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A Contemporary Story: Where Are You, God?
Rosie reflects: She closed her eyes and let the rhythms of the train soothe her mind as she headed home. She was hungry and tired. It was the 2nd week of her Lenten fast. She tried to shut out the voices of her parents and their ceaseless conversations and arguments, as the train arrived at her station and she walked home.
Her parents were well known and well respected in the community. Her father was a solicitor in a high-powered legal practice. Her mother was the CEO of a Computer Firm. They were both leaders in the local church where her father was a Council member. She would often cry as she thought of her brother who had left their home. He had rejected all of them and was now addicted to drugs and a life of homelessness.
The church and her Christian school had been the centre of her early years. She had continued to live in the shadow of her parents during her university years. There were times when she felt that God was calling her to be an ordained Minister in the Church. Some of the gloss wore off when she enrolled for a Medical degree. She tried to separate her religious beliefs from the academic world. She found herself challenged when trying to find connections between faith and science, between changing ethical and social issues and the world of her parents. She questioned the miracles and healing stories in the Bible as she wondered why her parent’s prayers for her brother were not answered. She wondered why she kept silent when her boyfriend asked “Why do we need God?” to which someone else had replied: “We don’t. To me it sounds like a hoax.” Her girl friend had added “Dad always says religion is packaged in traditions that don’t exist anymore”. Rosie hadn’t had the courage to defend her beliefs.
Rosie walked home with questions that were never far away from her thoughts. What did her friends think about Good Friday? Did Jesus sacrifice himself for the sins of the world? If he did why was there so much evil in the world today? Where was God when her parents prayed for her brother’s return home?
She sighed and kept walking home.
Pray:
God, are you even there? Have I been asking the wrong questions? Today, please, if you are there, please give me a little sign that my faith has not been built on nonsense.