The cracks in faith begin as thin and fine as spiderwebs: almost a mere distortion of the light.
It’s near-impossible to see them straight, at least at the start. Or at least that was the case for me two years ago, around the time—this time—that my mother, my best friend, died.
When she learned her cancer would kill her, she called me, surprisingly upbeat—and indignant at the long list of relatives and friends who wanted to visit. “They’re going on a death tour,” she told me, irate. “I don’t know what God has for me, but I’m not dead yet. Maybe one day I’ll be on the bed and everyone will join hands and sing Amazing Grace around me, but for heaven’s sake, I’m not there yet.”
Yet she was there, less than three months later. And the bed and joined hands and singing never came.
Not at all. Not in the slightest. Instead, my mother’s end was marked—for me—by a series of disturbing and heartbreaking moments:
The oncologist who blamed the pain in her stomach not on a tumor but a gall bladder issue, berated her for not eating, and forced her to endure a needless surgery that left her miserable and in pain.
How she called me in the latest stages of her illness out of the blue before a planned visit, sobbing and angry and furious: “I don’t want you to come. Don’t come. And don’t ever make me have to tell you that again.”
The way she stared blank and empty-eyed from the couch during the last weekend I saw her, while church members—who knew she was dying and nonetheless depended on her for everything—called to ask her to add other people to the prayer list. As I tried to write the thank-yous I knew she couldn’t write and answer their requests, she spoke up. “Don’t. Please don’t be like me.”
The way she turned away from all of us, retreating inside, becoming a shell of the woman I knew and loved, as though she—knowing she would soon no longer be a part of it—could not bear to witness us.
All of these things, and more not listed here, broke my heart. I sometimes wondered quietly, darkly to myself: is this God’s goodness? But I chided myself for the thoughts, told myself it was grief, and went on about my business. She died, and I kept on going about my business.
Life went on. I shouldered other hurts and difficulties and trials. When one arose anew, I felt myself sag. Again, God? But He blessed; He saw us through. And because of that, because I thanked Him for it, because I never stopped believing in Him or believing He heard me or was present with me, I didn’t notice the fine cracks growing wider. I kept reading my Bible and praying and studying Scripture.
I caught myself, sometimes. During a philosophical quiet moment a year or so ago, I found myself wondering how much of the concept “God is good” hinged on semantics. Yes, I thought bleakly, God is good, but does it matter if His goodness never feels good to the believer? Or is that the point? You accept whatever misery comes on any given day in the hopes that one day it will all turn to gold?
I shook myself mentally. I told myself that was not right thinking.
There were other moments. My husband noticed an indefinable shift, a dimming, but attributed it to work stress. I caught myself growing wildly resentful of cheerful—and what seemed to me blithe and uncaring—believers who seemingly praised God for everything without recognizing the suffering around them. I ground my teeth against every injustice I witnessed and wondered if God was paying attention.
And I would catch myself, reroute my mind, go on. Sorry, I’d explain to God. I don’t mean to think that way. And I didn’t. I really, truly didn’t. I wasn’t clear entirely on why or how it kept happening. It never once occurred to me that this was a spiritual sickness of sorts. A cry for help.
And then a colleague of mine at work decided to make my life a nightmare.
I’ve mentioned her here before, the woman I have struggled not to hate. She is cruel, unkind, aggressive—outright nasty. She hounded me so much when I worked under her that I planned to resign, until God intervened in a shocking way, and delivered me from her to a much better opportunity at the same workplace. Even then, she continued to snarl and snap and bite at my ankles: spreading rumors, making faces when I spoke in public, insulting projects I worked on.
I endeavored to forgive and to love her. I know she’s hurting no one but herself. That she’s nasty and aggressive is sort of a known truth about her from the top to the bottom of my institution. I am surrounded by support, encouragement, and advocates. I am safe. I am able to be me.
I’ve still struggled. Primarily because she has one or two key protectors and receives opportunities and projects in spite of objectively unacceptable behavior (which is a very Biblical feeling, that of watching the unrighteous seemingly prosper). And also because she has started a new campaign of aggression against me recently, characterized by her publicly questioning everything I do to anyone who will listen, hounding me in meetings, undercutting me in every way imaginable.
Not long ago, I broke under the strain: a full-on crying, heaving, panicking collapse.
My colleagues and my husband were bewildered. Everyone knows who she is, they told me. People are wise to her behavior. She doesn’t have any authority over you right now and so this is all she has. You’ve built a great reputation and people know who you are, so what are you worried about?
And it hit me all at once, those fine spiderweb cracks now visible: I’m worried because I don’t trust God to be good.
That’s what I said, anyway, in a desperate prayer. I don’t trust you to be good. I don’t think I’ve trusted you to be good for a while. I saw what happened to my mom. I saw what you allowed to happen to my mom. I’ve seen what you allowed for your prophets, your priests, your Son. And if that is your version of “good,” then what can I expect to happen here? In that version of “good” it’s entirely likely this horrible person—this person who has laughed about You to my face—will somehow succeed in her machinations, ruin my entire career and everyone’s opinion of me, everything I’ve worked for all this time and that I’ve tried to build on how I believe You want me to behave.
Spiderweb cracks to broken glass in a second. And living in me all the while.
As soon as I admitted it I was both appalled at myself and relieved, because finally—finally—I’d gotten around to the core of the thing that I didn’t believe was possible for me to feel. That I thought I could will away by thinking “hm, that’s not right.” That I thought I could discipline out of existence or dismiss as a blip, a bad moment.
As soon as I admitted it, God went to work.
Well. He had been working the whole time, or I’d have not admitted it at all. He’d been working the whole time, or the admission wouldn’t have been accompanied by tears and sadness and bewilderment and confusion. He’d been working the whole time, or my response to the realization wouldn’t have been a desperate Spirit-prompted prayer: God, help me believe you’re good again. I think I forgot.
And God is good.
I don’t mean it in an abstract, semantic way that means nothing to the life of the believer. He is a good and a kind God, certainly not the kind who will give children stones instead of bread. He is a God who will show us goodness not just in heaven but in the land of the living.
But I had forgotten, somehow.
This is what darkness can do. It isn’t that our doubts can keep us from believing, always, or even halt our desire to be close to God. But they can make us doubt God’s character, who God is and how He is, in small and quiet ways that eventually distort everything. They cause us to forget what is right and true; they cause us to see only what confounds, hurts, and bewilders.
Everything I wrote about my mother above was true. And painful. And sad. But I do know, because she told me, that God was present to her in her misery and that she felt comforted and soothed by Him. That was good. God gave me time to tell her how much I loved her, and that was good. He was with me through her dying and death in ways that I am so grateful about I recorded them here—and that was good. He has turned my grief into something beautiful and made me new through it. In the time since, He has given me new friends in faith, encouragers, supporters, bulwarks against sadness. All good.
And with the nightmare colleague? Well, I don’t know how it will go. But I do know He delivered me from her once and can again if He chooses. He has put me in a high place and granted me favor with people who uplift and inspire me. He sees me; I am certain He sees her; He knows our hearts; He wants me to love her. He will, I am sure, be good. He has been good.
But honestly? All of that maybe sounds like wishful thinking. If I’d said it to me a year ago I’d have probably just forced a smile. It would have sounded a lot like plastering a happy face over misery and sorry and badness and calling it “good.”
So if you find yourself there, I’ll just say this.
I believe God is good again, and He mended the spiderweb cracks. Not just because He walked me back through the past two years and renewed my perspective, although He did. Not just because He helped me see my fears and distortions for what they were, although He did. Not just because His Spirit in me saw this brokenness in me, although it did.
I know God is good because, in the end, when I turned to God and said,
I don’t trust that you’re good,
He didn’t leave. Or get angry. Or condemn. Or do anything other stir in my heart to say, as He always does, let’s walk back. I’ll show you. I’ll remind you.
Like always. Like forever.
I’m so grateful and so glad.
Samaritan's Song 