I was raised in a very Christian household. My entire family were believers and I was surrounded by believers. It was not fraught without difficulties as evidenced in my siblings as they navigated their teen years and their obligatory teenage struggles. I always knew our family wasn’t perfect but we were very blessed and we always pointed back to God. The benefit of this was that I grew up very grounded in the faith. I knew who God was, I knew His promises, what He did for us, how to live for Him, etc, etc. And in my young, dare I say unchallenged faith this was a good thing.
As I grew older and navigated life’s brokeness I did discover it was a lot harder to put my money where my mouth is so to speak and truly live out my faith. From fall outs with friends, pressures and difficulties in college and the workplace, fighting and the sight of sin within the church itself… it was hard to live out my faith but I never lost sight of God and all that He is and all that it means to me. Even when we were told that our daughter’s heart was defective in multiple ways and she would have to have heart surgery by the age of one, I never lost my faith.
However, when I tried to recover from the blow of the affair I could feel my faith shaken to its core. At first I tried to heal myself… I knew the promises of God. I knew He would never leave me nor would He forsake me, I knew His plans for me were for good and not for evil. I knew that if I trusted in the Lord with all my heart and leaned not on my own understanding He would lead me and show me the right path. I knew He was a tender and loving God, a compassionate and just God. I knew He was merciful, I knew He was full of grace. I knew all of it. But after the affair… I couldn’t. It sure felt like He’d left me and that He’d forsaken me, that He’d forgotten me. If He was sovereign over everything how could His plans include good for me and not evil when everything that had happened to me was in fact evil? To me He was untrustworthy, certainly not tender and loving. How could a God who is all of that allow all of that?
So after a little while my faith began to wane. I eventually got to the point that I wanted nothing to do with a God who did all of that to me. See, I still believed in God. I believed He was the creator of all and that He was sovereign over all. I just believed His plans for me were not good and that He cared about everyone else but me. I could not trust Him. I could not trust God. One of the biggest truths I knew of God… that He is trustworthy came crashing down at my feet. I was convinced that if I started trusting Him again that He would do something else monstrous in my life, be it a test or whatever and I could not do it.
So, there it was.. I believed in a cruel and untrustworthy God. I think back to that time and remember just how alone I felt. I was confused, this was all completely foreign territory for me. I remember talking to my husband about it and telling him that I did not want a God like that. I did not want to believe, I did not want to trust. I wanted to run as far from Him as I could and never look back.
I thank God for my husband’s prayers. He was in a position (because if I didn’t trust God I certainly wasn’t trusting him yet) with me that it was hard for him to navigate and encourage because he’d lost any credibility with me. However, he prayed and he prayed hard. And he did make sure we got to counseling together. This was huge for me. Without either of those things I don’t know what I would’ve done. My therapist allowed me and even encouraged me to vent and get it all out. You’re thinking it anyway she said, you might as well get it out so it doesn’t fester and stay there. She allowed me to rage against God to the point of walking out on Him and outright denying those truths. But as I did, I could feel it deep within me. I couldn’t let Him go and He wouldn’t let me go.
So I started at the beginning…did I believe God is the creator of the universe? Yes. Did I believe he created me? Yes. Did I believe He is sovereign over everything? Yes. Did I believe in His death and resurrection, that He defeated death for our good and His glory that we might have the promise of eternity with Him and a hope beyond this broken and twisted life? Yes. Did I truly believe His promises? Yes, I did but I did not believe them for me. This was the progression and pretty soon while I believed in Him and all that I listed before, because I did not believe anything good was meant for me I just wanted to go and be with Him. I wanted to be done. Mind you, I never had any active thoughts of suicide or plans to carry anything out (if you do, please please talk to someone about it.. don’t bury it). It was more like a darkness that enveloped.. I just wanted to give up. I did not want to feel any more pain in this life and I wanted to be with Him more than anything and done with this. I do believe that was a temporary depression and I can tell you it is hard to climb out of that. It lurks behind everything waiting to engulf and take over.
And that’s when it happened… I began to feel His love envelop me. It was as though I was a child acting out and throwing a tantrum only to have my loving Father come to me, wrap His arms around me and not let go. As I’m writing this I’m reminded of the Marvel movie The Thunderbolts. While this was not out when I was going through all of this (I wonder if it would’ve helped any), I cannot help but see the connection. At the end the “villain” was so engulfed in despair that it was affecting everyone around him. He could not battle it out so he just let it overtake him and as it was beginning to take hold and never let go the heroes just came and put their arms around him. They would not let go and would even die for him, die to support and love him. This was the picture of Christ and what He did in my own life. He wrapped me with His love and kept reminding me of it. I could not get away from it if I tried. Random moments I would be reminded of His love, His blessings, His goodness. Randomly I would remember His promises for me. And that by the way was the birth of My Steadfast Love. It comes from the Psalm 103 where the psalmist is reminding himself of who God is and all that He has done and he says “He has redeemed my life from the pit and crowned me with steadfast love and mercy. It really is a beautiful psalm (as they all are) and I highly recommend reading it.
I do thank God for allowing that in my life now. Without it, I cannot say my faith would be nearly as deep as it is now. He has rooted me and grown me in Him as a tree becomes rooted deeper and stronger after a storm. So if you are in a place where your faith is shaken for any reason, know that it is ok. It’s ok to question, it’s ok to hurt and it’s ok to struggle. That’s part of growth, that’s part of being human. And I encourage you to dive deep into the psalms. They are ripe with hurt and pain and even crying to God in despair but they are also ripe with encouragement and reminders of faith and God and His promises. And if you are hurting and have never experienced a faith like this, if you have never known the love of our trustworthy and merciful Father, know that I am praying for you. Quite honestly, I do not know how I would’ve gotten through the deepest and darkest point of my life without Him. Even when I didn’t want it, even when I was lashing out at Him…He was there and He is there for you too. Reach out to Him, let Him change your life and I promise you will never regret it.
