The Gaslighting God
The Gaslighting God
How We Sometimes Think God is (And How He Actually is Instead)
"Going a little farther, he fell facedown and prayed, 'My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.'”
~Matthew 2:39
2024 has been a hard year for our family. There have been unexpected blessings, to be sure (such as seeing our life-long farm dream come to fruition at long last!), but I think we will look back on this year as one of the hardest we have gone through yet. Car troubles with both vehicles, a leak in our house, financial issues, our house sitting on the market for months, the death of our beloved goat - it's been rough!
I vividly remember sitting outside on a starry August night with my deathly sick goat laying his head on my lap, and staring up at the heavens. "God, please heal him. You brought our farm dream to fruition. Please do not allow our first farm animal to pass like this. Please."
God didn't heal him, and our beloved Popeye passed away just days before he turned 6 months old.
That was the last straw for me, the final drop in the bucket. For nearly a year I had been weathering one hardship, loss, worry, or trial after another, and I couldn't take it anymore.
I no longer felt safe or secure with the God I had known all my life. I knew He was compassionate, but I didn't want His compassion. I knew He was empathetic, but I didn't want His empathy. After all, He could have healed Popeye. And He chose not to.
This may seem dramatic to you - after all, it was "just" a goat. Farm animals die all the time. But, for me, it felt deeply, deeply personal. I had wanted a farm of my own for as long as I could remember, with vivid memories of joyous summers spent with my great-grandparents on the farmlands of Indiana. Now, at the age of 32, my farm dream had unexpectedly and blessedly come to fruition and yet here I was a mere two months after acquiring our farm, and I had already had my sweet first goat taken from me. It felt like a cruel joke directed towards the innermost part of my self and my dreams.
For a month and a half I carried that pain, largely unbeknownst to anyone else except for one of my very dear sister friends. I lamented to her that God felt like He was gaslighting me, and I didn't want to turn to Him for the comfort I knew He would extend to me. It felt like He could have saved our goat, chose not to, and then wanted me to come to Him for comfort. Talk about gaslighting. Maybe even manipulation.
Or was it?
Fast forward to a couple weekends ago when I got together with that friend and a couple other dear sisters of the soul. As we gathered together from four different states at a beautiful Bed and Breakfast on a Kentucky farm, we went our separate ways on the property one afternoon and had a time of solitude, silence, and journaling with the Lord.
As I finally quieted my soul and got alone with the Lord for the first time in a while, I poured out all my angst on paper to Him. "I know that Romans 8:28 is true and that You will bring good from Popeye's passing. But why, why does that good have to be brought about that way?? Why couldn't You have brought that good in some other way? In a way where I would still have my Popeye with me?"
And that's when it hit me - how similar my words sounded to words prayed by Jesus from the depths of His own soul. "If it is possible, let this cup pass from me."
Jesus, too, wanted the good of salvation to come about, but He wanted it to come about some other far less painful way. He knows and understands what it's like to wish with everything in you that the promise of God bringing good would come to you through some far less heart-wrenching avenue. He gets it.
And it was in that moment of that realization that something in me broke open, and I felt safe with my God for the first time in a while. He is a good God, He is a loving God. And He understands firsthand how it feels when good comes from not good circumstances. It hurts. But He is with us in that hurt, lamenting that the brokenness of this world was never meant to be. He wanted better for us, and He is in the business of restoring that better for us for all eternity. I can praise Him for that!
How about you?