You may have noticed that I omitted the word "Learned" from this particular title. That is not an oversight. Because I don't know that I can ever claim this lesson as one that is fully learned. So this is more of an exploration than a declaration. This topic has been rolling around in my head for some time now, and it is doubt that has stopped me from addressing it. Doubt in my ability to get the message right; to properly deliver it. So I have started writing, and I have stopped, and I have started again. I have been taking notes and writing down observations for weeks. Because getting this particular message right feels important to me.
About five years ago, a song lyric was brought to my attention, on at least three separate occasions, via three different sources, and in rather quick succession. So I paid attention, and I have remembered. The lyric had to do with God's mercy on those who doubt what they are sure of. The context in which I have interpreted this song lyric has evolved over the past five years, and I now believe that the over-riding message has less to do with the actual meaning of the words, and more to do with the question the words have caused me to keep asking myself; How can I keep my doubts away from what I am sure of? The answer is that I can’t. My doubts will always test the things I am sure of. And that is where the part about God’s mercy comes in. In the midst of the testing.
This blog is about the things I am sure of. The things I feel I can somewhat confidently say that I “know for sure”. Most of what I write about here has already withstood the test of my doubting long enough for me to say “this concept or principle won’t change, and I can trust it”. That is my criteria for declaring a lesson “learned”. That said, there are many things in my life that I used to be sure of, that I no longer am. But this does not have to be tragic.
When I was young and single, the one thing I was just certain I was going to get right in life was Who I Married. I fully believed that if I did everything I was taught to do, if I had faith and was obedient to God’s laws, He would not let me choose poorly. And then when marriage got really, really, hard, I was just certain that we would find a way to work through it all; that God would not allow us to fail. Obviously, finding myself divorced made me question many of the things I had previously been “sure of”, with the aforementioned “certainties” leading the list.
Nonetheless, being the ever-adaptable perpetual optimist that I am, I became certain that I would soon find someone better suited to me, that I might even have more than one contender for the position, and that, oh, “5 or so years from now”, I would finally be happily bound to the Right Man. Six years later, I am a not-so-young-yet-still-single Grandma who is going to college and writing this silly blog, trying to sort out the criteria for determining what I am “sure of”. Seeking a man does not even rank space at the far bottom of my “To-Do” list. I have handed that one off to God and am not even trying to figure out the divine time frame on it. I just trust Him.
We are all sure of certain things at certain times. If we were not, we would never make a single decision. Belief and absolute faith are powerful things. For a certain amount of time, the apostle Peter had absolute faith that he could walk on water. And he did. Right up to the moment he let doubt creep in, and then he began to sink beneath the waves. Doubt can sink us, or it can strengthen us, (sometimes both) depending on how we manage it. Recently a man I greatly admire spoke in church, (humbly, poignantly, and passionately) about the pain of seeing his parents give in to doubt in areas that were close to his heart. This served to remind him (and me) that we can only rely on the beliefs of others for so long before doubt forces us to figure out for ourselves what we are sure of. We have to test what we believe, and we do that by living it, as this particular man does. Those of us who have been recipients of his kindness have no doubts about what he believes.
In this same church meeting, there was a lot of talk about the “tender mercies” of the Lord, and I could not help but connect the message about painful doubts with the message about tender mercies. The point was made that it is the very strengthening nature of our trials that IS the tender mercy of the Lord. He allows us to have the doubts, to sink for a while, to make choices that lead to pain, so that when we reach the point that we are finally sure of something, it has value. Because He loves us. When Peter was sinking into the turbulent ocean, perhaps feeling shame for his own failing faith, he reached out for the hand of the Savior, who had mercy on him in his doubt and lifted him back up.
He will always be merciful to us in our doubts, and of that, I am sure.
In the past few months, there has been much of both the painful doubts and the tender mercies in my life. Reality has conflicted with some things I felt like I knew for sure and could count on, and I have felt like I was left drifting. Drifting and sinking. I beat myself up over and over again for my lack of faith, and this makes it hard to reach upward for the hand of the Savior when I need it. Yet it is always there. Without fail, He has been merciful to me in my doubts. Which are many, and which repeat often.
As does the lesson.
Faith. Doubt. Mercy. Repeat.
