This journey is filled with paradoxes that often must be held together in my heart and mind with no clear resolution. I tend to want emotions, feelings, and realities to fit into neat compartments. Compartments that are concise and don’t overlap with one another. It is a paradox when doubt, what-if’s, and nagging questions are all held alongside deep confidence in the goodness and perfect wisdom of God.

The last five months I became a mother to a child only 10 years my junior. I gave her the best of me and some. From where I stand now I can say I have not been perfect by far, but I have been faithful. That faithfulness led me to let go of her when my heart did not want to. Now I hold inside of me the hope that my God is powerful to work and the questions of why can’t I see it yet? Why not obviously demonstrate His healing and restoring work in her when I know He can do more than I could even desire to ask.

God is not daunted or offended by my questions. On the contrary, he invites me to cast all my anxieties upon him (1 Peter 5:7). Is it not better to wrestle with God with all my questions and doubts? I may wrestle, but He must alway win. I can know Him better, though no answer be made clear. And I would rather know Him better and hold the tension in my mind and heart than to bury it to fester into cynicism and bitterness.

I often write to work through an issue. To get to the root of it and parse it out. In this case, I end with just as many questions as before I started. But, I am learning to hold the tension.