Someone shared a quote with me that I won’t get exactly right but here goes: “Wrestling with God reveals just how close He is to us.”
I am a wrestler. I’ve been a wrestler since I was a small child. It wasn’t just the fighting back with fists and kicks when someone attempted to tickle me.
It was the perpetual “why” that formed in my soul before I had breath. And looking back at what I’ve penned over the past decade proves I still wrestle with wondering “why.”
I wrestle with me and I haven’t stopped yet.
I wrestle because there are so many things that press heavily, embossing my flesh like a tattoo that can’t be hidden regardless of the clothing that’s worn.
Now, before you become quick to judge or to send long-winded explanations full of quotes and science and scripture—please know I’m not looking for answers. In fact, I’ve found that most answers simply cause me to ask yet another “why?” You might consider it a lack of faith or a lack of education or a lack of experience. Yet, I have all three in abundance.
I have faith. And yet, I wrestle with me—with us. Humanity. The fearfully and wonderfully made image and likeness of God folks.
When we get good news, we look at it with suspicion or we think we are deserving of more. When we get bad news, we scream out “unfair” or we say it’s surely the end.
But the good news comes anyway. And bad news is never the end.
My heart breaks that, at our core, we tend to follow gravity’s pull on our souls. We weep for mothers who are gunned down in a foreign land and tell the person who inconvenienced our drive home to go to hell. We preach about love while never taking the short walk to meet a neighbor because they don’t seem our type. We pat ourselves on the back for doing right, all the while fighting to be right (and proving others wrong).
Sharing doesn’t come naturally. Giving doesn’t come naturally. Putting others first doesn’t come naturally.
“What about me???” is our universal birthright battlecry.
And yet, You. You remain hope. You remain grace. You remain the thing we pray that becomes the thing that is real. We cry out, “if there is a God…” and cross fingers in hope upon hope that You are there and You’ll show up. And You’ll save the day. That you’ll save us from the gravity of ourselves.
And maybe You have already–and we didn’t even see it. Maybe the good news that comes anyway and the bad news that isn’t really the end is simply You showing up, You being present and reaching out to take our trembling hand. Maybe the love that is offered that we then rage against it is the love we need like never before.
Maybe our wondering “why” is Your joyful invitation to reveal Yourself.
Maybe I’m rambling. Maybe I just can’t let go of the idea that You are real and You are best and You have and are and will continue to save the day—to keep lifting us from gravity’s pull, to keep revealing Your image and likeness in us. Even when I can’t see it or see You.
Even when I wonder “why.” Even when I wrestle.