Advent Day Eleven: Wait, what?

There's a moment after you say, "Yes, Lord, let it be as you have promised," when doubt floods in.  Maybe this wasn't such a great idea.  Maybe this path that looked so blessed while Gabriel was hanging out looks dark and lonely now that the bright winged angel isn't nearby.  You are small.  You are young.  You are human.  You are alone.

Doubt, that slimy, second-guessing lizard, slithers up near your ear and hisses are you sure?  Are you sure that's what he said?  Are you sure this is what you should be doing?  Are you sure this is the most secure way?  Are you sure you are content?  Are you sure?  Are you sure?

Shake him off.  Remember what was promised to you.  If you are troubled, if you are doubting, if you are second-guessing this decision or this path or this career or this marriage or this relationship or this calling, pause.  Reflect.  What brought you to this moment?  What has changed that permitted this lizard on your shoulder?

When this happens to me (and it does, often), I have to ask myself a few questions:

• What is causing this uncertainty?
• Am I worried over what-if's? 
• Is there a present danger to my contentment?
• What are the temptations to change course, and what lies underneath those temptations?

And if I am still uncertain, if the road still looks rocky and dark and lonely, if there are now two or more ways I could go and I don't know whether to turn to the left or the right, then I run to a friend or mentor whose shoulder isn't occupied by the second-guessing lizard, who can remind me, through the fog of uncertainty, what has been promised, what is the way of truth, so that I can walk in it again.

I feel like that is what is happening in today's verses about Mary and Elizabeth.  Mary is a first-time mom, a virgin mother of the Son of the Most High.  Do you think she faced her changing body with peace and calm at every turn?  No!  Of course she's terrified!  Of course she needs encouragement!  In the days and weeks and months before I first felt that flicker of movement inside my womb, I worried daily I would miscarry, worried constantly something would happen.  I think Mary goes to her relative seeking comfort and encouragement from another woman who would understand, extend mercy and compassion, and embrace her - blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her.

"At that time Mary got ready and hurried to a town in the hill country of Judea, where she entered Zechariah’s home and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb, and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit. In a loud voice she exclaimed: 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear! But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!'" - Luke 1:39-45

Advent Activity: Buckeye Express Diner Night
Last year, we took the kids to this place and they loved it.  We haven't been back since, so I think they'll be pretty excited to go and dine again in the railroad car.

Bad People Go to Hell and Other Parental Panic Moments

My lovely blue-eyed seven-year-old daughter giggled. "Bad people go to the devil when they die," and my charming bow-tie and button-down-shirt wearing son giggled, too, "Yeah, but we're going to heaven because of JESUS."

I stuttered and stammered, "Well, it's true that Jesus saves us," I said, "but I'm not sure about the devil. It'd be a bad place to go, that far away from God.  I don't know about the devil." Or something like that. Yammer. Stammer. Pause. Continue eating pizza. End of theological discussion.

Oh, Lord.  Lord, Lord, Lord.  It's moments like this that cause my adult brain to short circuit. What do I say?  What do I believe?  How do I say what I believe without oversimplifying to the point of error?  Can I even communicate a non-deistic, grace over deeds, mercy over judgment concept to my children?  

Can I just hand them some Popsicle sticks and glue?  Here, stick these together. They make a cross! Wee!

I've thought about and pondered the existence of God for twenty years, ever since my best friend scribbled, "At least I know where I'm going when I die," in a folded and creased sheet of notebook paper, ever since I asked my mom, "Do you believe in God?" and I thought to myself, Of course she does, everyone believes in God, but she sat on the beach blanket next to me and said, I don't know.

I don't know.

It's possible that the greatest gift my mom ever gave me was this uncertainty.  Maybe that sounds crazy.  Maybe if she had said, "Of course I do," I would have nodded and thought, "well then, there you have it. There is a god."  

But wrapped in that single, simple, honest answer was this: permission. Permission to doubt. Permission to seek. Permission to question. Permission to believe.

Freedom.

She could have said, "Of course I do," her heart racing, ready to deliver the sinner's prayer to me right there on the shore of Lake Erie, right there, perform the accept-Jesus-into-your-heart prayer, and maybe it would have meant something to me.  She could have said, "No, I don't. I think it's ridiculous to believe in god," and I might have nodded, okay, that takes care of that, Lisa can eat her perfect cursive handwritten note.

But no, with one sentence a door opened, because paired with faith is always doubt, and what is the good news of Christ if not freedom?  Freedom to question?  Freedom to wonder?  Freedom to demand answers and freedom to rest in mystery?  

And then there was that note.  I think about that note often, how it's hot poker burned and I flinched.  Where will I go when I die?  Is there an afterlife?  Oh, the many ways I've answered this question, heaven, hell, dust, earth, eternity, purgatory, asleep in the ground, awake in the clouds... and yet even today Idon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknowIdon'tknow.  

Oh, I believe in an afterlife.  I believe in heaven, the love of Christ, ever-presence in a place as good as and better than this world, a place of wholeness and healing.  But also there is (or can be) heaven on earth, healing and redemption here, now.  That is a message I can hear and understand with more clarity and immediacy than any eternal heavenly location - that which is unfathomable, mysterious, but no less real... or possible.

But the question of the devil, well, maybe?  Why not?  I don't know anything about hell, its physical location, whether a loving God would condemn a mortal being to burn for all eternity, but I know there is (or can be) hell on earth, a life spent in bitterness and ruin, destruction and vanity and greed, a life spent entirely separate from God, serving one master, serving one's own interests, or maybe even serving the burning desires of Satan who wants to kill and destroy, to drive people away from God.  Maybe?  

"At least I know where I'm going when I die."  My best friend's note was a catalyst.  What do I know?  What do I believe?  That note was followed not by condemnation but by invitations, to Bible studies, dinners with her parents praying, the Billy Graham revival in Cleveland, our shared college dorm room, worship services we attended together, prayers we uttered together, and Bible verses we exchanged. All of the merciful, miraculous, and mysterious ways our paths have intersected these twenty years are an entirely other kind of testimony to the grace and power of Christ.

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  Grace.  Permission.  Freedom.

So what do you give your children?  I want to give them an open hand.  I want to invite them into "Here's what I believe, but."  Yes, I believe in a huge, loving, powerful, merciful, just, faithful, mysterious God of the universe.  Let me show him to you as best I can.  I hope that you will see him and feel that presence in your life, that faith will surpass doubt.  I hope that the love of Christ will be real to you, that it will ever change you, ever humble you, ever shape you into a fuller version of yourself, the very best version of yourself, and that the same love of Christ will compel you to love others deeply and fully, so they too may experience the love of Christ.

And when you ask me a question I don't yet know the answer to, please dear God let me have the humility to simply say, "I don't know," and may the mystery be enough to keep both of us searching.

Tragedy and Faith

Every tragedy is like a defibrillator to faith, something that shocks my system and leaves me needing to work out the circuits all over again, to try to reconnect and return to a healthy rhythm.  It resurrects the same doubts and questions about good and evil, faith and fear, that humankind has battled for all of time. 

Tragedy is a jolt out of apathy that slingshots me right back into the complex myre: What do I believe?  Do I believe?  How now shall I live? 

I wrestle and squirm a while until I'm once more preoccupied with and consumed by my own small life, abandoning the big and unanswerable questions until the next time something shocks me out of my complacency, and again I question.

God?

God?! 

God! 

God.

Sometimes I never get past the question.  Sometimes I advance to unbelief and then fall back into the arms of grace.  Sometimes I slip from belief to hate to disbelief to mercy to love and back again to hate, over and over.  And all of it is okay because there is a wrestling, because there is a questioning.  What is faith without doubt?  What is hope without the unseen?  What is there to believe if the truth is always right in front of me, within my reach and easy to grasp? 

Tragedy is a defibrillator that scares up the same fears and doubts so that we can be honest about our uncertainties.  It is an opportunity to see God, who is and will always be mysterious and out of reach and yet makes himself accessible and intimate in these moments. Or maybe he doesn't.  Maybe he is silent and we have to wrestle with that, too.  Maybe we just don't see him because we don't know how to see, or maybe we're blind for this time and unable to see past grief, or anger, or pain. 

Mercy is the time given for us to process and to run and to yell and to heal and finally, to turn and keep walking.