One of the song that our church praise band often sings has the chorus of "our lives are in your hands" (Landry). There are times when I sing that song and it's a comforting and peaceful chorus to sing, and then there are times when it's more reluctant or scary. I always have to catch myself when I get that "scared" feeling and question why I am feeling that way. Am I losing trust in my God? Do I not believe that in His hands is the best place for my life to be? I do the same thing every time I pray the Lord's Prayer, that line "thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Sometimes we say that line and wince a little bit wondering just what pain, suffering and struggle it will bring. But if that's our reaction, it means it's time to do a little looking into our relationship with God.
Being in foster care we've done a lot of learning about attachment disorder. This brief explanation won't do it justice but just a snapshot: Basically humans learn how to trust and develop relationship in their very earliest years of life. As infants they cry when they have needs (hungry, wet, etc), their needs are met (they get fed and changed), therefore they learn to trust their caregivers. As they grow older they learn to give and receive love and that they can count on their caregivers being there for them. When this does not happen, children can suffer from attachment disorder. They learn that their needs won't be met, that they can't trust their caregivers to meet their needs or always be there for them. Therefore they push away anyone who tries to care for them because they don't trust them and don't want to have to rely on anyone.
It seems ridiculous to us as adults that only want to help this child, but in their minds no one can be trusted. Everyone has let them down or hurt them, they are better off doing it themselves.
I took a 2 year old swimming once and while she was wearing a life jacket, she was still only two years old and not so great at keeping herself balanced to keep her head above water. She would be ok for a while and then her weight would shift and she'd be thrashing and struggling to stay above. She'd go through this cycle over and over. Each time I would reach out to hold her or help her stay up, she would push me away and say "get away from me". She wouldn't even let me hold on to the strap of her life jacket. Most 2 year olds after dipping their head under water would cling to their parents. It seemed she would rather have struggled and even drowned than let me help her.
Doesn't that picture look a little familiar to us though? I think it seems sometimes like we all suffer from attachment disorder with our God. We have all been in that place in our life where we are struggling to keep our head above water or maybe we feel like we are drowning. Why do we push away the only one who can help us? Maybe it's because some where along the way we believed the lie that God let us down. That he wasn't there for us when we needed him. Maybe we think He hurt us, and we'd be much better off if we didn't have to rely on him but just did it ourselves.
There's two problems there: The first is that they're all lies. He never let you down, He was always there, and He would never ever hurt you. Have you seen a picture of Him lately, up there on the cross? Over the top of all the lies the devil wants you to believe will always be the image of the depth of His love for you. Can you really believe that the one who loved you THAT much ever wanted you to cry a single tear or feel one ounce of pain? How do we forget that as much as we love our own children He loves us even more? My husband and I struggled with this with the deaths of our children. People would often say things like "it must have been God's plan" or "He needed an angel in heaven." I know they were trying to comfort us, but those are the exact things that the devil wants us to think. At the time, I couldn't explain why I couldn't carry a pregnancy and it would have been easy to believe that God was killing my children in my womb because it was "their time". But the thing is, I know my God better than that. Have you ever heard a rumor about your best friend and just laughed at it because it's so far from the truth? You know it because you know that person so well. When you are faced with the tough stuff that you can't explain, cling on to the God that you know. The one who laid down His life for you. The one you know in your heart would never hurt you. And quit listening to the devil, even if he uses your grandma to say it. Try listening to the truth instead:
"Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you."Is 49:14-15
The other problem is that just like that 2 year old in 4 feet of water, we can't do it without Him. No matter how much we want to, we were built to need Him. Without Him, we will spend our whole life struggling to stay above water or we will drowned. But if we can look into his heart and see His love for us and allow ourselves to trust Him again, then we can really live.
The beautiful verse of that song is so reassuring to me when I think about myself and when I think about that 2 year old: "Our own belief in you, o Lord, is only a shadow of your faith in us." Our God has faith that she can learn to trust again, and He has faith that we can learn to trust again too.
Lent is starting in two days on Ash Wednesday. What a beautiful opportunity to get to know our God better, spend more time with Him, lay our questions, hurts, heartaches at his feet so that we can truly feel joy when we say "our lives are in your hands".
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