Let me tell you up front. This is a bad post. You won’t feel good or inspired at the end. No, this is a post marking a hiatus for me. I only thought it was fair to say that up front.
I see our beautiful daughter, at home, asleep. I see our son in one of his many contortionist positions he considers comfortable enough for sleep. My wife is peacefully asleep as well.
The house is quiet. Hot, but quiet.
The heat prevents me from sleeping despite very wonderful sounding storms outside. It makes me think of summer at home to hear the thunder late at night. It is usually a great comfort. But there’s more than that. I have been awake for many nights now and I thought that once she was home, I would sleep better. Such is not the case. I cannot sleep because I am unsettled.
I have rationalized natural disasters as a hazard of where you live. If you live on the oceanfront, you shouldn’t be upset when a hurricane levels your house. I’ve even thought to myself why these storms are needed. Lightning puts nitrogen in the soil. Hurricanes shift water temperature around in globally beneficial ways. Earthquakes have benefits as well, and the list goes on. I think DJ had a column on it as well as part of his theodicy.
Theodicy is the area of theology that deals with the existence of evil. All theodicy starts with the question, “How does evil exist if God is omnipotent and all loving?” Some redefine or clarify “all loving”. Some clarify or redefine omnipotent. Some say that the world is fallen and therefore all evil and suffering is bourn of Adam’s sin. Some go into great detail to discuss the effects of free will and those that choose sin. Things that do not appear to be caused by a sin are either linked to a sin somewhere in time and space, or are explained away in other ways.
I have read quite a bit of theodicy lately and I do not but any of them. Every theodicy I have read is pretentious (to know the mind of God) and somehow limits God. Either God cannot overcome the fallen world for some reason or God cannot circumvent the will of evil men or natural disasters. Both ways point to a deist God more than the God of the Bible. Yes, there are elaborate explanations, but I do not buy them. They do not work for me. There are even explanations that say God can overcome both the fallen world and the will of evil men. However, it does nothing to explain why he acts in some cases and is silent in others.
Where does this come from? Not the tornadoes that hit Kansas, but the suffering of our daughter. I know that she was not afflicted because of my sin or hers - Jesus said that the man born blind was born blind for the glory of God. It does not comfort me that our children have genetic disorders for the glory of God. Surely glory could have been attained without afflicting children.
God does not cause evil, as James says. So he may not have directed these things to happen. If he did, then what has happened to our children is not evil. Otherwise, he allowed it to happen, which is the same thing. If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem. Maybe it is not evil what has happened to our children, but it felt evil.
Everyday was either the uncertainty of what a test result was or another piece of bad news. Her skull hasn’t grown since birth. That was what we were told just as she was allowed to go home. Can’t we just enjoy her being home? As it is, they called today to schedule the MRI. So much for a day of peace. Before that, it was watching her angry at the breathing tube for five days. Each of those five days, my wife asked me and God for relief from her pain and sadness. Each of those five days, I was unable to do so. Then it was the tests for Goldenhar’s. Then it was questioning our son’s diagnosis and a consideration that they both have something called Townes-Brocks Syndrome. If it is still Goldenhar’s, then we are one of eleven families with multiple Goldenhar’s children. ONE OF ELEVEN. If it is Townes-Brocks, not only are we one of a couple hundred families, but it is transferred from parent to child. In other words, our children will have Townes-Brocks children and the symptoms can be very mild or very severe. Everyday they weighed her and they weighed her poops. One day, they said she lost 10 oz and it seemed that it would be a month before she came home. Her weight went up and down. We concentrated on her eating so much, we overfed her causing her to throw up. Unfortunately, throwing up aggravates the nasal surgery. For eighteen days I watched her vital signs and tried to figure out if a given heart rate was good or not.
Others have been through worse, I know. But God made a promise to not give us more than we could handle.
He didn’t hold up his promise to me. I’ve snapped and I know it. I pray in tears and screams and anger. (Anger is not a sin, but what I am doing in my anger is.) I am detached. I am not in touch with reality in many ways, at least not with spiritual reality anyway. I regard prayer as futile, but pray anyway because it is written, “You do not have because you do not ask.”
It seems that God has made up his mind what He is going to do. He isn’t swayed by prayers - as it is written, “I am not a man that I should change my mind”. It has been pre-determined since the beginning of the world as is as unyielding as death itself. He will not budge, He will not speak directly. He cares, I’m sure, but the only comfort is “it will work out in time, you’ll see.” (Romans 8:28)
No. I do not believe that anymore. I want to, but I don’t. As miserable as I feel, I cannot trust an all-powerful God anymore with my heart and my prayers. This, of course, makes them a waster of time because I am praying without faith. I’ve prayed reflexively for so long, I have to stop myself in mid-sentence and apologize for taking His name in vain.
I used to wonder at storms. I used to do a lot of things.
I may not write for awhile. I will get professional help at some point. I may make peace with God.