Even When He Doesn’t: A Piece with Ann Voskamp

My husband (Peter) and I have two vastly different stories of faith miracles. He begged and pleaded with God from a desperate place in a jail cell, and God told him yes. The miracle is that he was set free.

I begged and pleaded with God from a desperate place on my bedroom floor as my first husband lay dying in my arms, and God told me no. The miracle is that my faith stayed intact at all.

When Peter and I pray together, when we ask God for things, it sounds different. He prays for miracles in the hope of a heart-stretching yes; I pray for comfort in the likelihood of a heartbreaking no.

If faithfulness is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, then is it his job to grow it in me? If I don’t have it, then how in the world do I get it? And is it my fault that someone is sick—or dying—because of my “lack of faith”?

Every once in a while, I get to partner with one of my heroes. Today, my words are live on Ann Voskamp’s blog, an excerpt from This Book is For You, as I’ve written about that greatest tension of all -“How do we learn to hold both sides of that equation, the belief that God can, but the understanding that He might not?”