of my doubt, His love overwhelms.

In Spite of My Doubt (Part 2)

Ironically, even after our children did finally come home from Haiti- even after I got what I'd been begging God for- my faith did not 'go back to the way it was.'  I continued to struggle.  I continued to feel disillusioned and hurt.

We were blessed with a honeymoon period with our new children.  Adopting older children means bringing home kids whose hearts have been shattered by the losses in their lives.  They don't have the emotional maturity or the language to talk about their massive grief, nor do they trust that anyone in their lives is safe to share with, so their pain comes out in their behavior.  We didn't start to see how broken their hearts were until about 4 or 5 months in.  And then- as they say- all hell broke loose.

Because things had gone so well at first, I had decided to believe that our kids had withstood the trauma in their lives with more strength and maybe even more of God's protection than many other kids.  I thought that maybe, since the waiting had been so hard on me, God was giving me a pass on parenting kids with difficult behavior.  So when their behavior took a nose dive I was thrown off guard and once again surprised that God would allow so much pain and difficulty along a path He had called us to walk down.  And I felt even more disillusioned and wounded by God.

At the 6 month mark we received a phone call letting us know that our Haitian children's biological sister had been relinquished to the orphanage.  She was available for adoption.  Would we bring her home to her siblings?  I was emotionally exhausted.  It seemed like too much to ask.  And yet, I had held that sweet girl on my trip to Haiti to bring our children home.  I had pictures of her with her brother and sister.  How could we not say yes?  We prayed about it and sought council and wrestled with the decision for days.  And then we said yes.  Yes, we would allow that sweet baby to grow up with her flesh and blood.  And in spite of my weary heart and massive fears, I immediately loved that girl with everything in me.

We are a helplessly hopeless people, aren't we?  And so I hoped.  I hoped that this adoption would go more quickly.  And that this girl, since she was coming to us so much younger, would have fewer hurts. I hoped that God would use this process so show me how He was redeeming all of my pain.  I just knew that He had led us to our first 2 children because ultimately He wanted to use our family to bring these 3 siblings together and that we were going to see the miracle of that take place.

I was completely leveled then, less than 2 months later, when we received a phone call letting us know that our baby girl had died very suddenly in a hospital in Haiti.  I could not have possibly known that I would feel so much grief.  I desperately wanted her.  But on top of that, I grieved the hopes and the dreams I had.  I grieved the unmet expectations that I had for all I believed she promised for me and for our family.  I grieved the added wound that her brother and sister had piled onto their already shattered hearts.

Ulitmately, as so often happens, my grief rolled into anger.  I was furious with God.  Isn't He all knowing?  Isn't He over all?  Doesn't He ultimately control all things?  He knew this was coming, right?  He knew.  And yet He still asked me to say yes to her.  He still allowed her to die.  He didn't intervene.  He didn't save her.  He didn't save me- from the pain, the disillusionment, the gut-wrenching grief.

Before deep pain happened to me- when I was ignorant and had fashioned a safe God for myself to believe in- I would have had trite answers for others whose lives were falling apart.  I would have been confident in explaining it all to them- how God had a plan and that He works all things together for good and all that stuff.  I wish I could remember and apologize to each and every one of those people.  I have no doubt that, in spite of my well-intentioned ideas, my words were completely shallow and inexperienced and they poured salt into already festering wounds.

The kids' behavior continued to deteriorate. And my behavior, fueled by hurt and anger, created an incredibly unhealthy mix.  In fact, at some times, it might have been a miracle that I didn't physically hurt them.