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Archives: March 2009
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Archives: March 2009
Where is God when it hurts?
By Andy Kitchen
In April 2000, 12 days short of my 21st birthday, my dad died of cancer following two years of battling with the disease. My relationship with my father and his illness has profoundly affected my faith and my relationship with Jesus.
I was in the middle of a Christian gap year when Dad was diagnosed. I vaguely remember the phone call I had with Mum where she said that Dad was going in to hospital to get a lump checked out. I can't remember feeling a huge amount.
Being away from home made it all seem a little unreal. Dad was not in my everyday life. My relationship with him consisted of a phone call every week or so.
Whether he weighted 12 stone or 7 stone, his voice still sounded the same over the phone. All I experienced was what I was told about it. I could disconnect myself from it if I wanted. I could not call. I could not go home.
I believe the bible tells the truth about God. That God speaks today. Heals today. Forgives today. I believe he is good, just and loving.
Yet I sometimes struggle to reconcile what I read in the bible with what happens in life. When Dad was ill and dieing, the temptation was to separate the reality from my faith: to hold onto this dream of a great God in my head, while in my heart I was falling apart.
Making a mental ascent to a God who heals when I saw my Dad getting progressively closer to death was not so much the problem.
The bigger challenge was to really grapple with the doubts surfacing in my heart and address the issues in my reality: to let stuff reach my heart.
I didn't want to shrug my shoulders and hold onto a fuzzy picture of God. I wanted to cry out from that place of reality, determined that God would speak to me about my situation.
Lead singer of U2, Bono says:
"Belief and confusion are not mutually exclusive; I believe that belief gives you a direction in the confusion... Faith and instinct, you can't just rely on them. You have to beat them up. You have to pummel them to make sure they can withstand it, to make sure they can be trusted."**
I realise now that feelings of anger and blame are a natural part of the process of grief that needs to be gone though for us to move on. But we need to express what we are feeling to God.
If we believe he is a loving father, he should care about us enough to answer us. And I have found that he does.
So what were some of my doubts, and how did God answer them?
My dad was a Christian. I thought to myself, "Is this how God rewards his followers?" It's hard to admit I was thinking this because I feel I need to be defensive about God and his reputation.
Normally I would reel off an answer or bible verse from my head. But I couldn't deny what my heart was asking.
I didn't find much comfort in the Psalm, "It is God who judges. He brings one down, he exalts another."
Psalm 75
Of more comfort was, "time and chance happen to them all"
Ecclesiastes 9: 11
I came to the conclusion that although we need to be real and grapple with some of these issues and how they relate to the bible, I also needed the humility to be able to accept that, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." (Isaiah 55: 9).
I really needed God to speak to me, and to know his presence with me in the midst of everything.
I knew from my experience of life so far that Jesus was good. I could see that "God was working for the good of those who love him" (Romans 8: 28) in the way my relationship with my dad and my family improved during his illness.
Yet, I still needed him to reveal himself to me.
And he did! I remember it vividly. About six months after my Dad died, I was standing in my bedroom.
I had split up with my girlfriend, was in the middle of my main degree project, church was going really badly and I was suffering from some mild depression.
I had a worship CD on. I was in tears crying out to God. At that moment I got angry. I finally spoke out all those questions that were in my heart, hitting out at God.
At that moment I knew God was there, like a father being able to take the punches and standing firm. I felt his arms around me and felt his heart for me, one that hurt as I hurt and loved me like no other.
So I've learnt just to be honest with God. To give myself some slack as the world doesn't stop turning no matter what you may be going through. If you are angry with God cry out to him and wait for a response.
Don't shake your first or turn your back.
About the writer...
Andy Kitchen is la very nice bloke who supports Arsenal and goes to Trent Vineyard in Nottingham.
**Taken from an interview with Neil McCormick, Growing up with U2, Daily Telegraph, sited in Walk On The Spiritual Journey of U2, Relevant Books.
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