Blame

I know. This is a very loaded word.

My kids do this one a lot. It usually goes something like this:

Me: Boys, who made that stream of water in the hallway?
Aidan: That's not water...Duck did it.
Declan: No, Aidan did!

Even as adults, too often we want to take the credit, but never the blame. It takes a lot of humility to be able to accept blame when responsible for something, and even more so when not responsible.

My brother died about 5 years ago. Many of you know the story, but what you may not know is that one of the first things that I did was yell at God. "Why him?" I screamed, "He suffered so much, so young...he fought for our country...he won souls for You...he was just starting to enjoy life. Couldn't You have done something?"

Of course, blame is one of the natural stages of grief. We need someone or something to hold responsible for our hurt; even if deep down we understand that sometimes life just sucks...we still need a scapegoat.

But even though I knew it was normal, I still felt a little guilty that I pointed the finger at the very One who had held me together through it all.

Last week, I had lunch with a mentor. As we sat and talked, conversation turned to a situation where someone going through a hard time had lashed out at those around them. "It's like...instead of blaming God like the rest of us do when something bad happens, this person is blaming those around them," she said.

Whoa! I had a mind-blowing epiphany through that one simple statement.

It seems we all blame God at some point. Why is that? Is it lack of faith? Or lack of knowledge?

Or...what if it is just the simple fact that we need to put blame on Him in order to maintain fellowship? Think about it...if blame is such a natural response to grief and loss in our lives, wouldn't it stand to reason that some aspect of this exchange is necessary for us to get through the trial?

For example:
Us: Why, God? I mean...what were You thinking? I don't even know if I can trust you anymore...

All the while, God knows that these thoughts and feelings are inside of us. Imagine if we had those thoughts and instead of going to Him honestly, we took them and blamed the next person to cross our path. Did anything get accomplished? Did our relationship with the Lord grow? It seems to me that we have only made a bad situation worse by dragging someone else into our funk.

We must have that moment of honesty before God to maintain our fellowship with Him, don't you think? Otherwise, we put the blame on someone else...maybe even multiple someones, denying the real origin of our anger, frustration and ultimately--our hurt. And all this leads to is a whole lot more hurt--and usually not just our own--when we don't deal with our true feelings of who we think is to blame.

Because deep inside, we feel like it was God who let us down.

But, what if we just let it all out to God? Would He really be shocked? Or displeased? If we are honest, and truly want to know the purpose and will of our Father, then our honesty will only help our relationship with Him. As we turn toward Him and release those thoughts, we will find ourselves face to face with the One who will comfort, sustain and mature us through that difficult time. Our anger will begin to subside and we will see that grace has a face...and that the hand of God is extended toward us to show us that grace and not to show us pain.

The God who gave us His Son, gave us everything just to mend our broken bond with Him...what He wants most when we are hurting is to draw us nearer, to have the chance to take our pain on Himself (again) and make us a little more dependent on Him, a little more like Jesus. And that may just require us to throw out all the blame that is inside of us onto Him. I'm confident that He can handle it.

Yes, I wrote a blog about faces

Today, I saw a picture online of the back of a random little boy decorating a Christmas tree. He looked so much like my son from behind that I had to do a double take. And here is how my mind works so strangely sometimes...

As I thought about the view of my son from behind, I wondered what it would be like to never see his face again. I'm not your typical "what if-er" out of fear or anxiety toward the unknown. But sometimes I examine how I would react were I to face situations that others face on a daily basis.

I sat thinking about all the parents out there whose children have been taken from them. Kidnapping. Autism. Cancer. Death. There are so many ways to lose a child.

What if I were to lose my Aidan? Would I get an odd feeling everytime I saw another little boy that looked like him from behind? Would I begin to forget what his face looked like?

There is something very reassuring about familiar faces. My kids crack me up sometimes, when I have been in the room with them for an hour--all the while they've ignored me and as soon as I sneak away to be by myself for five minutes (I just want to go to the bathroom ALONE!)...here they come calling for Mama.

And it's never enough if I call out to them that I am there and I'm ok, I just drank a bunch of coffee...they need to see my face. Everytime, without fail, as soon as they see my face, they're good.

Have you ever been in an uncertain situation? --Your world rocked just enough to leave you feeling a little "off" for awhile afterwards. When my brother died, my initial reaction was to stay away from everyone and everything. I just wanted to "lick my wounds", so to speak.

Inevitably, people would come and pay their condolences, bring food, pray with us and also for us when we could not pray. There was something very centering about seeing certain people--key players in my past and present whose very presence alone was reassuring enough to get me through those dark days.

A familiar face can often feel like home to us. Even someone we haven't seen in a long time--once we see them, there's a moment of instant relaxation. Everything is going to be ok.

For some of us, it's a parent or grandparent. For others, a spouse or a child. Pastors, friends and neighbors are often just as much family as the ones we're born into.

But what about God?

I don't know about you, but I have never seen God's face. In Exodus 33:20, God speaks and says: "You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live." So, probably if you told me you had seen the face of God, I would not believe you.

If we cannot see His face, then why does He instruct us to seek it?

"When You said, 'Seek My face,' my heart said to You, 'Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.'" -Psalm 27:8.

As fun as it sounds, I can't actually believe that God is trying to engage us in a cosmic game of "peek-a-boo" for the sake of a good laugh.

We know that if we were to see His face in our earthly condition, we would die straightaway. We also know that we are to seek after His face. Is He playing a game with us? Or does He just know us too well?

My kids could care less about me while I'm in the room with them, but as soon as I am inaccessible, they NEED to see me. I can understand that it is the same with our Father.

We are ingrained with a desire to see the face of God. I don't care how you feel about God or what you believe about God...if you had the chance to see His face, you would take it and so would I.

I believe that God has put that very desire inside of us that nothing else can quite fulfill.

Why?

I could come up with a thousand good reasons and you probably could, too. But more importantly, today at least, I'm concerned not with why I'm compelled to but with whether or not I truly seek Him.

And all because of a picture of a little boy that I have nothing to do with! ;)