Finding Friends Who Stick With You Through Hard Questions
My favorite place to sit and talk is on the kitchen counter.
Find Friends Who Aren’t Afraid of Questions
I can remember as a senior in high school sitting on the couch in the living room of my youth pastor’s house discussing Calvinism and predestination with his wife Heather, who later became one of my best friends. In between swim practice and homework we would go round for days about whether we were chosen to be saved or whether it was our choice to become a Christian.
I still don’t have it settled, but I definitely don’t lean towards Calvinism. (I’ve been known to proclaim, “I am not a Calvinist!” a time or two.)
Despite our age difference Heather and I connected and formed a deeper friendship. We are friends who laugh at the absurd. We open our Bibles together going back and forth trying to figure out where I landed.
Where we landed.
We were loud together. Really loud to the dismay of her son and delight to ourselves.
We watched TV together,
ate together
and were just together.
My mom would frequently ask, “What do you do over there?” And the answer was nothing and everything. We were just together, living and figuring out life. Trying to study the Bible and learn how God answered the problems we were facing.
I’ve moved away from my hometown and life has changed for the both of us. We haven’t connected as frequently, but pick up right where we left off when we are together.
Live with the Questions UnAnswered
Now my husband and I are figuring out our problems together and how God answers them. Many days I sit on the kitchen counter and bring up my frustrations with the idea that God would determine that infertility and miscarriage are a part of our story just to give Him glory or teach me a lesson. At least that’s what I hear as the narrative I should adopt.
We go on walks,
play games,
exercise,
and are living together
while we go in and out of
wrestling with the problem of pain,
the existence of suffering
and what the Bible teaches or doesn’t teach about our fertility experiences.
We’ve celebrated 12 years of being married and a little over a decade of married life has not been enough to settle our questions.
I don’t think 5 decades will be enough.
Keep Questioning with Others
I will always have questions and always be questioning why God set up the world the way he did.
I will also keep bringing people into my questions and having them wrestle with me.
I keep wrestling.
I keep in community with others who will wrestle with me.
I may never have the answers, but I keep pursuing God.
And what I have found is that He keeps showing up. He offers me healing through counseling, friendship, conference speakers and encounters with Him.
He shows up in unexpected places, like when I prayed to meet a group of refugees from the group of people I dearly love in the park. I didn’t know if they went to the park or which park. One night when my kids were out of town, my husband and I went to a different park and there they were. The people I had hoped to meet were there in the park. I had met the head of the family before and we were invited to meet everyone else in the family.
In the park.
Just like I had prayed.
God answered my prayer.
In this same time frame I was prayed over for another baby. Friends laid hands on me and prayed in faith.
No baby.
No immediate answer to prayer.
God doesn’t answer all my prayers or questions. But He pursues me and I pursue Him and our relationship keeps growing and deepening.
I’m in awe, and angry.
He continues to love.
Even when I don’t understand how He answers some prayers with miracles and others he lets of the consequences of the fall continue to play out in our bodies.
I keep praying and pursuing.
He keeps giving peace and showing up.
And one of the best ways I keep pursuing is staying connected with friends and my hubby who keep wrestling through my questions especially when we don’t have all the answers.
