Living without Him

Four years ago, our daughter, Birdie, was very sick. She was a patient at Scottish Rite for 29 days. She had severe diarrhea and vomiting that would not stop even when put on Zofran and other drugs through an IV. For almost an entire month, test after test after test was run on Birdie, but the doctors always came back without answers. The doctors, nurses, and specialists all wore Hazmat suits when they came into her room because they were so concerned about her undiagnosed-illness spreading.

During that month, I prayed more fervently than at any other time in my life. I prayed for answers. I prayed for healing. I prayed that IVs would go in easily. I prayed for quiet nights of rest. None of those prayers were answered, and I didn't know what to do with that. For the first time in my life, I was angry. And I wasn't just angry at anyone - I was angry at God. Why didn't He just heal my daughter? Why did it take 37 sticks to get one IV in? Why couldn't we go just one night without nurses having to come in and clean up yet another mess in the bed or on the floor?

For a long time I didn't know what to do with that anger. I've been a Christian since I was 11, and things have always seemed to go my way. I graduated college with high ranks, I married a wonderful man, we created a beautiful family, and life was simply blessed. So when our lives were turned upside down with an illness that struck our daughter, my faith ran straight into a brick wall. Hard.

I can specifically remember looking at my Bible and thinking, "God, you've let me down. And now, I'm just going to put this away and not talk to you anymore." I took my Bible, and I placed it in a drawer of my nightstand. It stayed there for 11 months.

I continued to go to church and go through the motions without allowing God to penetrate my heart. In fact, I worked at a church during this time. A big, prominent church that reaches hundreds of thousands each week. Sometimes, I would think that if the pastor ever found out about my doubts and anger toward God, He'd fire me in a heartbeat.

You see, Birdie's illness didn't end after our 29 day stint at Scottish Rite. For the next two years, there were many doctor's visits, specialist visits, medications, probiotics, trips to the ER for IV fluids. Throughout that time, I continued to push my unresponsive God out of my life. He "stayed" in the drawer of my nightstand, and I never let Him out. Friends prayed for me, gave me books, sent me cards of encouragement in the mail. I am thankful that I had those things, but they are not what led me to opening that closed drawer and taking God back out.

You see, in those 2 years I found that living with God, even when He's not answering my prayers, is better than living without Him. Living in and wrestling with the pain of unanswered prayers was hard, but doing it without God was insurmountable. I had no hope to cling to without Jesus. All I had was my anger and fear, and neither of those without God was doing me any good. Once I took God back out, I found that He could handle my anger. Instead of refusing to talk to Him, I did the exact opposite. I took all of my anger and hurt and frustration and disappointment straight to Him. I cried to Him, I yelled at Him, I broke down prostrate in front of Him. And He took it all.

You see, when I became a Christian and lived the Christian life for the next 20 years, I believed the lie that since I was a Christian good things will befall me. Things will go my way, life will be good - because I have God on my side. Because of that lie, when life suddenly went "wrong," my faith in the God I thought I knew flew out the window. Those 11 long months without participating in my relationship with my Heavenly Father taught me more than any of the previous 20 years. I had never known what it meant to live without God; to think that I'll just do life on my own. "I don't need You," was my attitude.

That was the greatest lie of all. Because whether life goes my way, or whether it doesn't - I need Jesus. We all need Jesus. Not just at the end of our days when death draws near and we want to sneak our way into Heaven. No, we need Jesus every day of our lives. We need Him to guide us through the muck and the mire. To be there when we need a shoulder to cry on or a person to scream at. Only He can take it all.

That is why this blog is titled Our Hope is in Truth. Because only in Truth can we put our hope. And the Truth is that God loves us. No matter what comes to pass in our lives - good, bad, ugly, beauty, misery, heartbreak, beauty, sickness, death, healing, unforgiveness, loss, gain, failure - no matter what God loves us. And we can choose to live our lives with Him or without Him. I've tried both, and living with God - even when bad things happen - is better than living without Him.