Struggling with Doubt ~ the simple act of looking up
It’s no secret that 2013 was a year of struggle for me, especially in the area of Faith & God. I found myself questioning everything. And I mean everything.
It got to the point where I wondered if I was even a Christian anymore, because how could a Christian have the kind of doubts I was struggling with?
I spent many nights crying, either due to fear or exhaustion over it all, and just wishing I could go back to the simple place of “have faith & believe.”
Yet I had so many questions. Big questions. Hard questions. Unanswerable questions.
Truthfully, and this may be hard for believers to hear, during all that I wasn’t even able to read my Bible. I’d open it up and just stare at words that were familiar, yet seemed so distant as well. I was afraid to read, afraid that what I’d understand from it wasn’t correct, and once again I’d be lost.
Even more so than I already was.
I was going in circles.
Painful confusing circles, where after a bit of time, I just needed to sit down from the motion sickness of it all.
And when I sat down and I quit trying to figure it all out, I simply looked up.
And there it was.
The answer.
The toughest questions I had, were suddenly answered in the simplest act of just fixing my eyes above.
The beauty.
The wonder.
The majestic views this world has to wonder…
It can’t be explained away.
There is just something beautifully bigger than us that we will never really truly be able to understand from where we stand right now.
We can give ourselves a title based on our beliefs and studies: Christian, Evangelical, Conservative, Calvanists, Armenians…. but the truth is, we will never fully see the Big Picture until we are face to face with the Artist Himself.
And now?
I feel as though I’m finally on the other side.
I know what is true.
And what is left, I don’t need to try to make sense of right now.
He’s given me what I need to know in this moment, and it’s enough for me.
I’m simply choosing to look up.
Yet again, I love your post. I can totally understand. I too had a rough past year and also didn’t pick up my word to read. Only rarely. I was just so disillusioned, discouraged, weak, fragile and questioning. I get it. I am so thankful He is so patient and tender. Slowly He loved me back to life and rays of light shined into that very dark place and finally I felt not so alone. Did you feel like that, that He left you somehow? My head knew He says He never will leave us or forsake us but I couldn’t get any indication He was near…Just curious if you went through that feeling as well? That was the worst part of it all. I found in the Song of Solomon the part where she can’t find her beloved. Ya, it is depicted as the Dark Night of Her Soul in my bible. Yup, pretty much says it all.