Thankfully, my doubts are not about the important things in life. When you are born to two parents who loved each other, who desperately wanted to have kids, and have a middle name that literally means “Gift from God”, you’re pretty much going to get the point that God loves you.
No, my doubts are mostly about inconsequential or ridiculous things: “Yeah, right, the guard from my favorite basketball team will make that shot”; “the Bengals will someday win the Super Bowl, yeah, as if”; “The Indians &/or Reds will absolutely be in contention this year for sure”, Etc.
But our friend Robin, now she’s experienced the big doubts. As you know if you’ve read our blog, Robin is a Gulf War & Iraq War veteran. She’s spent the better part of two long years in her version of hell. She not only faced an enemy that wanted to kill her, but also a lack of acceptance of her by her own “brothers in arms”. Robin went to Iraq a solid, believing Christian. But over there, she experienced a situation where even her own fellow soldiers did not believe (oh, sure they wanted her to pray before patrols, but then mocked her beliefs later). Somewhere in the Deserts of Iraq & Saudi Arabia, Robin lost her connection with God. She thought God had abandoned her.
In worship this week, we told the story of the early Christian believers having the same feeling. If you want to read it at home, open up to John Chapter 20 in your Bible and read verses 19-31. The disciples, Jesus’ inner circle of friends, had really had a bad week there. Jesus was arrested, beaten and killed. They were relatively sure they were going to be following him. But then, Jesus appeared to them in a locked room. Jesus offered them peace and reassurance, all but poor Thomas.
I do feel sorry for Thomas. He was not there. Take away 2,000 years of Christian teaching and put yourself in his shoes. You’re out and about, and come back to hear your dead teacher has supposedly appeared to your friends and offered them peace. “Yeah, right, you’re not pulling that one on me guys” is thought that enters my mind, I’ll believe it when I can put my finger in his hands and my hand in his side. But Jesus comes back and helps out even Thomas. You can stick your hand in my side if you need to Thomas is the response of Jesus. Thomas, seeing, believes.
But many great Christians have needed that kind of experience. Mother Teresa, you know the champion of the poor in Calcutta, founder of the Missionaries of Charity, winner of the Noble Peace Prize, wasn’t always the world renowned figure. In 1946, she was a young nun. But she was given a great gift. For a time, she had regular conversations with a voice she knew to be Jesus. He called her his “Little One”. He shared his hope that she would be his embodiment of compassion for the poor and those who thirsted.
However, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, long before she became the symbol of Christian compassion to millions, if not billions of people, she lost that voice. According to her confidants and her diary, she lost the voice of God forever. She was in darkness and doubt the rest of her life. Imagine, the woman who inspires many to this day, years after her death, was lost and seeking and fearing. She was able to accomplish what she did by that one period of close contact and faith in holding onto the message she received.
Do you have that moment or those moments in your life that you can hold onto? For both Cheri and I, we’ve never actually had that long, intimate encounter with God, but we’ve both had shorter, more of a medium experience, of God’s presence. For Cheri, she talked about several in her message today. She felt God at Summer Church Camp, in communion services in Seminary, etc. Her biggest though, was around the death of her father.
Cheri’s father James died suddenly while she was in Seminary. She went to bed not even knowing her father had been taken to the hospital. She didn’t know he was there, as her mother had been sent home, being told he would be fine. But when she woke in the morning, Cheri received word he had died from a blood clot on his lung. Thankfully, she was surrounded, far from home, with a community of God’s love and support. So not one voice, but many were there to give her God’s message of love and peace.
Decades later, I had a similar episode like her Dad. I was at Church, working on improving the tech booth at our last church, when I experienced the onset of bad paid and a shortness of breath. I had Cheri take me to the Emergency Room 3 times over the next 4 days. Finally, they admitted me to the hospital and did a test where they used the same scope they use for heart catheterization and discovered I too had not one, but two blood clots, one on each lung. The first night, Cheri would not leave my side. But on night two, Cheri was finally able to go home.
There I was, helpless, weak, as close to death as I have ever come thus far in my young life. I was pitiful. I always picture myself in the role of the warrior, the protector for my clients and my family. And here I was not only helpless, but facing a chance that I would leave my wife, like her father had left her family and my father had left mine. Worse still, my Dad died when I was 15, Cheri’s Dad died when she, the youngest was in seminary. Becca was about 4 ½ and Jamie was not yet a year old. In other, words, I would be leaving a widow and two kids who would never remember me.
As I lay there, having to lie perfectly still, as they had opened a major artery to do the test and it needed to close, I was feeling as alone as I could get. But then, on the blank wall of my room, I kid you not, appeared a cross. I was formed by the lights outside my room coming through the blinds. It was never there before and it would never be there any other of the nine nights I spent in Toledo Hospital. But it was there on my darkest night. Then, and only then, could I let go. I finally relaxed and realized one of two things was going to happen. I was going to either make it or not. Either way, God was with me and God would be with my family. I found peace, I head a voice that basically said, “I’m here with you, I’ll be there with them, I’m never gone, just be quiet and look harder when you feel the most alone, you’ll find me”.
That was something we heard in worship today, over and over again. Cheri gave us a chance to share any stories we had like this and we had some great ones. Our friend Kara (not her real name, but she loved when I suggested we use Starbuck from the New Battlestar Galactica’s name) shared her story of God being there. First, when he helped convince her to get help for addiction to prescription and other drugs. Then again, later when she convinced Kara to trust in her, and know she was loved. It was an amazing service with multiple great stories and few dry eyes.
Jesus said to Thomas, so you believe because you’ve seen with your own eyes, but even better blessing will be in store for those who believe without seeing. That’s what the Christian life is all about. It’s about paying attention to those moments when we experience the presence of God, when we see God in places like the Village community. So, later, when we feel lost from God we can remember these moments and hold onto them. There are times when we need to trust God and it will be really hard to see God or feel God’s presence. Those are the times we have to rely on our memories of God. Here’s hoping you hear that voice from God this week.
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