The waiting room...

I went to church a lot, but I think I missed the class on doubt. 

I remember the classes on sex, drugs, and appropriate music. Baptism, worship, and tithing...check, check, and check. Been to VBS and retreats and summer camps. I know all about salvation in my particular community. I've read books from Max Lucado to Peter Rollins. Can say with ease all 66 books of the bible. Know a little about 4 part harmony and can sing "Booster Booster" very well. 

Still, I must have missed the class on doubt. 

The one where they help make sense of the doubt that creeps in when it doesn't all fit inside the box of pretty Jesus they feed you. 

The doubt that comes with an unplanned pregnancy, or with the night in jail, or with the house that won't sell even though you've "prayed about it", the doubt you'll make the next paycheck, the child that won't call and the doubt that they might not be okay, or the doubt that just comes from sitting in a waiting room and yeah...waiting. 

Don't get me wrong, I believe God is in each of the above somehow. He is God after all. But the answers we get sometimes don't ease the doubts. 

"It's God's will" or "it's all part of His plan"

I just missed the class that made those answers make sense in the midst of what seems like utter godlessness. 

Its hard for me to be the Peter that hops out of the boat in faith and walks on water. Most of the time I'm just the Peter that starts to sink with doubt. 

I doubt. I stand in the chaos of my life, and the lives I'm closest too, and ask God where he is...because sometimes I just don't see him. 

But recently nothing has brought me closer to God than wrestling with my own doubt. Releasing the need to have a fancy 3 part Jesus answer for everything and just learning to let go. That sometimes faith isn't about making sense of it all, but more about being present in it all. To be real and honest in every moment, even if that means you have doubts. Struggling with doubt doesn't make us less Christian, if anything it makes us more real. Or I guess that's how I see it. 

I'm grateful for a Jesus who understands my doubt and for a few people who will sit with me in the shit doubt inevitably brings.