I didn’t leave the house yesterday. My body would begin to shake if I stared out the window too long, examining the raindrops. Were they drops, or were they sheets—were they distinguishable or a unified force, descending with force? Was the air a mist? A fog? How far could I see?
I had to look down. Scrub the pots. Soak the veggies in vinegar water. Chop the cucumbers. Do the next thing. Stop ruminating on what could be. You can’t stop the water. Do not fear.
My muscles still ached from the day before, when the raindrops morphed into sheets, pummeling and pelting the shocked ground. Drought and heat had lived here for so long, we were unprepared for the sudden deluge. Old branches of a neighbor elm cracked and splintered under the weight of answered prayer. Rivers formed in places of dust and stone, turning my side door into a dam threatening to break.
I made my way outside to dig trenches and pray, just as my phone chirped a warning to stay inside due to flash-flood warnings.
I am lying. I didn’t pray. I cried.
I shoveled awkwardly and shifted rock and dirt, and with all the grace of a woman who spends too much of life indoors, strained to patiently observe the movement of rainwater so I could divert it more quickly than it came down. It gathered and pushed forward so fast. So fast. And I was so slow and awkward and determined and scared and I was going to keep going. I kept going.
I don’t know how long I was out there, forming trenches, crying in the rain, anticipating where wild water would flow, but that water still threatened my door, even with so much of it diverted in distracted rivulets, away.
There was nothing more I could do. I was muted by my back-breaking effort and its utter inadequacy.
Defeated, I poured the water from my boots and cried. I peeled the clothes from my skin and cried. I need you to know that I tried to pray, “help!,” in that moment, but was shut up in my bones; hushed and terrified by the possibility of an indifferent God who, every day allowed natural disasters to claim lives and homes. I need you to know this because faith, at least mine, isn’t linear, isn’t tidy, ain’t cute. It waxes and wanes and I see God as my loving parent one moment, and as a boot above my head, threatening to crush me the next. I cried and the prayer stuck like a lump in my throat.
There’s a story I cling to from the gospels, where a group of friends wanted to get their friend who was paralyzed in front of Jesus. The crowds were so thick where Jesus taught that the doorways were blocked. Instead of being deterred, the group of friends said, “aiight, bet,” and removed the roof, lowering their paralyzed friend in front of Jesus. Neither Jesus nor the owner of that house were peeved (that owner is a miracle, too). Jesus stopped his teaching, healed the paralyzed friend, and commended the faith of his friends.
When I imagine faith in God, in community, I imagine taking turns tearing through the roof or being lowered down. We don’t always have the capacity to do more than exist in a paucity of faith and inadequacy of effort.
I must testify:
I texted Tiffany and Kim and asked them to pray.
Tiffany prayed at 11:42 am.
The deluge stopped at 11:43 am. The rain continued, but the pools at my door subsided with the lack of force.
The water didn’t cross the threshold of my door.
I need you to know that all these things are coexisting: digging trenches, crying, prayers stuck in my throat, water not crossing the threshold on Monday, my body tensing up in fear on Tuesday, viewing the Lord as indifferent and threatening, receiving the merciful relenting of rain, wondering about the efficacy of prayer, and watching prayer literally change my circumstance. Life isn’t neatly all or nothing. I have read and heard a lot of faith talk spoken in absolutes, and have had to wean myself off of a theology that made me terrified of doubt, grief, and fear.
There is a faith that yells, “Lord, save us, we are going to drown!” There is a faith that mourns, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” There is a faith that whispers, “if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me.”
There is a faith in me, soaked in the rain, bent with a shovel, unsteady and crying, prayer caught in my throat. I have to rehearse that God’s love is the path faith takes. There’s room for my toddling faith. There’s room for your robust faith. There’s room for a questioning, mustard-seed sized faith. There’s room. And if it gets crowded, get you some friends who will break the roof for you.
We take turns lowering down and being lowered.
So good! I recently wrote something similar. I hope you read it someday.
Amen, friend. I love that God meets us where we are - doubts and fears, mourning and rejoicing, and faith. He welcomes us in all of this. That faith charade that says it has to be absolute ignores the very passages you quoted, where faith waivers - where I waiver - and God still calls me holy, chosen, and beloved. Every-increasingly thankful that it's not dependent upon me and my faith, but upon him and his love.