Tag: Fear

When God Doesn’t Show Up

On January 27, 2015

Our dog Frodo ran away while we were on vacation. Our gardener, Paul, was looking after Frodo while we were gone. He opened the gate only one time that week. When he did, Frodo bolted. This was very uncharacteristic for Frodo, so it totally took Paul by surprise.

Paul was devastated. He looked awful when we came home. He spent days looking for Frodo. We put up fliers and offered a reward. We prayed God would bring him back. But now it’s been a month, and there’s no trace of him.

More bad news came our way. We’ve been working for years to adopt a fourth child. There’s an empty place in our family. We were thrilled when we found a Tanzanian friend familiar with the Social Welfare department who was willing to advocate for us. Recently he gave us the unfortunate news that even he has not gotten anywhere. They are steadfastly refusing, even though we’ve proven a fourth adoption is legal. There is no one else we can appeal to. It seems hopeless. We are coming to grips with the fact that it may not happen.

There’s other hard things. The list is long, but some are at the front of my mind. It’s been exactly one year since Jeremiah died. We have a sister with a hematoma. We have close friends who at this moment are standing on a precipice, waiting for God to show up. If He doesn’t, the fall will be disastrous. Too terrible to think about.

Why didn’t God answer our prayers to bring back Frodo?

Why hasn’t He given us a fourth child when there are millions of orphans in this country?

Why did he allow Jeremiah to die?

If we lived in a world of random chance, then these events would be understandable. They wouldn’t make sense; they would still make us sad and mad, but we could chalk it all up to the whims of the universe.

But I don’t believe in a world of random chance; I believe in an all-powerful God who created everything that is, and I believe He is good and every event has purpose. Yet when dogs run away and children languish in orphanages and babies fall out of windows, it’s easy to wonder about whether that all-powerful, good God actually exists. Or that He actually cares.

So how do I reconcile my faith in a good God with the horrors of this world? When I pray and beg and all I get is silence?

All of us, every single person in this world, believe some things on fact and some on faith. It’s up to each of us to discern which parts are worth staking our lives upon.

For me, it starts with the facts:

First, I look around me and I see a Designer’s watermark on DNA and leaf-cutter ants and glow-in-the-dark jellyfish.

Next, I look to Jesus, and I am convinced that his resurrection is one of the most verifiable facts of history. And since it can be verified, then that means I can believe everything Jesus said, and it means I can trust the Bible.

Then, I look into the Bible and I see that it mirrors what really is going on in my soul. I see that it gives a reliable portrait of history and an honest description of humanity. It has the ring of Truth.

Finally, I check out the other options. No other worldview comprehensively explains the simultaneous beauty and evil in this world. No other worldview offers a solution to humanity’s insatiable thirst for redemption.

When challenged as to whether he would leave Jesus, Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. I get that.

Since I’ve got the facts cemented in my soul, then I can layer the faith on top.

I can trust that God is in control.

I can trust that He is good.

I can trust His promises:

….that I can’t see everything He sees.

….that sometimes He’s got a bigger plan than I can imagine.

….that He knows better than I do.

….that He will work everything out for good.

I can trust that even when it looks like God isn’t showing up, that doesn’t mean He hasn’t. It just might not fit my time frame or my expectations of what showing up is supposed to look like.

The longer I live my life, and the more I am challenged to live out that faith, the more I am shown that what I believe is True. My faith (on a foundation of facts) actually transforms into more facts as experience confirms over and over again that what I believe is trustworthy.

And that’s why, when faced with lost dogs, or adoptions that won’t happen, or a dear friend who still mourns her Jeremiah, I can trust my God in the dark. Where else would I go?

The Dark Side

By Amy Medina

On August 26, 2014

In Other

As soon as we left the stadium, I was on edge.

We had been to games there before, but this time felt different. The game had started late so it was dark when we left. There were a lot of people, and 90% of them were men. We had gotten separated from our friends, so it was just our family and a teenager we had brought with us.

Gil felt uneasy too, and he insisted that we keep close together and walk very quickly. Poor Lily was running to keep up.

Just as we existed the stadium, we saw a commotion ahead of us. People yelling, flailing, running, pushing. A woman in the street, crying. She had just been robbed. Police hitting someone.

Gil immediately started pulling us away from the commotion and towards a wall, and I helped in pushing the children towards him. That’s when I felt it–two hands feeling my pockets. I yelled, but before I could do anything, a hand grabbed my purse and yanked. The strap broke, and he was gone.

Gil and I both kicked it into high gear, grabbed the kids, and raced for our car. Lily peed her pants, but thankfully, we were all okay. Josiah asked a million questions on the way home [“Where do robbers go in the daytime?], we answered them, and life went on.

I was left with this friction burn where the guy yanked my purse strap. But other than that, no harm done.

I’ve been trying to give you realistic glimpses of our Tanzanian life, and it’s been hard to think of how to write about this part of our lives.

Because the truth is, this wasn’t an isolated incident. This is our reality. Part of the reason this didn’t totally traumatize me is because I was partially expecting it. I only had the bare necessities in my purse that day–some money and sunglasses–because I knew that it was likely something like this would happen.

I can’t even list all the things like this that have happened to us during our years here–the times our car was broken into, the time Gil’s phone was stolen, the time it was almost stolen. And really, our experiences are nothing compared to our friends. Like the two dozen families we know who have had invasion robberies in the middle of the night–the friend who had his head hit with a machete, the other friend who was stabbed, the other friend who was shot at. These aren’t just people we have heard of or seen on the news–these are friends.

Our house has bars on every window.

And our front and back doors have metal grates.

Every evening, this is my routine:

Turn on security lights.

Make sure car is locked.

Lock front grate.

Lock and bolt front door.

Lock and padlock back grate.

Lock back door.

Lock laundry room door.

Bolt kitchen door.

Bolt door to garage.

Lock and bolt hallway door.

Set motion sensor alarm.

It’s a good thing our house is made of concrete, because we would be in trouble in a fire!

But it’s our reality. When I walk on the road, I make sure I hold my purse in my hand, and not on my shoulder. Too many friends have been hurt by drive-by purse snatchings when the thief has pulled them down in the process. When I go to the ATM, I am always on edge. When walking to my car, I hold my keys in my hand, in case my purse gets snatched.

This is life here. It happens all the time. The U.S. Embassy in Tanzania often sends out safety messages about avoiding particular places or situations. We laugh, because sometimes their “warnings” are so comprehensive that if we took their advice, we couldn’t go anywhere or do anything.

Before we came here, we tried to buy life insurance. No one–absolutely no one–would give it to us, even though I wouldn’t consider this country to be in the “high risk” category. We’re not in Somalia, for heaven’s sake.

Have I just gotten used to it over time? Maybe. Am I doing better at trusting God? I hope so. I do still worry too much–but I did that in America too. There’s always stuff to worry about, even if you live in a padded house.

Is living here an unnecessary risk?

I guess that depends on how you look at it.

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep,

to gain what he cannot lose.

You keep him in perfect peace

whose mind is stayed on you,

because he trusts in you.

I guess I’ve decided to just choose Trust. Every day, again.