Good morning…

Looking for something else in our storage room, I found an unexpected gift. This week both of our daughters have had a friend end their earthly lives early. One young man a senior, one a freshman, each at different colleges. In life’s darkest hours, I struggle: “Where are You, God? Who are You, God? God, what are You doing?” Then, tucked in my basement, I ran across these words from my first journal, an entry handwritten by my 25 year old self, a scribbled-upon page wrestling with the exact same heartbreaking questions.

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June 19, 1988

“In every person, there is a God-shaped vacuum that can be filled by only God.” This statement made by someone famous has stuck with me ever since I read it in the church bulletin. I guess the loneliness I’m feeling right now has something to do with the emptiness I experience as I try to understand God. I just talked with a mother whose only daughter killed herself at eighteen years of age. This same woman’s first husband committed suicide by locking himself in the garage with the car running. Her second husband became violent and threatened to kill her three months into their marriage. Thursday, a relative of a friend went through labor and gave birth to a little girl she already knew was dead. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, and she suffocated to death before taking her first breath. A friend’s mother has breast cancer and is having difficulty recovering. A little baby was just born a the local hospital with no limbs.

And where is God? And who is God? And what is God doing?

I have well-formed beliefs about God left over from my childhood, but I’m facing real-life challenges from which I wish I still had shelter. As I enter adulthood, I question whether my faith can hold up to the scrutiny of reality. Pat answers and memorized concepts do little to console, to provide meaning, to help me stand unblemished and protected in the face of tragedy. Maybe that is the key. Remaining unblemished and staying protected seem to have little value in the eyes of God. This is a truth I am getting to know more deeply. Smiles. Security. Self-sufficiency. These three are values held more by our society than by our God. Pain being faced. Anguish being expressed. Healing over time. These seem more like experiences our God honors.

I have heard it said, “A therapist can only take a client as far as she has gone herself.” God can only walk with us on ground He has already tread. I have a feeling God cries over each teenager that dies, each person who succeeds at suicide, each baby who is born handicapped. But His tears are not only tears of sadness for the victim, but they are also tears of yearning for those left behind after tragedy, that they might come to God for solace and for peace amid the harsh storms of this life.

When I feel deeply lonely, overwhelmingly confused, or extremely angry, I sometimes recognize these as unescapable pangs of living with my eyes wide open. These weeping whispers with God call me back to Him for healing. When I have strayed far away from God in the busyness of my days, and I have evaded my emotions for too long, it is then that a calm, silent, peaceful moment gives voice to God’s voice, saying, “Hand to Me your burdens, child, I will untangle the knot in your heart so that you can breathe freely as I rest in you and you rest in Me.”

When I quiet myself, I hear God calling me back to His care and His comfort. God asks me to stop and to stay in the moment so that He can, once again, warm me with His presence as God fills the vacuum purposefully placed inside me. The space where only He can rest calmly and fit perfectly to complete me. This is a place reserved for God alone. No other gods can fill this void. Not people. Not well-formed beliefs. Not alcohol or money, things or accomplishments. I am designed to need God to be whole.

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Surprising me with this basement find, I think God is reminding me that this painful week is not the only tragic week of my lifetime. Amid life’s painful unravellings, I hear the LORD comforting me, “I was with you back then. I am still with you now. Please rest and let me fill the hole in your soul.”

“Remain in me, as I also remain in you” (John 15:4, NIV).

…Sue…