As I sat next to my daughter in church last Sunday, listening to Pastor talk about the impossibility of salvation apart from the working of God, I looked down at her to find her steadily drawing this picture. She had discovered that she inadvertently drew a cross in her scribbling, and had proceeded to add the head, the arms, the feet, the face, the eyes, and the blood of Christ.
"Mommy," she whispered in her softest voice. "I made Jesus on the cross."
She has no idea, but her drawing, and the simple faith of an almost-four-year-old, has been what has gotten me through the past few days. This picture, drawn on the smallest scrap of paper, has been as priceless to my soul as Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel.
I've been thinking a great deal about the family of Jesus, viewing the cross through their eyes. I've been trying to get inside their head and understand why their faith was so weak. I guess that's why God thought it timely to allow certain testings of my own faith. I've been fighting and persevering and trusting, all the while sure that my faith was strong enough to withstand the trials. My loving heavenly Father, my holy, beautiful Savior, has been gently trying to change my thinking. Anything I attempt on my own will fail. If I'm frustrated, if I'm failing, if I'm fatigued, then I am trying to do it without God's help. (Thank you, Dr. David Jeremiah, even though I was angry with you for saying it.)
Guess what? I'm fatigued, I'm frustrated, and I'm failing. I'm not sure how I'm going to keep on going, enduring infertility and migraines indefinitely. I'm not sure why I should keep writing, when my best efforts are rejected by sources that used to accept virtually everything I sent. I got a rejection for an article today in which an editor had torn apart my work, saying that I ignored basic rules of avoiding cliche terms repeatedly, that I was holding back, and that it was unfit for the magazine. At first I was angry. I even threw it away, discounting her without even reading what she had taken the time to write out. Later I felt guilty and retrieved it. She had good points. She was right. It was bad writing.
So I'm doing it in my own strength. I must stop. I must! I can feel my will slipping and my concern for sin lessening. But I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I know I need to pray more, but I just feel so tired of it. It shocks me to write that, but it's true. I'm tired of praying with no answer. I don't know what else to say. I wish God would reveal Himself. I don't mind going through trials, but I want them to have some sort of sense to them. I want them to unravel as cleanly as the novels I love to write. The problem should be resolved. The tension should culminate and then release.
Life isn't a novel. At least, not in the immediate sense that I want to experience. Good will eventually triumph evil, but it may or may not happen in my lifetime. While God tarries for His own excellent reasons, I am bound to suffer. Just as everyone else suffers.
It's what we do with the suffering that makes all the difference. Will we let our suffering accomplish what Jesus did? Will I?
And how do I do that? Or rather, how do I get out of His way so He can do that in me?
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