"I feel like God hates me" she said. "And for the life of me I can't figure out why. I'm constantly helping people. I barely ever put myself first" she said. Those words have been tugging at my heart strings for the past 2 weeks. My heart breaks for her. All she wants is to have another baby. To be with child, to experience the miracle of life as she has experienced if before.
This is a hard one for people to understand. To ask why this desires of our hearts aren't being granted or to think that our prayers aren't being answered. Even as Christians, people still struggle with this. The question I often hear asked, even by family members, is "If God is so Good, then when did He let.... happen?" We could fill in the blanks with that one and the list would be never ending. I told my friend, that I referenced above, that I didn't have the answers for her but that I knew God isn't evil and He isn't the one causing her not to get pregnant. After thinking about it, searching my heart, discussions with others that I hold in high regard, consulting the word, I have come up with this answer for her, and for all of us. This is something that I have struggled with in regards to Denton and Quinton dying and Sophie having so many complications so it is a healing process for me as well. Sort of an acceptance.
In the beginning God created Adam and Eve. We all know the story of how Adam and Eve were in the garden and they were told they could have anything and everything in the garden to eat....except this one tree. They were told not to touch it or they would die.
Genesis 2:15-17
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. 16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; 17 but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
Genesis also goes on to tell us that the serpent was more crafty then any of the animals the Lord had made and he came to Eve and told her she could be like God, to know good and evil, if she took from the tree. The devil tempted her and she fell to the pressure. The moment Eve took from the tree and shared with her husband is when sin entered in to the World. Before that God made everything perfect, without sin. He even made man in his OWN image. That means that man was NOT sinful when he was first created!
The moment we allowed sin to enter the world in the moment when we gave the devil, the serpent, dominion over the Earth. We allowed him in and decided to push God out. God didn't have the power to cause bad things even if that was His character because this was the devils land now. We invited him in to stay. If we know that the devil is the bad one, the evil one, the one who comes to lie, steal and kill, then why do we still blame God for all of our problems?
One "trend" that I have witnessed is that many people want to claim they don't believe in God, but the moment something goes wrong they blame Him! Did you know it takes more faith to be an atheist than to actually believe in God? An example of that is my brother. He claims that he doesn't believe God exists because if he did then why does He let all this bad stuff happen? That is the mindset many people have developed. I see people blaming God for the bad, but when something good happens they declare themselves "self made men", or "I did this all on my own. Just me. No one else." I don't see people praising God in the good times as much as I see them blaming him in the bad. We can't expect God to perform miracles in our lives if we are stagnate in our faith, or wavering in our faith. We can't expect God to perform a miracle in our life if we aren't spending the time seeking Him, asking Him, and truly believing that it will happen.
Four months ago Sophie had a heart doctor appointment. In the months leading up to that appointment I was truly convinced that Sophie would go in to the appointment and the doctor would be amazed because her heart was healed. That Dr. Butto would say that we didn't have to come back as often anymore because Sophie was fine. With every fiber I believed that this is what was going to transpire. When I spoke to Dan on the phone after he got out of the appointment I was devastated because that wasn't what took place. My heart was completely broken. I felt I had been let down by God and I didn't understand. I made the phone calls I needed to make and I was reminded during one of the calls that God isn't finished. That we have 4 more months to pray and believe that God is going to heal her. Four months was when Dr. Butto wanted to see Sophie again to discuss another heart cath. I wasn't accepting this to be truth. So, for the past four months people have been praying and believing that Sophie will NOT have to have this heart cath. We go back to the doctor on Friday.
I share all of this with you because I have felt before that God hated me too. That it isn't fair that I have had to walk to journey that I have with my children. We did everything right, we did everything we were supposed to. I am a good person. I believe God sent his son to die for me on the cross and I believe that if I were the only person in this world, that He would have sent Him just for me then. With that said, I still don't blame God. I blame the devil. I blame that piece of garbage because he is the one who has dominion over the earth. He is the one who we let him to cause harm, to kill and to destroy. He is the one who makes bad things happen to good people, NOT God. God's heartbreaks when our heart breaks. God is sad when I am sad. God also gives us free will. We are allowed to make choices in our lives that aren't necessarily good for us, but we still make them. Do we ever ask ourselves what we are doing wrong? That answer would be that we aren't drawing near enough to God.
I know this is a wordy post. If there is anything I want you to take away from this post it would be that we serve a God of love. God isn't the one who causes bad things to happen, but He is the one that is there waiting for us to come to Him. He will ALWAYS be there, no matter what. Just because we don't have what our hearts desire in this very moment, doesn't mean we won't ever get it. Don't blame God when things go wrong, rejoice in Him knowing that He will make beauty from ashes!
