Life of "P"

We made the trip mostly in silence. The songs from the Maranatha Music album came softly through the speakers adding to the melancholy of the moment, "Give ear to my words, O Lord. Consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King and my God..." We were on our way to the airport, my parents and I. I had just finished high school, and the idea of going to college overwhelmed me with fear. Instead, I was to spend a year in Chicago studying English.

Lupe and her husband Fadi picked me up at Chicago O'Hare. "Hola, Perlita. Bienvenida."  Fadi welcomed me with a smile. I had known Lupe since I was a child when she played on the women's basketball team my father coached. As we drove, I took in the sights of the skyscrapers and the lights. I took in the unfamiliar territory, and the voices that, though friendly, sounded foreign to me. Lupe and Fadi welcomed me into their small apartment and introduced me from day one, as a result of their mixed marriage, to the multicultural life of the United States. Fadi was from Lebanon. Lupe was from Mexico. Lupe's best friend was American. Fadi's nephew, Nadal, was from Saudi Arabia. Lupe's sister was married to a man from Jordan. And since Fadi could not roll the R in "Perla," I became "P," for short.

"P" like the letter, simple and easy, like I wish faith were. I am 49 years-old now, and I have changed a lot inside and out. However, two things have remained a constant throughout my life — fear and doubt.

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My parents never spoke to us about God nor did they seem to think religion was important when we were children. Following tradition, we were baptized as infants in the Catholic church, but not because my parents believed. The bond my parents had with their childhood and college friends whom they asked to become our godparents was much stronger than their bond with God. I’d dare say, their bond with God was, at the time, non-existent. Their friends were not religious either, except one.

I remember visiting the home of Fortino when my brothers and I were probably school-age. Fortino was very different than anybody I knew. Whenever we visited him, he would have his family and all of us, his guests, prostrate ourselves on the floor to pray. As he prayed, I listened with a sense of awkwardness and admiration. That was, indeed, my first real encounter with faith and with the concept of God.

For a while, I tried to imitate him. I would prostrate myself (in the comfort of my bed) to pray each night. I remember looking up to the ceiling wondering how the process worked — if my words indeed went through the roof and reached someone, somewhere. I really hoped so.

I must have forgotten all about this practice, and about God, because I don’t recall any other attempts at praying on my part until my uncle Martín and my aunt Lorena years later began taking us to the little Baptist church a missionary had just started in my hometown.

I remember the altar call one Sunday: “Raise your hand if you would like to invite Jesus into your heart.” It seemed the pastor was not only speaking to me, but expecting me to respond to his call, so I did — I raised my hand and repeated after him the "sinner's prayer."

For many years I ascribed to this Evangelical way of looking at salvation without questioning the formula much, but I struggled early on. My father did not believe, and the idea that God would send him to hell if he did not pray the sinner’s prayer would fill me with anxiety. One Saturday evening when we were about to go “soul winning,” I told my pastor I did not want to go because I was not sure I believed. He responded by quoting part of a Bible verse — “a blind man cannot guide a blind man.” I felt relieved. I did not have to go,  yet I also felt a deep sense of guilt and fear. "What if...?"

I continued going to church and inviting my friends to come. Many came, and I developed some of the most cherished relationships of my youth. I felt happy around my church friends. Our youth group offered such a contrast with what young people in my high school were doing, and I liked the difference. I did not care about drinking, or smoking, nor did I believe these things were necessary to have fun. I suspect that our camaraderie united us even more than our faith in Jesus. But I did believe, and I prayed and read my Bible, and life did not throw any hard questions at me for a a long time, so I was OK.

Years later, my involvement at church was such that at some point I considered full-time ministry. I had come in contact with Campus Crusade for Christ and was invited to become a student minister. Their invitation felt like a call from God to serve him, but looking back what attracted me were the people, their sense of mission, and their way of life. The idea of approaching students to spark a conversation about Jesus was terrifying to me.

During my time in college I felt really close to God. I have a record of that. I have countless journals where I jotted down my reflections on scripture, my prayers, and my desires. I don’t question my sincerity. My notes testify to a true and honest faith, but one which had not been tested much. Life was good overall, and I was full of expectation about what God had for me in store. I was also surrounded by faithful Christians who cared about me, who lived what they preached, and who demonstrated an open and real relationship with God without the legalism of my early years in the church. I felt God both guiding me and directing my life.

Through church I met my husband, and together we embarked on the next leg of the journey of life and faith, which included years of miscarriages and infertility. Somewhere along the lines, I became more concerned about the suffering in the world. I stopped thinking about "the plans God had for me" and began to look outward, and I did not like what I saw — too much violence, too much pain. I came to reject the idea of an all-controlling God who determined every single thing that happened. God certainly could not be behind the horrors of this world. That also meant that our lives did not unfold according to a prescribed plan. Down the road, this belief would prove to be crucial for my well-being.

After seven years of trying, we finally had a child — a healthy and beautiful boy. Four years would go by before Daniel could have a brother. In March of 2010, Caleb Arturo was born — a beautiful  boy with an extra chromosome 13. Having trisomy 13 meant a short life riddled with health problems.

In an attempt to understand and explain why this had happened to us, some people were quick to point out that "God had a plan, that everything happened for a reason, and that God would never give us more than we could bear." I rejected their "words of comfort" with all my might! Just like God was not behind the horrors of this world, he was not behind my son's chromosomal abnormality. Caleb brought me closer to God; to the God revealed in Jesus who loved the blind, the lame, and the downtrodden. The God who loved my son just as he was with his severe cognitive delays and his imperfect body, the God who looked at him with tender eyes and, yes, even with sorrow. I came to believe that evil is the result of forces contrary to God, and that the will of God is often thwarted on this Earth. This view is better explained by the pastor and theologian Greg Boyd in his books God at War and Is God to Blame?

For several years this view carried me through. However, over the years it started to feel insufficient to comfort me. God had started to feel distant and indifferent to the cries of the millions who were suffering beyond measure, including Maria, Caleb's nanny, who was fading away in pain from cancer. The idea of a distant, disinterested God seemed worse to me than believing there was no God at all, so I began to wonder, "What if it's not true?" "What if there is no God?" And now that my son is dead, "What if all that remains are his ashes?"

Years ago I read the book Life of Pi. As fascinating as the story is, the main attraction for me was Pi Patel's strong faith, his unmovable conviction in the existence of a Supreme Being and the fact that Pi could see Him through Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. In other words, God was present and could be approached without a doubt. 

"I will be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."  These are Pi's words as he reminisces about a conversation he had as a child with his biology teacher, the first "avowed atheist" he'd ever met. I am not an agnostic, but such observation applies to me. Perhaps I have chosen immobility as my means of transportation.

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" — and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

Reason does not get in the way of me believing wholeheartedly. In fact, more often than not, it is the lack thereof which can hinder me in all aspects of life. I am the eternally anxious person who is never sure of anything and who always looks at the 1% chance versus 99% chance that something will go wrong. I am exaggerating, but this is pretty close to the truth.

I read pages and pages from one of my journals from 2013 the other night — same old, same old. I want to believe, yet I confess I don't. I want to trust you, God, yet I don't. How can I stop this cycle? Perhaps Pi would say that as long as I remain in this cycle, I will be OK in the end. After all, if I truly did not believe, I would not have written those pages nor would I continue to write them today. However, I long for more. Somehow I must move on. 

In the midst of my grief over the death of my son, I have doubted out of fear, fear of never seeing him again. In the depths of despair, I fear nothing is true. This is the end. We said goodbye forever.

The typical Bible verses used for situations like mine don't give me much hope, but others do. In Matthew 22 we read about how the Sadducees, who said there was no resurrection, posed a trick question to Jesus — Whose wife would this unlucky woman be who ended up marrying seven brothers after each one died? Jesus replies in verse 29:

"You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God." 

I am hopeful that Jesus is talking to me here as well. "Perla, you are mistaken like the Sadducees because you don't understand, and most of all, you do not know the power of God."

Not long ago I reread the story of the Samaritan woman, the outcast whom Jesus asks for water. "You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" (John 4:9).

"If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water." (John 4:10)

Again, Jesus seems to say, "Perla, if you only knew..."

At the time of this post, I am coming out of the pit of despair. Be it the medication I started taking in January, the passage of time, or the long sunny days,  or whatever else, I am feeling better. God, again, has been patient with me. And I, once again, am reaching out to Him. I wish I could find certainty, but most likely I won't. 

"Help my unbelief!" will probably be my eternal prayer. I am Thomas before he was told to put his finger in the Lord's side, yet not so daring. I don't challenge God to prove himself — I beg Him to reveal himself to me so plainly that there is no room for doubt. (Send Gabriel, please!) However, would I believe? Or would I just come up with yet another reason to doubt? Jesus continues to be the thread which keeps me attached to the figure of God. I may not get to be as lucky as Thomas, who got his wish. I may have to learn to be content with the cloud of witnesses who testify to God's presence and love both in the Bible, and nowadays in the world. And if I am honest, I have to consider the times here and there through the years when God has "showed up," when He has spoken to me through something I read, or something I heard, just at the right time. That may have to suffice... Unless, of course, I choose to continue to rely only on that which my hands can touch and my eyes can see. Unless I continue to choose immobility as my means of transportation.