"They did not know that I was their healer," says the Lord in the First Reading. (Hosea 11:3) This got me thinking: What is God to me?
Throughout my life, there have been many different answers.
At times, God has felt like an efficient but impersonal administrator. This is the God who seems more interested in recording my sins than celebrating my joys.
They did not know that I was their healer.
At other times, God has seemed more like a killjoy. This was especially true in college, when my faith made me feel annoyingly guilty about things that everyone else seemed able to do without a second thought.
They did not know that I was their healer.
On a few occasions, God has felt like an adversary. When my second pregnancy ended in a second loss, I was devastated, and angry that God would not protect the life inside me. In those dark weeks, I wasn’t believing in a benevolent God; I just wasn’t.
They did not know that I was their healer.
Even now, sometimes, I find myself disappointed in God. I pray for a sick friend and he doesn’t survive. Come on, God, I feel like saying: aren’t You supposed to be the healer? And by that I meant healing his body, God . . . which You didn’t do.
They did not know that I was their healer.
Overall, though, I find that time—and the perspective that comes with it—has changed my understanding of how God works in my life. That’s not to say that I am not still disappointed, often powerfully so, in how some things turn out.
But I see healing a little differently now. Now I can recognize evidence of God’s love even in the painful times. I see God in the people who comfort and support and cry with me. I see God in the beauty of nature, in the sun and clouds and hills and birds and roses that lift me out of the mire of my thoughts for a blessed moment or two. I encounter God in the mysterious power of the Eucharist, which feeds me and reaches me even on days when I’m hardly aware of how awesome it is.
They did not know that I was their healer. For me, that’s still occasionally true.
But on other days, I do know. And that makes all the difference.
Now I can recognize evidence of God’s love even in the painful times.Click to tweet
Even in the hardest times, how has God’s healing goodness been there for you?
Ginny Kubitz Moyer is a mother, high school English teacher, and BBC period drama junkie. She is the author of Random MOMents of Grace: Experiencing God in the Adventures of Motherhood and Mary and Me: Catholic Women Reflect on the Mother of God. Ginny lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband, two boys, and about thirty thousand Legos. You can find out more about her here. She is the author of our Blessed Conversations: The Seven Sacraments found here.
Be a Woman of the Word
