When he went to confront her, he was stunned by her response.
Why didn't you help that crying boy?
What makes you think he needed my help?
He was crying. Surely you heard that, no?
In the seven months we lived in limbo, the kids and I apart from Tharin as he worked at his new job and we waited for the house to sell and for direction, I clearly remember saying to my sister, I feel that God is withholding consolation from me.
In a lot of ways, I could have been perceived as that little boy crying under the table, seemingly ignored by the Guide.
There were so many times I felt abandoned in my loneliness, my confusion, my frustration. I would cry out to God, don't You see me? Why don't You help me out of this situation?
I think God's answer to me came finally through this podcast.
The Guide explained to Jesse that the boy was new to the classroom and had been offered encouragement and comfort, and despite the help given, would not be comforted. So the Guide had let go of his hand and allowed him to decide what he needed to do in that moment.
The boy had chosen to crawl under the table and continue crying.
In much the same way, there had already been a time for comforting and consolation in my life. I believe it had come to a point where God just needed to let go of my hand and let me decide how I acclimated to something new and respond to difficulty.
Acting in the wisdom of a perfectly prepared Guide, God was not abandoning me or being unsympathetic, but rather, giving me the space He knew I needed.
To see me in that low point of my life, it would have been easy to see someone in need of help, of rescuing. It was easy to question God's apparent lack of empathy.
But He was offering me help, in that moment, by what He didn't do.
He did not smother me, pity me, or force me to respond to my situation in a certain way. He gave me space to fall apart a little bit, to find a space to be small and cry while I needed to. He would have continued to console me if He knew this was for my good, but the dignity of free will is that we, though we are but children, are respected in the ability to make choices for ourselves.
And it is only when God takes a step away, giving us space, that we are able to make the decision to reach out for Him, to feel our smallness, incompleteness, incapacity to function on our own, and take that step of faith toward Him.
When Jesse McCarthy returned a week later and peered into the same classroom, he saw all of the children working peacefully, joyfully, the crying boy no longer isolated from the rest. After being given the space to process and pick himself up, the boy had moved forward with a stronger sense of his own worth and capability.
Would you peer into my life now and realize I spent so many months wondering if God was good, if good could come out of the desolation I felt, the uncertainty that we were permitted to suffer through?
Probably not.
But my Guide knows the internal growth, the worth I have realized in embracing and enduring suffering, and the dignity of having chosen Him.
Thank you for reading! If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to contact me. I would also love to hear any suggestions for posts you would like me to write about. And if you are interested in following along in our daily adventures, follow us on Instagram where I post daily.
God bless,
Olivia Fischer
No comments:
Post a Comment