Why?

In the last few days I have had a recurring theme pop up from unexpected places. I have had to spend a day or two putting it in a box and I find that the final bit of sticky tape is always writing about it, finding a metaphor and letting it go. 

So the first thing that happened for me was that a few months ago I discovered that a beloved school friend of mine was no longer friends with me on Facebook. It came as a punch to the stomach. I have spent months agonising over her choice to exclude me - and most of our school cohort - from her life. I questioned what I could have done wrong - was it my belief system, a seemingly careless remark I had made, an episode of teenage bullying that I have absolutely no recollection of - when you’re going back some 20 something years it could literally be anything because, to be honest, I was an entirely different person then. I do know that this friend lives overseas and has a deeply painful connection to this country. In respect for her and the deep trauma her family have been through I will not give details but suffice to say I can understand why perhaps she would sever old ties to this country, including me. Even though I could philosophically talk myself out of feeling guilty, excluded... paranoid the fact remained that I still wanted to know ‘why’. I wanted to know why because I never let go of friends. I never stop being your friend. I am incredibly bad at the day to day maintenance of friendships - I’m not good at making coffee dates and remembering birthdays and chit chat - but when the chips are down I will 100% be in your court. Because I have studied and lived in different cities, in different parts of the world I haven’t seen some of my closest friends for many years. But I still love them completely and I know that if they were to arrive at my home tomorrow we would pick up where we left off - I’m that kind of friend. I don’t need to live in your pocket but I’m also not going to let you go. Once you have my love you’re stuck with it. 

So I finally tracked down this friend’s email address and apologised for any wrong doing and expressed regret that she no longer felt a need for my presence in her life - no matter how remote or distanced. A few days later she replied saying that she had no hard feelings and that she was living a satisfying life with a close group of supportive friends and family and that she wished me the best. I would like to say that this response was adequate in satiating my Jessica Fletcher compulsion to understand why but I had to respect that this friend has chosen a different path to the one I have chosen. She has chosen to be a different kind of friend where she invests in those people who are directly a part of her immediate life and not keep old ties to people she will probably never see again. And there was a lesson to be learnt there for me - love the ones you’re with. 

And so despite the fact that I still feel rejected and like a failure I have to stop asking why and just let it be. 

My second occurrence happened where I had to confront someone on some appalling behaviour. Again I will not go into details because this was a big one but what I took away from this, again, is that sometimes I will not be able to even vaguely understand why people make the choices they make. And sometimes they won’t either. 

Sometimes we get into such toxic patterns in our relationships with others that we start to normalise what is actually unforgivable. And I know I am guilty of this too. We give each other permission to hurt so that we can fix, we stay in relationships that are toxic because we don’t want to entertain an alternative, we say what we know will hurt the ones we love when they seem to be a little bit too happy. 

Again at the end of this conversation I was left with a million ‘whys’ because I literally do not understand it at all. Because the choices that have been made are 180 degrees away from the choices I would make. I cannot solve this predicament and I cannot make sense of any of it. And perhaps people look at the choices I have made and feel exactly the same way about me. 

My final moment that confirmed this recurring theme was a testimony given by my childhood friend Fran two nights ago.  In a nutshell last year her brother was in a horrific car accident that resulted in severe physical injuries including major trauma to the brain. Lockdown across the world had just been announced. And he was in America. At the same time she discovered that, after years of fertility struggles and being told that chances for a second child were very poor, she discovered she was pregnant. So last year she managed to find a way to support her brother across the ocean, she found a team of people to fly when no planes were flying and she brought her brother home. She made it to the final days of her pregnancy having achieved what was unachievable and then, days before his birth, her baby stopped kicking and she lost him. I still cannot go into any more details because this story is actually still too raw. Perhaps it will always be for me. 

Why?

In her testimony on Monday Fran made a very important statement. She said we can choose to do life with God or we can choose to it without Him. We can choose to ask ‘why’ or we can chose to trust a far greater plan that we cannot, and in our human capacity - will not - ever be able to understand. She said that she and her husband made the decision not to ask ‘why’. 

And there’s the ringer - it is a choice. 

And at this moment my metaphor was revealed to me. A hill. Three crosses. One of the thieves choose to go with Christ into paradise. One didn’t. They got to choose. 

And more importantly for me right now - even if you are in the very living presence of a palpable, breathing Christ. Even if you are about to die. Even if He offers you paradise right to your face you have the right to choose.

If people can literally have Christ standing right in front of them offering salvation, forgiveness and healing and they can turn away from Him,  and if others can hold a silent baby in their arms and can still turn to God and find grace and sanctuary then perhaps I should stop asking why. Perhaps I should just give my questions to Him and trust that sometimes I will not get answers but that I will always get peace. 

Perhaps it is not my place to try and understand people in order to save them because that isn’t my job, perhaps I just need to focus on making the right choices for myself and listen to what God calls me to do. Because when He does call me to do His work (which He will empower me to do) I can smile, pick up my breastplate and say, ‘Why not?’