I read an average of three books a week. I don’t say that to brag, but to illustrate how essential books are to my life. They are my escape, my source of inspiration, and my life’s instruction manuals. In addition to reading, I take tremendous and inexplicable joy in sorting my books and lining them up on my bookshelves. I lay on the couch each night keeping one eye on whatever program is on t.v. and another on the bookshelves surrounding the television. I look for inconsistencies in height and color in neighboring books, for bumps in the rows where a book has been pushed back while I dusted, and contemplate if changing the order of a few will make the display perfect. I wage internal debates about whether I should place books in a series according to numerical order or group them by color so the eye travels better over the shelf. Books line every shelf, dresser, table, and level surface in my home. They have infiltrated my kitchen cupboards as I run out of places to store them. I should give some away to create more space but have a difficult time doing so for no other reason than they sooth my soul . As a result, I treasure them and treat them with more respect than they probably deserve. I do not like to crack their spines, bend their covers, or fold their page corners. In fact, the women in my book club are terrified to borrow my books for fear they will return them in an “unacceptable” condition. Yes, it’s that bad – ask Katy, she’d probably love to tell you all about it.
I turn to books first and foremost when I seek information. When my mother-in-law was diagnosed with a terminal illness nearly two years ago, I started searching for answers to a variety of questions and added a number of books to my expanding collection. I picked up books about grief, about depression, about heaven, about healing. Books about finding purpose in pain, books attempting to answer why, books about how to be happy no matter what life throws at you, books about God’s sovereign plan, books about overcoming fear, books about hearing God’s voice, books about turning life’s challenges into blessings. This past weekend, I searched through those titles again, hoping that if I could find just the right one it would answer all the questions in my mind and the restlessness in my heart surrounding my dad’s diagnosis and the current events of my life. Yet the frustrating fact remains that even books based on biblical teachings cannot satisfactorily answer the lamentation of my soul. Even if good comes out of pain, even if I’m able to rationally understand my time on earth is short in comparison to eternity, even if I am able to beat back the fear by turning my circumstances over to God, even if I know others in the world have it far worse than me, I still fall short of complete surrender and peace. I am still unsatisfied and unhappy about the sufferings I currently face.
I recently was sharing with my counselor that I feel God is silent, that I can’t hear or see Him, that I am missing His tangible presence at a time when I need it most. But something clicked for me this weekend: maybe I am looking for Him in the wrong places. Maybe the places others find Him or the ways others hear from Him won’t work for me. Maybe I don’t need to learn a new skill to communicate with Him. Maybe God has enough love, compassion, and insight to reach me in my preferred way. Maybe if He wanted to let me know He was near or send me a personal message, He would put just the right book in my hand at just the right time. So what if I read each book with the expectation of finding His message for me within the pages?
With that thought in mind, I paused when I read a quote by John Scott in the book I was reading. It said: “The fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith, and has been in every generation.” Rationally I know this. I have heard the question posed many times. I have answered it unsatisfactorily more times than I can count for hurting friends. But now it’s personal. Now it’s my life that is deeply affected by suffering. So I paused. And thought. And started to write.
I find some small measure of comfort in the knowledge that generations before me have wondered, asked, yearned, sought, and pondered the very same questions I am asking. Not only have they asked, they were able to navigate life’s challenges with their faith intact. Those who write about it, like God, promise there will be a time when there is no more sorrow and I will feel joyful again. So maybe the act of questioning doesn’t have to mean I’m in a crisis of faith, but rather that I am like so many before me who struggle to reconcile a good God with suffering and heartache. Maybe moments of questioning and doubt do not preclude the destruction of my faith, but rather are a part of its growth. For as I heard quoted this weekend: “Faith when everything is as you want it to be is not true faith. It is only when our lives are falling apart that we have a chance to make our faith real.” I desperately want my faith to be real.
I will always read, but perhaps more expectantly and intentionally now than I have in the past, anxious to hear what else God may have chosen for me to come across in this season and in these circumstances. It may not answer every question or alleviate every moment of sorrow and fear, but it just might bring me moments of comfort and a small sense of His presence. For now, that will have to suffice.
-Sara
Sara, thank you so much for your honest writing and posting. These times are truly the greatest challenges to our faith but bring us much opportunity, even when we would much rather had that opportunity to grow in faith in other ways. I love how you have come to look for God’s words to you in your reading. I believe that God speaks to us in all manner of ways and can definitely be speaking to you through the words on the page–he has many times for me in the past. I hope you will pass on any books that have been the most profound for you.
I likely won’t reply to posts that often but know that I am reading and journeying along with you all and you will continue to be in my prayers.
With hope, Mollie
Sara,
I do hope you continue to read, write, and share your deepest thoughts in this blog. I do believe that it is as therapeutic to you as it is to those of us who are reading them.
Perhaps writing is your true calling, as you are touching lives in many ways through your postings.
Remember that God is always near, and He loves you dearly.
Happy thoughts,
~Sheri
Sara,
What you share is so beautiful even as you cry out. Yes, these are the times that our faith can certainly grow the most if we let it, and that is sometimes not much consolation. In the moments I have cried out to God and wondered if He is hearing me, I also make this request: if this suffering is for Your purpose, please grant me the chance to see some of its fruits here on Earth. I know that You are working in myriad ways and I don’t get to know them until all the pieces fit into place, but please, just a glimpse sometimes would really be helpful. I don’t know if that is a comfort to you, but God is gracious, and perhaps from your responses to your blog, or further down the line as you are in different seasons, you will see Him answer this prayer. And it’s like a whisper, a shared moment between just you two, when God tells you that it was not in vain, that He is working all things together for good, even when you don’t believe Him. I think of and pray for you all often, and I’m definitely wishing I could do more.
Love always,
Room