Photo Credit: Roost Photography
“What if I wasn’t created with love and intent for a specific purpose? What if I really am just an abnormality explained by science… essentially, a cosmic mistake? There’s a mystery behind being known and understood that gives life meaning.”
I wrote out these words at 1 am as I sat crying silently in my bathroom and let myself travel down the mental path of questioning what my life would look like if I truly believed those first two statements.
It was frightening. It looked like despair. A life void of value. Complete, unending darkness that would swallow me. It looked like death.
But I needed to sit in it. I needed to let myself go there and feel that in it’s completeness. I needed to find out if God’s love was deep enough and wide enough to cradle those questions.
Surprisingly, after all the pain that I’ve experienced, I never had questioned that God allowed the formation of my spine to stop at L5, leading to permanent life long damage of a clump of some of the most important and delicate nerves in my body. I had always just accepted it.
Recently, I uttered a phrase to a friend who is hoping in her journey with singleness. I said, “You know what your life would look like if you abandoned your belief that God is good and has a purpose in all of this. But you don’t know what it will look like if you keep trusting him. There’s hope in that.”
I realized that I’ve played this mantra over and over silently in my mind but had never given a voice to it.
I know what my life would look like if I abandoned my faith in Jesus. I would be angry and cynical about my pain. I would be self-centered, my faith would rest solely in doctors and my identity would be my disease. I would use alcohol and cutting to numb the emotions that I didn’t have the mental strength to process. I would make all my decisions based on my feelings. I may have not even had the opportunity to write this because in a moment of mental exhaustion, I likely would have chosen suicide.
I’m in the middle of a 30 week seminary class titled “Biblical Theology and Interpretation”. Every Monday night, I leave the class feeling like my mind is going to explode from information but what I am learning about how to study the Bible and about the Bible itself, are life changing.
This weekend we looked at how to deal with doubt and hard teachings in the Bible. We focused on John 6: 48-69
“I am the bread of life. Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?”
So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever. Jesus said these things in the synagogue, as he taught at Capernaum.
When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?”
But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe, and who it was who would betray him.) And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.”
After this many of his disciples turned back and no longer walked with him.
So Jesus said to the Twelve, “Do you want to go away as well?”
Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God.”
If you’re familiar with the Bible, imagine being the Jews and hearing Jesus say this for the first time. They would not have had his death on the cross and Resurrection to put it into context. They would have had no idea of our modern tradition of communion. This all would have been gross and confusing. It’s not surprising that the response of MANY of his followers was to “turn(ed) back and no longer walk(ed) with him.
I love Simon Peter’s response to Jesus’s question, though, “Do you want to go away as well?” He doesn’t reply, “Of course not! I totally get everything you just said and I’m in it to win it, no questions asked!”. Rather, Peter’s response suggests that he had thought about turning away and if he did, to whom he would turn to…and he was one of Jesus’s best friends!
But ultimately, Peter chooses to stay because of everything he had “come to know”. A better translation of this would be because of everything he had learned over time…the time he had spent living with Jesus. He had seen and heard enough truth to believe that Jesus was “the Holy One of God.”. Did he doubt? yes. Did he lack understanding and probably think some of what Jesus said was hard to accept and a little crazy? yes. Did he think about turning back to his former life and job as a fishermen? yes. But he knew enough to know that going forward with Jesus was filled with more hope than turning back.
I know what God has done in my life up to this point. I know what my life would look like without his death on the cross and Resurrection from the grave. I know enough to continue clinging to my faith.
As I continue to have increasing pain and disheartening diagnosis’, I have found myself humming this familiar tune;
“I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me;
No turning back, no turning back.Though none go with me, still I will follow;
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
My cross I’ll carry, till I see Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.”
This video shows the story God has given me. It was created and used by my home church, Elmbrook and I hope you are encouraged by it. Video filmed and edited by Matt Roth.
Much love,
Adri