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Rejoice in hope, be patient in suffering, persevere in prayer. Romans 12:12 (NRSV) |
 Where was God?
I lift up my eyes to the hills-- from where will my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth. He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; the LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The LORD will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The LORD will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore. Psalm 121 (NRSV) This is a wonderful psalm, and one of my favorites. I sing it often (there is a version of it sung by Susan Ashton, in case you wondered), and I believe the words. It took a very long time before I could or would believe these words, however. In fact, not all that long ago, this psalm nearly infuriated me. I suspect it (and mentioning the book of Job) also stirs up a lot of anger and frustration in a lot of abuse survivors, particularly early in their recovery. You might wonder why. It's meant to be comforting, this knowledge that God is always looking out for us, right? Why would someone get angry to be told this? The question that always comes up is: Where was God? You know, when we were being abused, hurt, lied to, sexually abused, when our parents went out and left us home alone when we were too small to take care of ourselves, when our parents were dead drunk and sprawled out on the couch, when our lives were so awful and we were too small to defend ourselves, where was God then? This is a huge stumbling block for most, if not all, children of dysfunctional families (particularly those who were sexually or physically abused, which tends to generate an enormous amount of anger). Oh, it's a nasty stumbling block, all right, and one which I have, myself, faced, and one which took literally years to overcome. Where was God? First, I need to talk about this whole concept of God being with us. I believe completely, totally, and entirely that God truly is with us always. He never takes his eyes off of us, he never yawns and misses the action, he never has better things to do, he never goes away at all, for, just as the psalm says, "indeed, he who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." (Psalm 121:4). Jesus, himself, said, "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Mat 28:20) So, if God is always with us, if he watches everything, sees everything we do, sees what happens to us, where was he in our time of distress? Too small to know what was going on, our minds were still forming, impressionable children who were vulnerable and unprotected, victims of the adults who were supposed to be our caretakers, and where was God? Well, you know, the fact is that horrible things happen to everyone. I cannot stress this enough. Although child abuse and dysfunction sets up special stumbling blocks and huge barriers to spiritual growth, there is no one on this earth who gets through life without scars of sins perpetrated against us. No one gets out of here without marks upon our souls, and not one of us is without our own sin, for we are born into it and it is part of the very fabric of our humanity. The fact is that God is there, even when horrible, awful, painful things happen to us. For one thing, we were never promised an easy passage through this world. Quite the contrary. Jesus promised us persecution, Paul, James, and Peter all wrote in epistles of suffering and wrote of it as if it were a good thing, a character builder, a means to sanctification. As I have written before and will doubtless write again, that which is ultimately for our good from God's point of view is not always what we think of as good, desirable, or pleasant. God is far more concerned about the development of our spiritual selves than the comfort of our body and mind, and the discomfort of the mind can be eased by just trusting God to be in charge (yes, yes, yes, it is much easier to say that than to do it, but since trust is one of the stumbling blocks with which I've suffered the hardest and the most, I feel justified in writing that now).
The simple fact is that God can and does take all things,
even the awful ones, and turn them to the good (see
Rom 8:28-31).
Take, for example, Jacob's son, Joseph, who was sorely
abused by his brothers, tossed into a well, and then sold
into slavery, and I'm sure that was absolutely
not a fun time for him. He ended up being falsely
accused of rape, he was imprisoned, and he must have felt
forsaken and forgotten. For the beloved youngest son of a great
patriarch, this must have been pretty traumatic, to say the
least. Eventually, though, by the power of God, Joseph
became the second most powerful man in Egypt, thus allowing
the nation of Israel to have a place to grow and thrive when
they were granted the land of Goshen. Joseph, himself, told
his brothers that it was not they who sent him to Egypt but
God (Gen 45:8), and gave a
number of reasons why this should be so. Joseph's brothers
did great harm and caused tremenous pain to their brother, but
God used that act of evil for ultimate good.
Many places in the Bible have the same theme. The writer
or storyteller states implicitly or explicitly that the
"misfortune" which happened ultimately turned out for the
good. We can also work these things out on our own, sometimes.
Take Paul, who was imprisoned for years at a time.
If he had been able to travel, which he certainly wanted to do,
he might not have written the letters which we now have
preserved as the bulk of the New Testament.
I really don't think that God approved of Joseph's
brothers abusing their sibling, frankly, despite the
fact that it worked for the greater good. Mistreating people
is never okay, despite the good which may eventually come of
it when God has woven it into his plans and turned it all
around. Sin is sin, abuse is abuse, and wrong is wrong. Just
because God can and does work things for the good does not
excuse the sinfulness of the initial acts nor relieve the
perpetrator of responsibility.
To the question, "Where was God?" I believe I can
absolutely answer, "He was right there with me." It
has taken literally years and years of work to overcome
my anger and finally see the truth of this, but I most
wholeheartedly believe it now.
I have often thought that perhaps Jesus, in his terrible
anguish at Gethsemane
and Calvary, was experiencing my pain as well as my
sin, so that I could be healed. Perhaps he carried my pain
along with the pain of everyone else. Perhaps the anguish
I have suffered was part of the terrible cup, along with
the pain of everyone else who is called to God through
Christ. Not only my sin, which grieved God, but also my
pain? The sins not only committed against God, but the results
of those sins, the pain, the wounds, the scars, carried by
us poor sinners?
Well, I don't know about that, really, but, I do know that
God knows and is intimately familiar with my suffering. Jesus
suffered in ways I don't dare to imagine. God understands my
suffering, he understands my pain, he understands my anguish.
He always did, from before the foundation of the earth.
God is not responsible for the sins perpetrated against me.
He is likewise not responsible for the sins I have
perpetrated against others. I cannot stress this enough.
God watches as we use our free will to do terrible things,
and only when we turn to him for guidance, for help, for
salvation and liberation and healing, does God intervene
directly where our will is concerned.
So, what was God doing when I was being hurt and abused
and otherwise damaged? I know where he was, but what was
he doing about it? Rather than intervening and
stopping others from sinning against me, I believe that
God was busy giving me the tools I needed to
survive, and the means to eventually be healed and
made whole, as that verse from Isaiah says!
God gave me
extraordinary gifts, all of which have been necessary for
my survival, and not only did I survive, I have healed,
become whole, and have even begun to actually thrive.
I have come to believe, to really, really believe, that I really am
"wonderfully and fearfully made" (Psa 139:14).
I see it this way. God knew I'd have to cross a very long,
dry, difficult desert. He knew I'd make a lot of mistakes,
get lost and wander off a lot of times, stumble and injure
myself, but that eventually I'd look for him, and thus find
my way. So he walked with me, although I didn't know he was
always there. He gave me all the water I needed, although at times
he let me run very low on water and then provide it, to
remind me that I wasn't alone, and make me wonder where it
was coming from. He provided food, sometimes in abundance
but more often in adequate but not filling amounts, so that
eventually, when I feasted at his table, I would appreciate
it. He watched me as I wandered around aimlessly, making
mistake after mistake, hurting others, hurting myself, my
true self divided and buried behind walls of anger, of fear,
of shame, of frustration, of misunderstanding. He let me
wander until I became so lost, so frustrated, so isolated
that I literally called out to him for change, for healing,
for guidance, and then I finally meant it and was
ready to receive it.
And now I have healed in amazing ways and and I have a new
life which I love. I know myself, and what's more, I know God, and I
know he's always with me. I know he always was, and
always will be. I wandered, like the Israelites, in the
desert, a prisoner of circumstance and my own stumbling
blocks. And God set me free from that, although it took a long
time and was not always easy.
Where was God? Right there with me. What was he doing?
Enabling me to survive the things done to me, and then, when
I was ready and sought his help and asked for healing, God
made me whole and gave me a ministry (this ability to write
well and to design attractive web pages certainly has come
in handy!). And why would God do this? I have yelled, wept,
screamed, doubted, complained endlessly, committed sin after
sin after sin after sin, fairly wallowing in, refusing to be
reconciled to God completely, refusing or unable to trust
wholly, and generally a dysfunctional, angry, hurtful,
arrogant mess for most of my life. Why on earth would God
give all this to me?
Because he loves me.
I still have my scars and my thorns in the flesh. I still
have days when I feel lost and forlorn and afraid. But these days,
my fear is overshadowed by the Light that lives in me, the Light
which has always been there but which I've only recently
been able to perceive on a continual basis.
Furthermore, the events of my life made me who I am, and I
like me these days. The pain I've suffered has made me deeply
compassionate. The struggles I've gone through have made me
strong. The difficulty of my healing and the eventual rewards have
given me faith. The experiences I've had have made me a very clear
judge of human behavior and motivations. In short, I have
character qualities I would never have had if I had not
suffered.
God was always there with me. And he is always there with
every one of his children, whom he has known and loved since
the foundation of the world.
That's where God was; it's the same place he always is.
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| And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. Rom 5:3-5 (NRSV) |  |
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