InterVarsity Press

Conversations: Does God Care?

Shawn:

I've read through the conversations to date on your website, and I am grateful for your honesty and wisdom. For me, the problem of evil is a major boulder in my faith journey and often I don't see around it. I worked for 10 years in the nonprofit sector and learned so much about the world, poverty, disease, genocide, war, and other things that hammered away at me, and now as a mom of two young children I find myself flailing for something to hold onto. I desperately want to provide a faith filled foundation for my children but find even praying over dinner a true struggle. I find that news of evil in the world hits me to my core—that perhaps I feel things more deeply than other people. Is that possible? Joy often eludes me because I find myself struggling with a situation, Darfur, for example, that has not touched me personally but that actually impacts my daily perspective. I find myself desperately wanting the Christian God to be real, the one I believed in since I was 10, but doubt numbs me. When I hear songs such as "who am I, that the Lord of all the earth" would care about me, I become almost angry. Why do I need to minimize myself as a Christian? If God created us, we are his children, and doesn't that make us something? If he created us, why doesn't he intervene more? Or does he and I just miss it? I sometimes wonder why we are here in the first place, if this world was going to be the result, wouldn't he know that in advance

Ruth, I know this is quite lengthy, and these are issues I wrestle with all the time. But this is the first opportunity I have had, beyond my husband and two best friends, to voice these concerns. I have your book, Walking Away from Faith, on order. Perhaps I will find some answers there. I do appreciate, however, that you write of something in you, something greater, that keeps your feet of the path to faith. I agree. Something is moving me forward, despite the fact that I sometimes get the wind knocked out of me by doubt.

Thank you for your site and for your willingness to tackle the hard stuff.

Ruth:

Where do I begin? You raise so many difficult questions. Even without all your intellectual/spiritual questions and doubts, I imagine it's easy for you to feel down as a mother of 2 young children. As much as you adore them, it's tough to stay upbeat all the time, even without all these issues.

Everything you say rings true with me. So often I hear people praising the Lord for something like answering their prayer and giving them a wonderful pay increase and promotion at work. And, then I wonder about the refugee woman with 3 malnourished little ones clinging to her skirt and 2 more little ones in the grave. What about her? Why is God always answering the prayers of rich white American women and not the prayers of poor Africans? I wish I had the answers. I cling to God amid all my doubts, and am very careful to avoid being overly confident about claims to answered prayers. God is often very far away, but for me that is far better than no God at all. I find solace in singing the old hymns of the faith. I more easily understand and worship God through my emotions than through my intellect.

I would encourage you to join with your little ones in simple acts of worship. Sing with joy and laugh and shout and even shake your fist at God when nothing makes sense. But don't give up on God for want of understanding. God is beyond our comprehension.

I hope I've been of some help to you. Shalom.

Shawn:

Thank you so much for your wise words. I felt myself exhale as I read them...just knowing that there are others out there, women especially, who can be open about doubt, about questions, and yes, about anger, makes me feel hopeful. I often wish I could believe more simply, more whole heartedly, but I think perhaps that is not my purpose here. I love in your response the image of worshiping with my children, honestly and wonderfully, and in my way. Sometimes I am scared I will not come out of this with my eyes toward heaven, and sometimes I am exhausted by the fight to keep them there. It's funny you mention the old songs of the faith. My grandfather was a Baptist preacher in a coal town in West Virginia, and even though we don't seem to sing the old hymns anymore in our churches, I often hear them in my head, as I heard them as a young girl in his church, and it's surprisingly moving. Again, thank you. Peace.