She sat there crying. At the front of the church with a group of women huddled around her, my mother wept.
I didn’t know why. I was maybe four or five years old. Young enough to be clueless, but old enough to be worried.
Why was this happening? And why at church?
The picture of my mom weeping at church remains one of the earliest memories of my childhood. Dad had been lead pastor of a small, Mennonite church in Northern Minnesota, and had just resigned. I’ve learned in the years since that Mom was crying because of different issues they were dealing with, conflicts with other people that weren’t getting resolved…
…conflicts with close friends.
Dad resigned, in part, because of these conflicts. But he also felt he could not go along with the legalism and politics of this particular conference, anymore.
It wasn’t the end of Dad’s pastoring. Half the church left when he resigned, and they asked him to start another church. So, he did.
Within a decade, that church ran into conflict. And once again Dad and Mom felt led to resign.
Dad has never liked leading by control. If people couldn’t follow him for who he was, and what his vision was, he felt it better to remove himself instead of manipulating people into action for his purposes.
Yet, here I stood, his son, in the wake of all these confusing church experiences—in the mix of friction between close friends. I still didn’t fully know what all was going on. Even now, more than ten years later, I’m piecing together the story.
I don’t say this because I have resentment in my heart towards Dad. I don’t.
I say this because this is how my story starts. Without anyone consulting me first, my life began in the middle of a great chaos of relationships.
Not only that, but these relationships had to do with people who said they knew God.
And who is God?
He’s our creator. He’s the one who made everything. But what does that mean? And why does it seem people who follow him have a hard time getting along?
Each of us, no matter what our story, have been thrown into the middle of a greater story that doesn’t yet make sense to us.
And you, like me, have probably grown up learning about God and the fact that he made us.
Yet, all of us have likely had at least one experience that’s caused us to question whether God’s plan is good, whether he really knows what he’s up to and has our best in mind.
If you’re like me, and most of my readers, you want life.
We want to feel free inside ourselves.
We want to have friends who are there for us in our worst moments—friends who we’re there for in their worst.
We want purpose, to see and feel that we are adding something valuable to the world.
Yet, for whatever reason we don’t always feel that.
We don’t always feel purpose. We’re often unsure of what we have to offer the world.
Maybe we don’t have many close friends.
Maybe church, the one place that should be life giving is more life-taking.
Maybe we look around at our friends and see a gap between what the Bible teaches and what they actually live.
Maybe we see this gap even in our own lives. We have deep, unspoken questions and frustrations and don’t know how to sort through them all. It makes us feel stuck, frustrated, and lonely.
We feel disillusioned and sometimes wonder if God even exists. And if he does exist, why doesn’t he do anything to help?
Maybe it has nothing to do with your mom weeping in church or your dad resigning from leadership. Maybe your brother drowned, and you watched him go under. You live with a constant sense of horror and helplessness. All you can see is his face desperate for help and you couldn’t do anything. Maybe you didn’t know anything to do.
Or perhaps you lost a baby—three babies. Perhaps you were hit with a gigantic medical bill three months into your marriage and have been paying it off ever since…for the last ten years.
Maybe you feel different from all your friends; and your friends feel you are different from them. And perhaps you know why. You’ve never felt butterflies about any girls you’ve seen. But you have about guys.
And you’re a guy.
And you hear in sermons how God hates homosexuality, and you’re beginning to wonder if you’re a homosexual.
Or maybe you’re a girl wondering the same thing.
Or maybe you’re a girl really struggling with porn, but you don’t feel safe talking to anyone about it because women aren’t supposed to struggle with things like that.
You know what’s most confusing about all this?
The Bible says God made everything good and beautiful. It says he made humanity in his image, that he offers us life and not death. He promises freedom, not bondage. Meaningful relationships, not shallow relationships that end up causing pain.
If the Bible is true, why does all this other stuff happening to us?
What if God is not surprised by all of these events? What if they all fit perfectly into the grand narrative of his creation?
I don’t mean to say he designed that we would experience disillusionment or pain. Rather, I’m questioning the way we interpret life events.
What if there is something bigger going on than us simply being born, and God doing things to us? And what if we could understand that bigger something in a way that brings all of life—the good, the bad, and the ugly—into a clear, understandable focus?
I can’t promise to make life easier for you. I can’t promise to take away pain or bring back those you’ve lost.
But I can promise that it’s possible to make better sense of what you’re going through, right now. It is possible to go through chaotic experiences and come out the other side with a fuller appreciation for God’s design and a deeper love for him and those he has made.
You’re not alone.
As I already alluded, I’ve been disillusioned with life, faith, and relationships as well. Sometimes I still am.
But you know what? I was given the space to sort through questions and frustrations. Whether my parents in my teen years, mentors in my early twenties, or close friends today—people in my life have walked with me through the ups and downs and disillusionment.
And they do it without feeling threatened by things I say or questions I ask.
I’ve come to realize I was given a rare thing.
There are far too many people who have never had a place that felt safe enough to question God and his goodness. There are too many people who’ve never been walked-with as they looked long and hard at whether God really has their best in mind.
Four and a half years ago I began sharing bits and pieces of my story publicly on my blog. As I’ve opened up windows into the things I’ve wrestled through, people have responded, saying I put into words exactly what they’re wrestling with.
They’ve said things like,
“I would have walked away from the faith if it wasn’t for a few close friends and your writing.”
“I had all but quit reading the Bible until I started reading your blog. You’ve given me a fresh thirst for God’s Word.”
“This is excellent—full of rich meat. I could spend years referring back to these articles, working on these points bit by bit, revolutionizing my spiritual life and that of those around me.”
“I am so blessed by your writing. God speaks through you to my heart in both confirming and comforting, as well as convicting ways.”
We don’t have to live in this disillusioned state.
Sure, there will be events that take place in the future that disillusion us again. But it’s possible to understand the Greater Story to a point that all the little chaotic events in our stories fit into the picture better than they had before.
You see, God is at work. He is doing something in this world…right now. The messy situations you see, the heartache and personal drama you experience—all of it has a specific place in what God is doing.
Unless we understand God’s Greater Story, we’ll be completely thrown off guard by confusing church experiences, devastating losses, or our inability to live up to our own ideals.
This Greater Story has five grand movements in its narrative—five acts, you could say, of the play God is putting on for all of creation.
He is the director. We are the characters. And your life is the stage. These movements can be summarized as,
- God making everything good
- Everything good becoming broken
- Jesus entering the scene and uniting all the broken things in himself
- Humanity being made completely new in Christ and uniting together to spread the glory of God and push forward his purposes on earth
- Finding your place in the middle of it all
I’ve compiled an e-course that looks at each of these movements in greater depth. I call it Making Sense of Life.
This is not a self-help e-course. You may not notice any specific change the moment you’re done with it. I can’t take away your pain or confusion, but I can help you make sense of it and know what to do with it.
Don’t be surprised if by the end for the e-course you sit back in your chair and feel a sense of release, a sense of peace and freedom.
I’m not going to spam you with cliché answers through this e-course. I’ll give you straight-up, raw answers. We’ll look at scripture, where he’s graciously revealed this narrative to us already, so we can understand him and his Greater Story more clearly.
As you journey through this e-course and as you move beyond the e-course and take it all to every area of your life, know that I’m here for you. I’m cheering you on.
I am confident through this e-course you will discover greater clarity in life. You will go from feeling stuck, frustrated and lonely to being a free person living with a deep sense of purpose and developing meaningful relationships.
If this sounds like something you want—something you need—enter your email below and I’ll send you the first email immediately. The e-course is totally free. I only ask for your email address.
Not only will you get five concise, yet practical and profound emails looking at each movement in-depth, but I will give you other resources to use in helping you process your own story.
I want you to be equipped to better navigate conflict in church or deal with personal or relational issues. I want you to be able to express and sort through your deep, unspoken questions. Through Making Sense of Life, you’ll be able to do all of that.
Sign up below and get started on the journey of making sense of life.
And if you’re not quite ready to give your email address, no worries. Here are five articles you can check out to give you a taste of what we’ll be looking at in the e-course:
- Waking Up Mennonite
- Does God Really Work All Things Together for Good?
- Why You Find It Hard to Control Your Sexual Desires
- What to Do When You Don’t Know What’s Next in Life
- God Isn’t Good
Don’t continue in disillusionment. Sign up today, and begin making sense of your life so you can be free, live with purpose, and have close, meaningful relationships.
