Living a lie or Desiring God?

I like happy and joyful things, so writing this is hard for me.  I claim to be “real”.  I claim to want to share my thoughts and feelings about my motherhood and I encourage others to “just be real”.  However there is this part of my thought life that I don’t like to share.  The fears, the deep down,  inside my private thoughts, things that would “allow you to judge me”.  I wanted to keep this to myself but the Lord is “pushing me on” to share. 

I write this with even more fear of your judgement of me,  but I know, deep down,  that there is a reason I need to write it.   Either for my own release of it,  or for your sake, because maybe,  just maybe,  you might be going through this battle yourself. 

I’ll start where it began for me and I’ll warn you this isn’t going to be like one of my normal, happy, filled with hope and love, blogs.  This is a bit “darker”.

I guess there is no certain event or date that I can pin point but I do remember vividly, standing as I do, by the front door waving goodbye to my junior and senior girls, as they drove off to school and this thought came to my head.  “What if God doesn’t exist?!  Then this imaginary being that I just prayed to,  to keep my girls safe, isn’t there keeping them safe and NOW there is no one to keep them safe.” (I told you this was going to be dark.)

I’m sure you are thinking the same thing I was. “This is fear.” So I pushed it down.  I pushed it way down.  I got ready for the day and got in the car and the Christian radio was on.  I turned it off.  I drove for a bit and as usual, I began my routine with prayer.  I started… then I stopped.  This thought came to my head, “so, what if He doesn’t exist?”  “Who am I talking to?”  These thoughts then went further throughout the next few weeks.  What if this is all made up?  What if this is just some crazy story like the legends of the Greek gods?  What if I have given my whole life to someone, something, that isn’t real?!

This troubled me… for weeks on end.  I would begin to pray,  and stop.  This was strange to me because my prayer life is ME!  I pray all day!   At work,  when things are not going well, I pray.  When I get frustrated with another person,  I pray.  When my girls come to mind,  I pray.  So these thoughts… they weren’t me. 

I didn’t tell anyone.  When I would talk to other moms,  I promised I would pray for them.  I couldn’t tell them I was in dark valley trying to dig my way out.  I couldn’t tell my husband that I was daydreaming during family devotions.  I couldn’t tell my girls that their mom, was doubting in the One who created them, and that the example I was trying to live out could be a farce!  How could I share?  How could tell anyone?!  No one would understand! 

Or would they?

I had a bad day.   A really bad day.  Actually my youngest had a really bad day and as her mom, I felt her pain.  I wanted so badly to take her pain, but I couldn’t, so instead I sobbed.  I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed until at last the tears turned into words.  My husband took the brunt of it.  I unloaded everything.  All of it.   The man who was this image of pure, unwavering faith, said to me,  “You’re not alone and you’re not the first person to feel like this.  I’m sure everyone has had these thoughts once in their life.”  I said, with so much doubt, “Have you?”  His answer, coming from this man who always seems to have the right Biblical answer said “Yes!”

I tend to put my husband on a pedestal.  He wishes I wouldn’t because he knows his own failures and he is just a man.  He knocks himself off this pedestal and sometimes I knock him off too, but this man who is my “go to” just admitted that he has had these thoughts too.  He may not have been in as deep a valley as I was, but he had questioned his faith in his lifetime.  He reminded me that sometimes these questions are a good thing because it causes us to evaluate our beliefs and dive deep into our faith.  

My journey continued.  (I hate the word “journey” but I have no other word to describe what I was going through.)  I was weeks in and only my hubby knew what was in my head.  My prayers that normally were faith filled, full of confidence that someone was listening, were now beginning with, “If you really exist and really are listening…”, 

…but I didn’t stop praying.  I kept praying.  It wasn’t easy.  Sometimes I would start it and then not finish, because why was I wasting my time if no one was there?!

My hubby, being the man he is, told me to pick a devotional that we would do together.  Not read and do at the same time but we would do the same one and discuss it.   I picked a study on hearing God’s voice.  Hubby and I would talk about what we were learning and I felt as if I was climbing a mountain, slowly reaching the next step. 

One night, before bed,  I had the courage to tell my girls.  My fear of facing them, to tell them that their mom who pushed “her faith” on them and might be wrong about all of it, was making my heart pound. What if my admission would cause them to have doubts?  What if my fear and doubts cost them their faith?

Their reaction? These “Biblical scholars” in my mind, who could pull Bible verses from their brains were now helping their mom.   Their mom,  who is supposed to have it all together was losing it.  I expected stares of “your crazy and you need couseling”.  What I got was a comforting touch from my youngest, while my oldest said, “Mom,  you know even John the Baptist had doubts.”  I DIDN’T.  OF COURSE MY GIRLS DID.   Their knowledge of the Bible astounds me. 

I looked it up that night. 

In John 1:29, John  says “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world.” John the Baptist also said of Jesus, “The strap of whose sandal I am not worthy to untie” (John 1:27), and, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” (Matthew 3:14).

Later, in Matthew 11:3 and Luke 7:19, John the Baptist sent messengers to Jesus to ask Him, “Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?”

The man who stood next to Jesus after he baptized Him, who heard the voice from Heaven and saw the Holy Spirit descend as a dove, was wondering if Jesus was really the One!  A man who LIVED in Jesus’ time was questioning!?

As time has trudged on,  the Lord is “opening my eyes”.  Besides the wisdom from hubby and girls, I’ve heard words from our pastor from the pulpit, reminding all of us that if the Bible were not true, and if the story of Jesus was not true,  someone would have “cracked”.  There is no way, that all those years, with the disciples going out and preaching, that one of them wouldn’t have said,  “we made it up, it was a hoax.” 

Songs on the radio that hit me so hard that the tears wouldn’t stop.  Facebook posts, out of the blue. Random conversations that would pop up. People I haven’t talked to in months, sending me a message that was exactly what I needed in that moment. Creation vs big bang conversation that I overheard. A book given to me from a friend…THAT’S GOD!  

I know what I believe.  I know it all in my head.  It’s getting it from my logical brain to my fear filled heart.  It’s allowing the thoughts to come in and not shove them deep down. Taking those lies, fears, and doubts and transforming them to truth, safety and security in knowing that He exists and I can trust in that.  THAT!… that is what faith is!  

So where am I now? 

I’m not standing on the peak of the mountain yet,  but I see the light above me and darkness of the valley is below me.  His love is pouring out,  like a waterfall over me,  and I will come out of this, on the other side of this giant mountain, with a stronger faith than I had before, and maybe that’s the reason I’m on this journey.  (Still hate that word.)