Faithful Paradox

I have recently been reading “A Grief Observed” by C.S. Lewis. The book is a memoir of the grief Lewis experienced when his wife died of cancer. The chapters, which he never intended to be published, are excerpts from his raw journal entries written after losing his wife. Lewis ended up publishing them, but he initially printed them using a pseudonym because he did not want to be associated with the pain-filled, doubt-laced angry musings of the faith-broken man he found on the pages of his journal.

As I have read his words in recent days, I have so deeply appreciated his candor because the things he asks, the questions he raises, the doubts he expresses are so much a part of learning to grieve, and yet so rarely spoken. In many ways, his words and his experience of God have helped normalize some of my own pain. The questions that he penned and wrestled with mirror many of my own questions.

In his pain, Lewis describes how we can go to God, “when [our] need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence.”

I felt that deeply. Our only hope was God’s work in healing Ezra and we felt the door painfully slammed in our faces and could feel the despair as God bolted and double bolted the door. It was painful and confusing. If I’m honest, it still is.

I find many days right now that my heart struggles to know how to approach God in prayer because I still wrestle with the image of a God who says he is only loving and kind, and yet who also seems to have slammed the door in my face during my most desperate time of crisis and need. It’s hard to know how to engage once again with a God who locked the door as we knocked in desperation. How does one rebuild faith when the pain of God’s refusal is still so present and real?

I am well aware that simply because I feel something has been true of God does not make it true. How I feel about God and his actions have no bearing upon what is actually true of him. Much like during the days of his treatment, Ezra had days he felt good. Simply because he felt like he did not have cancer did not change the reality of his sickness. There are things that we struggle to believe, even when the truth is evident, because our experience feels different. I recognize this.

Wrestling is a very real part of the grieving process. How do we learn again to trust a God who has so deeply and profoundly left us feeling disappointed? How do we bridge the gap from what our heads know to be true to hearts that have experienced something much different than who we thought God was? How do we reconcile the desire to trust God with the pain we have, and have yet to experience at his hand? I don’t know the answers to these things yet I do know that God’s love for me is much like a mother’s love which does not change as she holds her toddler close as he kicks and screams.

One particular line in Lewis’ book has stuck with me over the last several weeks because as I work to rebuild the faith that faced such deep disappointment, things that used to feel like verses of victory and purpose now leave me feeling confused. Lewis, quoting the Apostle Paul, says, “‘Do not mourn like those who have no hope.’ It astonishes me, the way we are invited to apply to ourselves the words so obviously addressed to our betters.”

There are so many things in Scripture that feel this way right now. Surely these things were written for someone whose faith is better than my own.

This morning I found myself in the book of Romans. Paul says that we are to, “rejoice in our sufferings” (Romans 5:3). As I stared at the verse, I wrote in my journal, “What does this even mean? What does it mean to rejoice in my suffering?”

There are so many of these concepts that I quickly grabbed on to when my life was a little easier. Rejoicing in suffering felt like a badge of honor; a notch in the belt of faith. When things that felt like hardship would come, I was quick to point to verses like Romans 5:3. I am certain, to my dismay, that I likely even admonished others in this.

While this verse is certainly true, it is also one that brings with it confusion and maybe even shame to the one who is suffering. We cannot will ourselves to rejoice with a sincere heart. We can certainly make it a discipline of faith and pray that our hearts will submit to the efforts, yet I find myself wondering, am I faithless if I cannot seem to rejoice in my current suffering? Does my lack of joy in this sorrow reveal a faithless heart?

There are also verses like Romans 12:12, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction.” As I reflect, I can recall from memory James 1:2 “Count it all joy when you face trials of various kinds.” Most days right now, these verses feel more confusing, more mysterious, and more frustrating than ever before. Rather than being a balm to a bruised and weary heart, I find myself echoing Lewis’ thoughts that certainly, these words were, “addressed to our betters.” These words were clearly penned for someone who has more faith than me; someone who trusts God more than me. Because for me, these words feel impossible right now.

How does one rejoice in her suffering? What does that even mean? How does one remain patient in affliction? How does one count it all joy as she watches her her delight waste away? How does one live under the weight of the grief this world has to offer and not feel as if she is suffocating from its burden? I don’t know. I simply do not understand. Certainly Paul wrote these words for someone stronger in her faith; someone who better trusts God than me.

And yet these words were written for me; even if they don’t make sense right now. I know God is at work in me. I do believe that. I know these are verses of hope for a life yet to come. I believe that. Yet I am not to the point that I count it all joy today, in this life. If I’m honest I don’t know how to do that. I know that there are a lot of rough edges that have been shaved off of me, and yet I still do not find that I can rejoice in this, even knowing that there is glory yet to come that I cannot comprehend (Romans 8:18). I know that I better understand who God is – and is not – yet I struggle to find joy in this. I find myself growing weary, even knowing that in due time, I will reap if I do not give up (Galatians 6:9). I see my patience is waining. I seem so very different than the person Paul admonishes through his words.

Does one reach a point in which seeing the painful hand of the Sovereign causes joy to rise and hope to burn? When does the loss turns to praise? Does sorrow lift and in its stead joy dawn? Does the suffocating weight of grief lessen and become a song of praise about God’s faithfulness? I can certainly work through the discipline of doing what I must to praise God despite my feelings, but does it reach a point in which it is no longer a discipline, but in fact, praise once again comes with ease and a sincere heart? I don’t know, yet I hope so.

It feels to me that still, much of the faith I exhibit is simply a recitation of the bedrock of faith my life has been built upon. It still does not, however, feel like an overflow of my heart… yet. Faith these days feels like a discipline. It feels hard. It still feels like the words Lewis penned, that these things like joy in suffering, were written for someone who has a better, deeper faith than me. Yet somehow, in all this struggle and wrestling, God is still at work bringing beauty. Faith is not proven to be pure until it has been brought through the fire. I believe that.

Maybe that’s the hope to cling to right now; that I still believe. God is refining me through the doubts and questions, through the pain and loss. It does not yet bring me to a point of rejoicing; but maybe one day it will. Maybe one day, before I realize it, I will be the person of faith to whom Paul wrote. And maybe in that there is hope.