Right in the middle of trying to process all of my feelings and the overwhelming sense of doubt, I was helping my church plan a women’s retreat, scheduled to take place in April.

I was asked if I might consider being a speaker at the retreat, sharing a story about how God had worked in my life. Initially I said I wasn’t sure, and I briefly mentioned that I was going through a difficult time, and I didn’t think God would resolve it by the time the retreat came about. “It doesn’t need to be resolved,” the other women assured me.

I told them that I was having a bit of a struggle with my faith, and that I didn’t want to be a downer at the retreat. But again, I was encouraged that being honest and openly sharing my faith struggle could be a really powerful thing for people to hear.

So I agreed to share my story. That April, in front of many of the women at my church, I shared what had taken place over the past few months – how I was angry at God, and how it didn’t feel like He cared or even noticed me.

Usually when I hear a story or testimony at a church event, it wraps up nicely with something like, “and God worked it all out in the end” or “it took a long time, but God had a plan for me the whole time…” I had rarely heard testimonies where people ended it with, “I still don’t really know why this happened, and I’m not sure anything good is coming from it.” But that’s how I ended mine.

It ended up truly being a blessing for me to be able to share my story, because I had multiple women come up to me afterwards to share how they had also struggled with infertility. Some of them had suffered pregnancy losses, some had eventually given up on their dream of having children… for many of them, their stories, likewise, did not wrap up nicely in a tidy bow. Some were still dealing with grief years later.

It’s interesting to ponder why God seems to answer some prayers and not others. There are so many stories in the Bible of God having compassion on barren women, and eventually granting them a child: Sarah, Rebekah, Rachel, and Hannah – but I wonder how many godly women were never granted a child? And why aren’t their stories told in the Bible?

I’ve heard a similar pondering about Jesus – in the stories told about him, he is often seen healing someone – but he doesn’t literally heal every person in every situation. So how do those overlooked people feel? They watch Jesus miraculously bless someone else’s life, and then are left to continue to deal with their own suffering. Can you imagine what that would feel like?

Maybe you can… maybe you know exactly what that feels like.

I didn’t think I believed in the idea of the prosperity gospel until I became so put out that God wouldn’t answer my prayer for a second child. I watched SO many other women and friends get pregnant and have children, that I started wondering if maybe God just didn’t think I deserved good things. Maybe I was too sinful – was that why God was ignoring me?

My brain wanted to find a reason for why this was happening, because it was too uncomfortable to sit in the unknown. Also, if I could figure out why it was happening, maybe I could fix it.

Some of the biggest questions I had to honestly answer for myself were:

Will I still be able to have faith if I don’t understand why things happen and if life doesn’t seem to make sense?

Will I still trust God when things seem so completely unfair?

Will I only have faith if God gives me what I want? If he “answers” my prayers?

Will I only be happy if I have control of everything and things always go my way?

That kind of conditional faith seems so ridiculous when I frame it like that. God calls us to have faith and trust Him in the uncertain times. If we completely understood everything all the time, we wouldn’t require faith at all.

I began to realize that I just didn’t completely feel comfortable trusting God – I worried that maybe He wasn’t always being fair. Maybe He would take advantage of me if I just blindly followed Him and never questioned why things were happening to me…

I think questioning God is okay. There are plenty of examples in the Bible of people asking God why He allowed things to happen – or why He doesn’t always seem quick to act in times of injustice.

The thing is, God probably isn’t going to give you a straight answer (at least that has been my experience so far).

Maybe you’ve imagined what it would be like to get to heaven and finally ask God why things happened the way they did – I think we like to reassure ourselves that one day, even if it’s after we’re dead, we will finally understand everything.

*But I was challenged last year by this idea: what if, even after we’re dead and in heaven, we STILL don’t ever get the answers to our questions? What if God still doesn’t tell us why we had to suffer in our time on earth, or why He never answered our prayers?

That thought kind of blew my mind.

I had always sort of consoled myself with the idea that at least in heaven, everything would finally make sense.

But will it? Will we be equal to God in heaven? Will He impart all knowledge to us? Or will there always be some element of faith and trust required for all eternity?

I don’t have the answers to these questions… and I think I have to just be okay with the unknown (NOT my strong suit!)

One way I decided to remind myself to try to be okay with all the unknowns was by getting another tattoo. I gave my tattoo artist an idea of what I wanted, but he didn’t use a stencil – he just sketched a loose design out on my arm, and then I told him to go for it with the permanent ink. I didn’t totally know what the end result would be, but that was perfect!

To me, the tattoo represents my faith journey, and the goal of trying to be curious with whatever life brings. It’s also a reminder that sometimes beautiful things happen in the unexpected turns of life.

Part V

---

*Lynn Anderson was the preacher who initially put this idea in my head after I watched a video of him talking about faith and doubt