Over the last year I have questioned my faith, my beliefs, and doubted God and his Word to the point that I was ready to walk away. I had always hoped, in the face of great trouble and loss, I would be the Christian who continued on in unwavering grace and strength, my faith unscathed by my adversity. But grief is not always so pretty as that, especially when your faith seemed to have failed you. My prayer and conversation with God were laced with bitter undertones, anger at him for what he had not done for my family. I gritted my teeth through every song and sermon that proclaimed he is a miracle worker, that he is a healer, that he is good. I counted down the minutes until church was over, and avoided fellowship with people who meant well. I all but scratched out the scriptures in the Bible that didn’t “work” for me or that didn’t “feel true” to me. I screamed, yelled, lashed out at God for “allowing” my little brother to die in the way that he did, at the age he did, before me, before my mother, before it made sense. There appeared (and still appears) to be nothing redeemable or merciful in his death. And that made me angry. It made me feel betrayed by God. It made my heart harden toward him.

So why didn’t I just leave?

Because I remembered the response of Peter when Jesus asked the disciples that very same question.

Where would I go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life.

In the midst of my deconstruction, pulling apart and examining my theology, my beliefs about who God was and what I should expect from him, I knew what a life without Jesus was. I knew that as hopeless and helpless as I felt in that moment, there was no greater hope or help to be found apart from him. I knew that if there was anyone able to take this bitter cup from me, it was the one who had tasted it himself and overcome. And that even if he wouldn’t take it from me, he was the only one who truly understood the cry of my heart.

So I stayed. And I argued. And I questioned and I doubted. I wrestled and I fought, but I did it all in his arms. He never left me. Even when I wanted him to.

In a lecture given by Elisabeth Elliot in 1995, she says, “I thought, “What a dangerous position to put oneself in? To decide from now on that I’m angry with God, and therefore, I don’t need to pray about this particular matter that he has not conformed his will to mine. What pride and presumption?”

This lecture changed my heart. It changed my life. It opened my eyes and quieted my soul.

She goes on to say,

“Even an earthly father wants his best for his child and you mothers, you certainly know that there isn’t any question, that you want the best for your child. You want the very best. Very often you think what’s the very best and God doesn’t always provide it, does he? And that’s the point where he’s saying, “Whose agenda? Yours or mine?”

[…]

“Think what a dangerous position we put ourselves in, voluntarily, when we get angry with God. Is there anywhere else for us to turn? If you’re angry with God, I don’t know any other refuge. God is my refuge and strength. A very present help in trouble.

[…]

“He’s got you and me, sister, in his hands. Shall we deliberately reject such a refuge?

[…]

“As I look forward to what may be left of my future, I think of John Greenleaf Whittier’s beautiful lines, “I know not where his islands lift their fronded palms in air, I only know I cannot drift beyond his love and care.” Keep a quiet heart. Don’t pit your will against the will of God. Pause now, think in your heart, “What is that one thing that springs to your mind immediately so strange to you in the will of God in what he has permitted or what he has not permitted?” Does he know what he’s doing? Are we going to resent him? Presumption means dictating to God. It’s a display of pride. It’s a display of presumption and it’s unbelief, isn’t it? Let’s call things by their proper names. It’s unbelief. We call ourselves believers. Yet, how often we really don’t believe what God has said.

“We forget his promises. We forget his faithfulness. We hear the word of God sometimes and we decide we don’t really like it. I’ve always been interested in people’s questions that they ask when I have question and answer sessions such as we will have today. Often there is that note of, “I really would rather have answers than holiness.” Sometimes we have to choose between the two. God may not give us an answer because he wants to make us holy or he won’t give us the answer that we’re banging on his door to get because he wants to sanctify us and make us like Jesus Christ.

[…]

“Do you want solutions or do you want holiness? Do you want comfort or do you want Christ? Do you want answers or do you want orders? Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:4, “A soldier on active service will not become entangled in civilian affairs. He must be holy at his commanding officer’s disposal.” If we are soldiers of Jesus Christ, he is our commanding officer and we take his orders and we’re completely disposable. Let’s never forget that we’re completely disposable.

[…]

“Most of the time, let’s say they will be in some kind of conflict with the will of God. Pride, presumption or something, but he, by his gracious Holy Spirit, speaks to us and says, “I’m with you, I’m still in charge, I do know what I’m doing.” This is not for nothing. Any kind of suffering, any kind of bewilderment, any kind of perplexity, anything you want that you don’t have or anything that you have that you don’t want, God has assigned it. He has ordained it for our sanctification.

[…]

“Keep a quiet heart. Conform your will to the will of God. You’ll be able to keep a quiet heart because Jesus said in his last discourse with his disciples, “Peace, I leave with you. My peace, I give unto you, not as the world giveth to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” God bless you.”

What wisdom. What truth.

The events of the last year do not make sense to me. And maybe they never will. But they don’t have to. Because I believe I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. There, it will all make sense. There, it will no longer be sad or painful. There, I will see a full picture of the goodness and mercy in what now feels only like pure and unjust heartache. There will be a redemptive glory.

Until then, God is teaching me to keep a quiet heart. I am learning to not lean on my own understanding as he teaches me to trust him, and to humble myself as I rest in the blessed assurance that he is good and his will is greater than my own. And so, I am no longer struggling against his embrace, but resting in it. And there is peace. Finally, peace.

*If you would like to listen to the full 1995 lecture by Elisabeth Elliot, it is available on the Risen Motherhood podcast, episode 193. A link to the full transcript is available below.

https://www.risenmotherhood.com/transcriptions/obedience-06

Most of the time I feel like I’m pretending; pretending it didn’t happen; pretending you are just visiting our dad out of state, as you often did; pretending I just haven’t heard from you in a while; pretending we can make more memories together.
Sometimes it’s to maintain composure because “life” doesn’t slow down or stop for those who mourn. Sometimes I think it’s just because I don’t understand that none of my ‘pretendings’ are true.
And then some mornings I wake up, my cheeks wet with tears, knowing I will not be able to pretend that day as the truth sits heavy in my chest.

The truth: you are not here. I don’t get any more time. I must live with how I spent the short time we had. Not enough of it with you. But it would never be enough now, even if we had spent every day from your birth together.

We visited Papaw’s grave one year to the date of his death. You asked me to come with you, “just me and you,” nearly a month in advance.
You cried, and I held you as your body shook. I felt your tears from above me fall onto my head. You said you wished papaw could see you after losing all the weight because you wanted to make him proud. I said, “maybe he can.” And you nodded and said, “yeah.”
As we stood there, neither of us knew that in two months time you would be to his left. How could we have ever known?

This shouldn’t be. You should have been the one to bury me.

I still hear your sweet voice saying, “hey sissy.” And I still feel your big teddy bear hugs; the hugs I need so desperately now; the hugs I will need countless times throughout the remainder of my life.

Your life has shown me I must not be afraid to do something with my passions; to value relationships with family and friends above all else; to seek to spend time with those I love.
Your death has shown me I must do these things now; not when I have more time or money; not when my house is clean enough or pretty enough; not when the conditions are right or favorable or convenient. Now is all we have. “Later” and “tomorrow” are not ours.

Sometimes it doesn’t feel real that you’re gone. Sometimes I know it just can’t be. But it was real when I called the pharmacy to cancel all of your prescriptions. It was real when we poured them all into a ziploc bag for me to take to the police post. It was real when I dropped them in the container there after 8 whole months of silently hanging on to them for no reason other than that turning them in meant you were not here to need them anymore. It was real when we arrived to the funeral home that day and saw you lying there, so cold. It was real when I kissed your forehead and it felt like concrete against my lips. It was real when your closed casket was next to a pile of dirt, and they quickly read one scripture and prayed; we were told in such a cavalier manner that the service was complete; as though it was just that simple to walk away. It is real when you aren’t sitting at the head of the table at meals. It is real when your truck has been sitting in the same spot for a month. It is real when I have to watch videos to remind myself how alive you were. It is real when I have to listen to voicemails in an effort to not forget what your voice sounds like. It is real when I cannot call you because you are not here to answer. It is real when we visit your grave. It is real when I remember watching you take your last breath. Lord help me, it is real.

They don’t tell you how cold it feels when they say, “this concludes the services.” How empty you are left feeling as you walk away from the grave plot, grasping the stem of a flower from the casket spray. Is that all? Now what?

There’s a song I know with a lyric that says “I’ve never gotten used to it, I’ve just learned to turn it off” and I can’t think of anything that describes my grief more accurately.

Some days I let myself feel it all. All the sadness and pain and devastation of losing you. It is always there beneath the surface, and sometimes it is triggered by a memory or a word or a photo or a song or a poem. And in those moments I feel as though I will fall apart—in fact I know I will. So I stifle my thoughts, swallow the lump in my throat, take a few deep breaths, and march on. I am too busy to fall apart. I do not have the strength to fall apart. But it feels a slight to you to never allow your absence to be fully felt. And so some days I let myself feel it all.

Standing in this funeral home, I understand now what I did not know before. The crowd filtering in is a sea of blurred faces. Well-meaning people attempting to provide comfort, with words that fall flat and leave them feeling inconsolable.

I know that when the family first arrived here today and saw their loved one in a casket for the very first time, the finality of his death hit them like a ton of bricks. Their stomachs turned, their hearts clenched in their chest, breathing was something they had to remind themselves to do. They felt it all must be a bad dream.

I know that when they touch him, he will be so cold. And when they kiss his forehead, it will be as kissing concrete. They will do these things in hopes it will bring comfort, but it will break them in a new way to touch death with their own hands.

Death, to all those who witness it’s intrusion, is a discomfort. You can see it in the tapping of the foot, the unconscious bouncing of the leg, the wringing of the hands, the helpless staring at Its victim. No one knows what to do with it, so they just sit, watch, listen to it’s ragged, shallow breaths while holding on tightly to their own.

Death, to all those who experience it’s intrusion, is a once-mystery now revealed.