Suffering

“Because I Can” – a Book Review, Giveaway, and Author Interview by the Most Amateur Interviewer Since Chris Farley

8:39 am ByJoy

Janet Oberholtzer is a great sport. She agreed to be a test subject for me to learn how my new advertising network works (that’s her ad in my sidebar — have you seen it?). This week she agreed to let me try out my interviewing skills AND my recording skills — I’ve never recorded a Skype call before. She was a delight to speak with, and put up with my fumbling and difficulty looking at the camera instead of the picture of her on my screen (eek! When I watched the playback I saw how badly I need to work on that!).

In the interview (RSS and email readers, you’ll need to jump over to my site to view I think), we chatted about her new book, “Because I Can,” the spiritual journey that she’s been on, and the sudden turn it took after she was involved in a serious accident while on a family vacation in California.

While Janet’s story is very different from mine, the themes are very similar. I enjoyed reading her book because I recognized so many of the same questions, doubts, and struggles that she describes. I appreciated the candor with which she describes the challenges she and her family faced during her recovery: spiritual crisis, depression, communication in marriage, and chronic pain. She doesn’t gloss over the hard times or put pretty bows on top. Because of her honesty and openness, readers will find her an encouraging companion through their own hard times. You can purchase or download your copy of “Because I Can” here.

She will checking this post over the next couple of days, so if you have any questions for her, leave them in the comments. Also, Janet is generously offering a free copy of her book to one reader! Leave a comment to enter the giveaway by 9pm EST, January 30, 2012. If you’d like an extra entry, please share this post and then leave a comment for each place you shared it (e.g. Twitter, Facebook). We will select a winner at random and announce on Tuesday.

Oberholtzer interview from the Bennetts on Vimeo.

Filed UnderFaith and Doubt, Giveaways, Reviews, Suffering 5 Comments

Gratitude Lists and What To Do with Pain

9:50 am ByJoy

For about a year I’ve been looking for every-day gifts, the little (and not-so-little) things that with familiarity I take for granted and stop seeing. Ann Voskamp hosts a link-up every Monday for those who are doing the same. She has challenged readers to see the gifts in what she calls “the hard graces” – those things that hurt and on the surface appear to be the opposite of a gift.

I have to be honest with you. This is hard. Good, but hard. Counting every-day gifts isn’t a miracle cure for depression or pain or brokenness. I can’t bring myself to thank God for bad things, though I can and do thank God for the good things that come out of the bad.

I miss my daughter, especially during the holidays, but I can thank God for new empathy. I can thank God for the way her life and death connect me with friends who have sick children or whose children have died.
I can’t thank God for my son’s physical issues, but I can thank God for the things my son does that my daughter never did. I can thank God for middle-of-the-night snuggles for comfort after a scary dream, and for falling asleep cuddling him.
I can’t count depression as a gift, but I can count a gift the deeper understanding of Job, Naomi, and David. I am thankful for medicines and vitamins and sunshine and the unconditional love of a spouse no matter how bad I feel (or act).

To me, it is a great disrespect to call something bad “good.” It minimizes the real suffering and the ongoing permanent loss experienced by those of us to whom bad things happen. (And let’s be honest – no-one gets through life without something bad happening.) I respect greatly those who can look at their pain and thank God for it. But I also respect those who can’t, but who recognize ways that God redeems those bad things and brings good out of them.

It is arrogance in the extreme to identify one of those good things that came from bad and say, “See? That is why the bad thing happened.” I don’t believe we will ever know the fullness of the why, not in this life. Though good things came in and through the brokenness of my daughter’s body, I will not say that those things are why she was born into a broken body. I dare not. God alone knows why, and one of the lessons of the book of Job is that God doesn’t tell us why.

This doesn’t stop me from sobbing “Why God? Why????” when life hurts. It doesn’t stop me from hating how broken the world is, and how broken our bodies and our inner selves are. But the not knowing will not stop me from fighting against that brokenness and doing what I can to heal and mend and bind together.

Maybe what God wants us to do with our pain is to see it for what it is, and work against it.

I love this song by Shaun Groves. It has become my prayer in the brokenness. (He recorded it for another blogger, but we can all eavesdrop!)

Kingdom Coming for Sophie at BooMama.net from Shaun Groves on Vimeo.

Oh God, what do we see and hear?
Your kingdom coming
Oh God, what do we see and fear?
Your kingdom coming

Let it come to us
Let it come through us

CHORUS:
‘Til the sword is spared
And the bread is shared
‘Til the dying’s done
Let your kingdom come
‘Til the rich ones give
And the poor ones live
‘Til the weak are strong
Let your kingdom come

Oh, God, what do we pray down here?
Your kingdom coming

Let it come to us
Let it come through us

CHORUS

Mercy come, justice come
Healing come, peace, Lord, come
Your will be done through us on earth

CHORUS

Oh God, what do we need down here
Your kingdom coming

Counting #608-623 of 1000 gifts with Ann today.

Filed UnderDepression, Multitudes on Mondays, Suffering 34 Comments

I’m Afraid of God: on Sacrifice, Pain, and the Sovereignty of God

9:50 am ByJoy

Have you ever been afraid of God? I have.

I am afraid of God.

I live my faith-life in Calvinist circles, where they (we?) believe in what they call the sovereignty of God. They believe that unless God has His hand in every single thing that happens, He cannot be God. Many of them take great comfort in the knowing that everything that happens in their life, the good, the painful, and the evil, is “God-ordained” – allowed by Him.

But it isn’t comforting to me.

Because….

If God really will do anything to make his name great (the phrase repeated over and over in the Bible is “for the sake of my name”)…

and…

if God really is in control of every single thing that happens…

that freaks me out.

It means that God allowed the disabilities and deformities and malfunctions of my daughter’s body and allowed her to suffer and die young.

It means God allowed the issues my son faces today.

It means that God could allow him to die young too.

I’m afraid that I will have to bury more of my children.

I expect adults to die. I expect to outlive my husband. On both our sides of the family women far outlive men.

I don’t expect children to die. I don’t want to believe that God asks that of me.

Some of you will say that it doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not – my believing or denying won’t change the truth. That’s when I feel like a trantruming toddler. I stomp my foot and say, “You can’t prove it, and you can’t make me.” Real mature, I know.

This weekend at the Relevant Conference Ann Voskamp challenged us to reject the lure of fame. She called on us to share our stories for the purpose of encouraging one another and making God known, not for the purpose of increasing our platform or making ourselves known.

She said some very hard things. She said that we don’t blog on a platform, we blog on an altar, and God asks us to sacrifice everything for Him on that altar.

It’s easy to nod your head and say “amen” when you’ve never done it, when you don’t know how agonizing it will be.

I know. I’ve been stuck on that altar for eleven and a half years. It is wretched. Sometimes I’m not a willing sacrifice. Sometimes I’m angry and bitter. Sometimes I’m afraid. Lately, I want to know if it is enough. Have I given enough? Please?

But I listen to Ann, because she knows, too. She has lived it. She lives it still. If you’ve read her book, you know that she has faced soul-scalding pain. Yet she can proclaim to the world that God is good and that God redeems that pain and makes beauty of it.

I wish I could do that. Right now, all I can manage is a ragged gasped-out prayer for help to love God enough that I can be willing to give everything. I cling to the hope that God will redeem our pain, and that behind all the suffering is a God who loves.

Where do you find comfort when you suffer? How do you respond to the teaching of the sovereignty of God?

Today I’m counting gifts #546-550 from the weekend with friends, and especially for the challenge from Ann. Linking to her Multitudes on Mondays post.

P.S. Don’t forget to share your latest life: unmasked post at the link-up here every Wednesday.

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Sponsor a child in Bolivia with World Vision

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Filed UnderBlogging, Faith and Doubt, Multitudes on Mondays, Suffering 62 Comments