I had the opportunity to be a part of a discussion on-line the other week. It was a very sobering one. The original post was from a woman who had lost a baby recently and was having a hard time softening her heart to God. She was angry, and she was tired. She didn't know who to be more angry at, God or her community of believers. She kept hearing things like, "It's all just part of God's plan" and "God was jealous because He just needed one more angel" and "When God closes a door, He opens a window." My heart went out her, I felt her anger and distain.
When I was 17 my father suffered a massive heart attack and was in a coma and on life support. I remember hearing those same statements and I remember feeling my heart turn to stone.
When I read the first three chapters of Genesis I don't ever see God making preparations for death, I don't remember Him telling Adam and Eve that Cain would kill Abel and that it would all be part of His glorious plan. I don't remember God promising children to willing mothers and then at the last moment taking them away, and I certainly don't remember God telling me that watching my father almost die and dealing with the aftermath of strokes, heart attacks and subsequent brain injuries was a good thing and all for His glory.
Death and separation were never part of God's plan. He loves us and after we were created He would walk in the cool of shade in the Garden of Eden because He wanted to enjoy us. Simple as that. He didn't intend to make us suffer, walking around in agony, wringing our hands like helpless waifs in an abandoned forest.
So when did we start saying things like, "Don't worry, it's all just part of God's plan.", or "This must be the Lord's will."? Where do we come up with this stuff? How come we are so afraid to be angry, to grieve and to wrestle with God? When did we stop believing that God was for us? When did we start trusting that our salvation was dependent on our behaviour and not on His grace. How did we come to the conclusion that God made things happen without any thought to our wellbeing and the joy that He finds in having relationship with us?
Don't get me wrong, bad things happen BUT God is a redeemer, making right that which has ALREADY been made wrong! (For that I am SO SO SO grateful). But why can't we encourage each other to run the full gamut of human emotion? Do we think that God can't handle what we have to say? Why must we always just sit on our wooden pews with forced smiles on our faces, hands folded in our laps pretending to trust a version of God that existed in the Dark Ages?
He never planned for suffering, He never planned for death, He never planned for separation-that all came with the fall; but we are lucky enough that God sent His Son to bind us to Him until we are reunited.
To those hurting and with hard hearts I say to you, I am sorry for your loss. I am sorry that death, or disease, or separation has found you. Those are never good things to discover, but I know a God who is present, who hears the sighs of your very soul and longs to deliver you from heart-ache and malice and turmoil. Psalms tells us that He sets a table before us in the presence of our enemies. Turn to Him with your anger, your bitterness, your unbelief and your questions. He is not afraid of them and neither should you be. Wrestle with Him until you fall limp into His loving embrace and never again believe that His plan would be to cause you to suffer away from His warmth, salvation and overwhelming love.
