Okay, before you jump to conclusions, let me provide a small amount of insight before I delve into what lies behind the title, which I would assume has concerned you thus far.
I grew up in a Christian home. I have two loving parents, a sister, two dogs whom I love more than most humans, friends I couldn’t be more grateful for, and a life at a school I could never have imagined would bring me so much joy. Growing up, I was a Christian who went through the motions, I went to church, read my Bible, sang the hymns – you know, the usual – but I didn’t understand what it truly meant to have a real relationship with God. I felt like I had to fit inside of this box labeled, “The Perfect Christian,” but somehow I always found myself outside of it. Inside this box came a set of rules that you had to follow in order to be “perfect.” Up until 2014, I tried and tried to end up in this box, yet I never seemed to be able to, so I did the next best thing: I set up camp just outside of it. But when God decided to take my best friend away, I wanted to light that stupid box on fire, pack my things, and get as far away from there as possible. I was completely and utterly furious. Furious because I couldn’t talk to the one person who would actually understand me, furious because no one around me seemed to acknowledge the smothering and excruciating grief that clouded my senses, and furious because God’s plan didn’t correspond with my own. I was devastated.
Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm believer in God’s providence, mercy, and abounding love for me, and while I know that He has a plan, I can’t help but try and create a blueprint of my life nonetheless. You see I hate uncertainty; it has never sat well with me. After going to a private Christian school for nine years I was used to hearing the phrase, “God has a plan.” And honestly, I had never thought much of it. I hadn’t experienced any real and earth-shattering heartache, so I was never bothered when people said it. But now I am. Yes, I still believe God has a plan, but here’s the thing: what if God’s plan sucks? What if you planned your life a specific way, only for God to wreak, what you consider to be, havoc on it? What then? Like I said, my life was pretty painless and trouble-free up until 2014, the year that God threw who I like to call Sorrow’s vile and odious sister, Agony, into my life to inflict the greatest, most parlous amount of pain any human could possibly handle, or so it felt like. No, unfortunately, Agony is not a real person or I would have expatriated her from my life faster than you can say, “ouch.” I lost my best friend in January of that year, and being a naïve, clueless, and newly initiated member of a sorority at the school of my dreams, I didn’t know how to handle it. After years of hearing, “God has a plan,” over and over again, I couldn’t help but become absolutely outraged when someone told me that. Why? Well for starters, it wasn’t in my plan. My plan was to have her stand beside me on my wedding day, to watch our kids grow up together just as we had, to have houses next door to each other, and to be best friends for the rest of our lives. But here comes the curve ball: that wasn’t in God’s plan. Nineteen years is all I would have. Nineteen years may seem like a long time, but what if that was all the time you had? I don’t know if that puts time into perspective for you, but at least, it can show you have valuable life is while you have it.
When she passed away, countless people would continue to say that very phrase that would make my blood boil. I couldn’t escape it. I had books, quotes, movies, and articles sent to me to try and encourage and aid me in my endeavor to be rid my life of the execrable Agony, but everything I read seemed to be brimming with writing that tied a delightful little bow on not only Christianity but pain itself. It wasn’t until I was able to wake up without feeling utterly consumed by my grief that I realized that pain doesn’t allow itself to be fastened with a bow and glazed over. Pain brings out a raw and terrible side to people that requires a genuine effort to purge one’s self of it. The same thing applies to being a Christian. God doesn’t want us to mask our pain and act as if nothing has happened; God wants us to cry out to Him for help and comfort. For so long I thought that I was wrong to be angry with God for anything, especially taking my best friend away from me, but recently I’ve recognized that in telling God we are angry with Him we gain a relationship with Him, but more importantly a friendship. While I realize that we were called to worship and obey our God, He wants us to love Him enough to tell him how we feel, regardless of the fact that He already knows, because that’s what friends do.
If there’s nothing else you take from this entire article, take this: God is big enough to handle our anger and grief. If we walk through life preaching that our God is all-powerful, omnipotent, and incredibly merciful, don’t you think he is capable of handling a little bit of anger?
Of anyone, The Lord knows how it feels to grieve because He sacrificed His son for us. Our relationship with God does not call for a pretty little bow to be tied around it, it calls for an authentic, unrefined, adoration for Him – a love that moves mountains, defies the impossible, and makes us stagger in the awe of who He is. That’s what we should strive for because that’s how He feels about us. So, the bottom line is this: whether or not God’s plan matches yours, He is and always will be big enough to handle our anger, because after all He wants to.
“He does not have to love us so, but He chooses to.” -Francis Chan
