13 - Is God Nice?

I spent some time at home in Little Rock and then traveled to Fayetteville for a few days. I got to reconnect with friends and family and also met with the mission pastor of the church I went to in college. Every Tuesday there is a Global Prayer meeting where workers who are stateside come and share stories and prayer requests.  At that meeting, I shared a little about my time in the West Bank.  I was caught off guard by a question someone asked me: “How has living in the Middle East changed or challenged your view of God?”  I didn’t know what to say and before I knew it, tears had sprung up in my eyes.  My view of God had been utterly shattered but all I managed to say at the time was, “He’s not as nice as I thought he was.” I knew that probably sounded wrong. I continued, “He allows a lot more pain and suffering than I thought he would.” 

I’m grateful for the people in that meeting who allowed me the space to process my unformed thoughts through my tears.  A few of them nodded as if they understood where I was coming from and what I was trying to say.  The room was full of people who had lived all over the world and had seen the horrors of war, sex trafficking, drug lords, and genocide. I was not alone and I felt understood even if I couldn't explain exactly what I meant.

After that meeting, I set up a few appointments at a Christian counseling center connected with our church. I needed someone to help me process, ask pointed questions, and be a sounding board for my stories and emotions. In one of my first sessions, I began to talk, and as I allowed myself to stop and process that past 12 months, I realized I had way more to unpack than I at first thought. It was as if all year I had put my fears and emotions in a box in the closet so that I could focus on what was in front of me. Now that I was home, all that was in front of me was a pile of boxes full of questions, pain, trauma, and anger. My emotions were all over the place and most of the time I just felt numb. Emotionally, I felt like I had just been pushed out of a moving car. 

I knew I was really angry but I didn’t know where to start. As I sat in that counseling session, I was telling my counselor about this and said, “I don’t really feel anything, but I know I am so angry.” As I explained why, all of the pain I had been stuffing in the closet in Palestine came rushing to the surface. I was so angry that God would ever allow a place like Palestine to exist. I was so angry that he took me to the mission field only to have anxiety attacks and fear of death. I was so angry that that was normal life for my Palestinian friends. I was angry that God didn’t burn for justice enough to set it all right. 

I was simply so angry because the world was so bad, and the God that I had fallen in love with let it happen. I also knew the suffering I saw in Palestine was not even 1/10th of the suffering going on in other areas of the world. I felt betrayed and deeply, deeply hurt by God. How could he show me his love, cause me to love him in return in college, and all the while in Palestine, he was allowing hell on earth? How could the God I had known, be the same God that ruled and reigned in the West Bank? 

We talked about the idea of protection and how God was protecting my friends and students in the West Bank. Through my tears, I said, “No, he’s not protecting them. He doesn’t keep them safe. Kids their age die and God doesn’t protect them from it.” This opened up the deepest part of my hurt. I loved my Palestinian friends so fiercely and I couldn’t understand why God, who claims to love them even more than me, wouldn't protect them better. 

Processing through these questions meant a lot of time sitting and weeping over my kids.  It meant allowing my questions and pain to sit in front of God unanswered. It meant smiling politely when people asked, “How was Israel?” and responding, “You know, it was good but actually really hard too”, instead of rudely correcting them on calling the West Bank “Israel” or just breaking into tears. It meant putting myself around people who would allow me to be angry and to cry every time I talked about it. I was lucky that I had such amazing people around me that would do just that. 

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Journal Entry - July 2015

How do you run from God and know that he is real at the same time?  How do you walk away from God and know that he loves you at the same time? I have no idea but, if I did, I would. I am so sad and so angry at God that if I knew how to walk out on him, I would. Really, I feel like all of my anger is just a cover up of my grief.  I’m grieving the loss of a God I thought I knew. A God that was loving to everyone, happy all the time, blissful, funny, joyful, playful, and really nice. Can God be mean? What does it mean to be mean? Mean- being below the normal standards of human decency and dignity. Nice - kind, polite, and friendly.  I don’t know if I can describe God as nice. Is being nice one of his characteristics? Is God polite? Is he friendly?

but he’s the only one who can help me.