I Have Questions, But No Answers

What happens when…

• you’re at the end of your tightly-held rope, and all that’s left to do is let go?
• the Christian cliches quit working, and you want to cover your ears and scream if you hear another?
• your faith is not even as big as a mustard seed?
• your trust in God has dwindled away?
• one more misused, out-of-context verse threatens to send you running from the Bible?
• one more word about thanksgiving or joy makes you want to bang your head against the nearest wall?
• that best-selling Christian author/teacher’s sure-fire solution to your wounds didn’t work because God doesn’t work the same in every life?
• your church community runs you off/lets you walk away because you no longer fit their mold?
• the suggestion of hope seems like a cruel joke?
• Sunday School answers are no longer even an option?
• you’d rather go back to your Pharisaic, legalistic, rule-keeping ways because that was easier than messy, difficult, not-at-all-tidy grace?
• you’re brokenhearted because your dreams have not only been broken, but smashed in the ground?
• you’re absolutely sick to death of hearing, Something good is just around the corner?

What if you could be who you are? Remove the mask? Let down your walls? Expose your gaping wounds? Talk about your temptations? Blurt out that you’re not sure God really cares at all?

And what if you could do all that without fear of others trying to fix you? Or pity you? Or stare at you with shock? Or pray pious prayers for you?

What if you could show up–really show up–and say, This is me. This is who I am, and I’ve got to be free from pretending I am anything more or less because I need to experience healing? What if you spared no expense on your healing? What if you just looked judgment and rejection in the face, then moved on in search of your whole self?

I. Am. There.

I’m asking every, single one of those questions. And I don’t have one solid answer.

I need a miracle I don’t even dare hope for.

And I know some of you are in the same place.

I want to offer hope. I want to give encouragement. I want to write life-giving words. I want to assure us all that tomorrow or next week or next month or next year will be better.

But I can’t. I just can’t. Not today.

The only thing I have to offer today is the idea that maybe we should just sit with all those questions and all those feelings. No expectations. No spinning the wheels of our minds to try to figure it all out. No desperate prayers for relief.

Maybe we should just…be…and allow ourselves to be okay with that. For today. And maybe tomorrow. Maybe for a week or a month.