SHAKING MY FIST AT GOD

The carton of eggs was on the sidewalk, and so were the loaf of bread, the frozen chicken, the apples and the quart of milk.  A Pepsi can was pierced by a piece of sharp wire hanging in my grocery cart.  It was leaking onto the sidewalk.  I was on my way back from Kroger’s. It was 20 degrees below with the wind chill factor. Kroger’s was ten city blocks from our home.  The return ten blocks home was miserable. I trudged through puddles, occasional snow pile and icy sidewalk while pushing my cart.  Then it happened.  I slipped. I came down with a great thud, upturning my grocery cart.  I remember how angry I was.  I was thrown into a self-pity I’ve never felt before.   Could things get worse?

While we were serving as  missionaries in Indonesia, Don felt a strong desire to pursue further education.  He was grappling with some important doctrinal issues.  Searching for answers, he wrote to a professor whose books he had read, and who was teaching in a midwest seminary.  They corresponded and upon our return, Don decided he wanted to learn more from this professor.  So, when we came home, we moved from sunny California to New York and on to this midwest city.

Things did not seem to turn out well for us.  Finding housing for a couple with children was difficult because we did not have much money.  We borrowed from our life insurance policies to get us started and planned to take out student loans.  The bank turned down our loan application.  One of Don’s professors found out about his housing problem and offered to rent out the finished attic of his parents’ former home to us.  Two other young families rented the first and second floors.  The attic had no kitchen, though it had an old refrigerator that I had to defrost about every three days. I cooked our meals in an electric skillet given us.  We did not have a ceiling so, there was only the tile roof over us.  Thankfully, Don was able to work nights at a bank’s mailroom.  In the mornings he would go to school. 

Adding to the problems our dire financial situation caused us was our encounter with a culture so different from what we knew. We were California folks.  People come to this state from all over the world, settle in, get integrated into American life while bringing in the flavors of their own nationalities.  This midwest city though not completely homogenous clung to old traditions and what it was used to.  The sight of interracial couples was not one of them.  Sometimes when Don and I would get on a bus, people stared.  Other times, they would get downright mean by completely ignoring me.  I have never experienced racism such as this in all the years I have lived in California.  I remember going to a three-day spiritual retreat with Don and except for two of Don’s professors, no one would talk to me.  One Sunday, as we sat in the third row pew in church, the Pastor concluded his sermon on Samson and Delilah by saying “I don’t know about men who marry foreign women.”  Don and I were the only interracially married couple in the church.

It was all very new to me.  There were the freezing winters, and the even more freezing attitude of the people towards those who were not like them.  Then, we were always counting pennies.  One of the classic stories Don and I tell from this period in our lives was how I would stretch one chicken to feed our family of four for a week.  Yes, it can be done.  For a once-a-month special treat, the kids would get ice cream cones from MacDonald’s; Don and I would buy a six-pack of Pepsi, which we would make to last as long as we could.  Without a kitchen I couldn’t do any baking.  For a period of time, Kroger’s would give kids a cookie card. While I shopped, Don would take the children to claim one freshly baked cookie each with their card.

As I sat on the icy sidewalk, all my complaints against God came rushing to the fore.  I got angry with this “supposedly” loving and kind God.  I remember telling Him, “Is this the way you treat your children after they have so faithfully left everything to serve you in a foreign land?  Is this how you reward us?”

Have you ever been angry with God?  Have you ever thought you deserved to be treated better than He was treating you?  Well, I definitely did at that moment.  I was cold, wet and ANGRY.  I picked up what I could of my grocery and slowly headed for home.

But I could not stay angry for very long, simply because love won out over the anger.  I loved God, and with that love I had to trust that He knew what He was doing.  Many times God gives me blessings that I don’t deserve, that I cannot understand, but I accept them.  Why won’t I accept hard times in the same manner?  I may think I don’t deserve them, but He always has a reason for what He does.  And you know what, those hard times have been among my richest experiences of walking in faith.  Faith in the one we love involves trust even when we don’t understand.  And oh, yes, you can get angry, even with God.  He is big enough to understand you, but don’t stay angry with Him too long, for eventually, you will only hurt yourself.  Anger and bitterness are toxic to the soul.

“ ‘. . .  Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?’  In all this, Job did not sin in what he said.”

 (Job 2:10 NIV)