Let me tell you a little story.
We used to have a wonderful cat named Baymax. He was a beloved pet and a welcome addition to our family, until he was killed by a neighborhood dog in our yard. This traumatic experience was deeply unsettling to our children, but Maebry took it the hardest. She cried off and on for months. She brought it up constantly. One day, when she was perhaps 3 or 4 years old, I asked her why she couldn't get past this loss. This is what she said:
"I loved Baymax, and God let him die. So God's not good."
In that moment, I was at a crossroads. How would you respond to that? Perhaps the proper Christian(TM) response would be to chastise her for this reckless and freewheeling thought process, but I recognized the sorrow in her words. It's a place many people have visited on their journey of faith. I was not going to admonish her for thinking, concluding, reacting. I want my daughters to be, above all else, rational and well-reasoned students of the universe. I'd rather raise my daughters as rational thinkers in search of the truth, than mindless adherents who are convinced they've already grasped it.
In her simplistic statements, Maebry discovered a much deeper revelation. We could spend a lifetime answering these questions: God, are you real? Are you good? Are you listening? And yet, churches, scholars and pastors spend so much time fretting over the minutiae of belief.
Maybe belief is, in part, the product of circumstance. Maybe faith is a privilege for those who haven't been crushed by life's weight. Maybe every person has a breaking point, a fault line running deep down in their soul. I am convinced that there's something that could happen to each person that would shatter their preconceptions.... it just hasn't happened, if you're fortunate.
This line of thought has captivated my attention so many times when I consider the scope of world history. Whether it's thousands of years of women being oppressed, or the North Atlantic slave trade -- which was really a form of genocide -- it seems audacious to demand belief from someone who has seen the profound darkness of this life. How can I insist that God is good, or even real, to someone who has lost their loved ones, or watched their homeland turn to rubble? How can I condemn a person for what they've concluded from the totality of their evidence?
It is a moral imperative to afford others the latitude for doubt and disbelief. And If I can grant them the space to think freely, I have to do the same thing for myself. So I have resolved to no longer feel ashamed or guilty about what I believe or where I am in my journey towards the truth. I am, above all else, a learner, hoping to make sense of everything I've witnessed.
I am in a place of uncertainty, and that's okay.
Thank you for reading On Letting Go, a blog about dealing with the wounds of the past. If you're looking for a little background on what inspired this blog, check out the introduction. Click here for information on how you can find mental health resources for yourself or a loved one.
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