Faithful Love, Pt. 1

I learned a couple things about myself last week:

1. When doped up on Extra-Strength Tylenol and chocolate no-bake cookies, I find "The Waltons" to be a very esoteric experience, one in which John-Boy's literary aspirations speak personally to my soul. And my heart. Oh, John-Boy, darn you and your smoldering eyes.
2. When doped up on Extra-Strength Tylenol and peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches, I start to use words like "esoteric" and "aspirations" in order to feel smart and collegiate. That's right, yo. Two years out and my college degree is still paying for itself. (Between my large vocabulary and adeptness at "Angry Birds", I'm a regular intellectual. Look ma, I'm writing words!)

So, apparently it takes some flu-like symptoms to rouse me from my blogging slumber. I've been thinking a lot, actually, about what I wanted to write for my next post. Then I forwent the thinking to watch the first two seasons of How I Met Your Mother. It's amazing how long it takes Bob Saget to tell a story.

For those of you that don't know, either because I didn't tell you or because you stopped listening to me about a year ago after that unfortunate incident when all I talked about was running (trust me, no one is more disgusted than I am), I got a new job! I thank God everyday for His providence, and He reminds me everyday of His love. I tell people all the time that nothing seems a better fit for me than where I'm at now. I don't know much about quilting (domesticity and I are nothing, if not frenemies), but I do know that He is ever patching my story together with the fabric of faithfulness, answered prayers, and deep-spirited friendships.

I know this like I know the sky is blue and Tom Hanks is the best actor in the world. I know this like I know frozen yogurt is best when tart and sunny days are best spent outside, on a blanket, with eyes closed. Yet, even though I know deep inside my soul that God is faithful and He is Love, there is part of me that wants to debate it. And it's this part that I have spent the past year struggling with.

I have never been good at quantifying my faith. This could be the reason I am so attracted to the social sciences. I don't get along well with numbers. Or statistics. And I've found, that when I need to explain something, I will find the wordiest, most-roundabout-way possible to do so. (I like to hear myself talk. In the past, I'd say it was an only child thing, but now I'm just leaning towards a Hardy thing. We're German. It's in our blood. Heard of Goethe, anyone? Anyone?)

So when someone asks me why I'm a Christian or what is it about life that makes me think there's a God, I start to ramble. And ramble. And it's 50 minutes in that I realize, I'm not saying anything meaningful--I'm just tossing around words like "sanctified" and "blessed" and "Spirit-led." Words that I have grown up hearing and learning, but words that I've inherited and thrown in the back of a metaphorical closet, instead of hanging up and wearing everyday. If they're not used, they're wasted. And this year, I've spent a lot of time wasting words.

I had a crisis of faith a few months ago. I went to a prayer service for the people of Haiti. It was one of those events that is supposed to make you feel uplifted and encouraged: people all over the world are gathering to pray for the healing of this nation. However, I did not leave uplifted and encouraged. Instead, I left with my  faith hanging dangerously from a steep precipice, the only thing keeping it from falling my fear of losing 24 years of dedicated belief.

See, I've always believed in God. But reconciling His nature with the pain in this world has always been a challenge for me. One I've cautiously avoided, like peas and recent Nicolas Cage movies. So I'd turn off CNN and hum "Kumbaya" while the rest of the world dealt with...well...life. But I couldn't hum a song during the Haiti prayer service, and I couldn't avoid hearing the awful statistics and seeing the tragic pictures. The more I saw, the more depressed I became.

Why them? Why not me? Why then?  Why? Why?

These questions kept replaying in my head, over and over again. As a veteran Christian, the pat answers just didn't come for me that night. As someone who's grown up always believing in the Lord, I found myself becoming angry with Him. For the first time in my life, I was at a place I never thought I would go. I was mad at God.

It wasn't a disbelief. It was scarier than that. It was a distrust. I could not come to the conclusion that God did not exist. (I had seen too much and experienced too much to the contrary.) But, I kept coming back to the "why?" If God's good, why does He let these things happen? If He's promised us a second coming, why hasn't it happened yet? If He's all about salvation, why do people who have never heard of Him have to die?

I struggled to answer these questions, but kept coming up empty. I felt like my faith walk had become a faith crawl, and I wasn't sure what to do about it.

Thankfully, God's legs were a lot stronger than mine.

This week, the week before Easter, our Jewish brothers and sisters are celebrating Passover. A time commemorating God's awesome power in the face of certain death. A time celebrating God's salvation.

This week, the week before Easter, I want to explore my own faith story, and share with you a time when God's awesome power was made known in my life. When He reminded me of His salvation.

I'll be updating throughout the week. Please feel free to share your story with me (and the two others reading), as we prepare for the Joy that is Christ's resurrection.