Will you answer me?

In Kindergarten when I was learning how to add I really struggled with accommodating the new concept. I had to draw pictures. I used M & Ms and coins. I counted on my fingers. For the first week I seemed slower than my classmates, but I after I wrapped my mind around addition—I got fast, accurate, articulate-- so much so, that I was definitely competition for the top math students in my class.


This pattern repeated throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school. So I came to accept:

I am a person who needs answers.

I have to understand how something works to be able apply it. Sometimes things take me longer.

Faith has been the same sort of battle for me to accommodate. I have tried, but I simply cannot blindly accommodate the rational formulas of faith without context. Like the apostle Thomas, I need to put my hands on them. Draw them. Experience them in my life.

As a little girl I loved the Bible so I had a good foundation in the rational formulas:

Some of my earliest memories of reading are of “little Sarah” sounding out the words in the precious moments Bible [which had been mother’s when she was just a girl.] I remember how at seven I began to listen to the book of John on cassette when I went to bed.

• Scripture was my lullaby.
• The Jesus I met in red ink was my childhood confidante.
• and The story of God’s kingdom was the most beautiful “happily ever after” I could dream towards.

I had a quick memory that served me well in Sunday School, Awanas, and VBS, but the older I grew the more inconsistencies I saw between my life and the life of promised me in the Bible. God wasn’t answering my prayers and I began to question “Why?” My heart began to slowly harden towards the Father who I felt had ignored my cries for mercy. Self-hatred began to slip in and lead me down paths of destruction.

Meanwhile in the midst of brokenness I continued to plow away at the prescribed spiritual disciplines hoping that somehow in it all God would meet me. Honestly what had felt so rich during my childhood felt like cheap thrills and empty promises by the time I was 19 … but I couldn’t give up because I need answers my heart knew only God could give. I had memorized the Romans road as a girl, I did not know its meaning in my life until I reached the incline between girlhood and womanhood when the Holy Spirit came alongside and walked me through it:

I was praying one afternoon after I had been in treatment for eating disorders and depression for several months. I was finally getting healthy -- feeling good physically and my heart was opening to people again--- but I was terrified because I knew if I left treatment, I would throw it all away.

Knowing this just made me weep. Deep down I believed that I had sold my soul to Anorexia, and that the Father was done with me. The image of me kneeling beside the toilet vomiting flashed through my mind, and I said out loud, “How can You love me God, when I belong to this idol?”

Then for a moment I saw Jesus beside me, his hand resting firmly on my sweaty shoulder to comfort me. For the first time my heart knew He had been there in the rank filth of my sin not giving up on me… and that He would bring me out of the life of sin I hated--- if would trust Him. There in my vision of blood, vomit, sweat, and tears, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper, “Sarah every truth you know in your head will be revealed to your heart.”

I wished I could say that after that I found myself miraculous free of life-controlling addictions--- that isn’t my story. The vision didn’t mark the end of the battle for me, however it was the beginning of the end.

I still fight fear every time I eat, and I still fight this compulsion towards self-destruction… but in the face of a lot of mental torment, Christ’s words of love and hope over me continue to breakthrough. Every time I have been so afraid I would given in to fear’s assault, Christ has been there not allowing Anorexia to take me back. I love Him for this--- and I still don’t understand him. I cling to his promise that every truth I know in my head, I will know in my heart. I long to see it coming.

My heart keeps asking so many questions. Questions that I somehow feel shouldn’t be asked in church:

• Why do children starve to death? why are they being sold into slavery?
• Why does my friend have cancer? Why do my clients suffer with no way to even communicate their pain?
• Does God not hear my cries for justice? Does the Father not care that I am tormented by the lies of Anorexia? Is there not complete healing for my wounded heart?
• Does God hear my prayers for children? for reconciliation with family?
• Where is Jesus? Has he left us orphaned in this? Where is the Comforter He promised?
• Where is the Kingdom near? and where is the kingdom coming?

Sometimes I feel alone in my need to understand. So many can take it on faith that God is generous and good despite the brokenness of the world we live in. Why can’t I make the questions in me “shut up”? Why can’t I be satisfied with a cognitive knowledge and a future hope?

My hunger for a heart knowledge God is insatiable. My experience-- mystic. I have these awesome moments of communion with the Divine which I feel safe enough to write about, but have no idea how to bring up in conversation. I see prayers as pictures. I have visions. Just pondering the mystery of Trinity gives me goose bumps, and every time I stop worrying about how unworthy I am and simply let the love of God sink in; I cry.

Saturday nights when we come together to worship God I become overwhelmed by His Holiness and humbled by the Spirit’s nearness. When I worship the wound in me throbs, driving me to cling to Christ like a Lover whose very presence with me reassures me that “everything will be alright.”

But when the sermon is over and the worship has ended I feel like a fraud and heretic. Because I’m still Sarah, struggling with disillusionment and unbelief. Sarah, fighting the same battles in my mind… Sarah whose heart is asking all these questions that she is too afraid to voice.

Until the past Saturday when truth began another intervention in my heart. I don’t know where I mustered the courage [must have been God] but I did end up broaching the subject of suffering in a conversation with a group of guys. One thing Jeff , our pastor, recommended really stuck out to me.

Worship

He suggested that what is most helpful for his heart when life so difficult is to worship God for His Character. Like Job who, despite tremendous personal lose, confessed,

I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes—I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! (Job 19:25-27)

Yes—I echo Job’s prayer--- yes, but..

“how?” I asked Jeff, “What does worship [outside of what we do here as a group] look like for you?”

He told me he downloads worship songs to his MP3 player and sings them… As he sings to God, his heart is reminded of the greatness of God’s character. “Something changes in your heart when you choose to worship…” Jeff explained.

I decided to take the challenge to worship. Sunday morning I compiled a list of songs that are revealing to me truth about this God who I long to return to, fully facing reality but without disillusionment:

Lord of the Starfields …...... Bruce Cockburn
Christ is Exalted……………….… Jan L’Ecuyer
Let the River Flow……...……. Shane Barnard
Mercy………………..... Laura Woodley Osman
Into the Light……..… Laura Woodley Osman
Put In Me…….…..... Enter the Worship Circle

As I listened that morning, as I sang, I did sense God near to me in all my questioning. I remembered God’s word spoken to the exile nation of Israel through the prophet Jeremiah,

"Your wound is incurable, your injury beyond healing. There is no one to plead your cause, no remedy for your sore, no healing for you... But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,' declares the LORD, 'because you are called an outcast, Zion for whom no one cares.' (Jeremiah 30:12,13,17)

And somehow my heart knew Him again as Healer and Restorer of all things. As I worshiped God not because He has presently righted all evil, but because of His splendor, the very choice of worship became balm to my bitter soul.

I don’t know how it will all work out in the long-term. Maybe in listening, in singing, more light will come. Maybe truth will resonate in my heart like the melodies in my ears. I just want to make space for the Holy Spirit so I can know Him more. Right now this seems to be working.

I sense again that this is not the end of the battle, but the beginning of the end, and I am pressing into as much light as He gives.




Note: Last January Jeff actually preached a sermon about this titled “When Life Sucks,” which really better explains the reason worship is so crucial in the face of suffering and injustice. I definitely plan to revisit this one.