“Faith is believing when you don’t have all the answers.”

Oh, how I wanted to understand it all, when those words were first spoken to me. Everything about life and faith. I wanted clarity and for sures and right ways. I was all hormones and high school and confused about Jesus. I was sure what I felt in my heart was a pulling toward Him. And yet I mixed up His message of grace with all of what I heard around the political hot buttons of the day and the debates and the anger. And the clarity wasn’t there.

When I pushed into the idea and grasped onto belief, then as a girl filled with fear and doubt, I had no idea how much more true those words would ring as I lived life. I was certainly a bundle of questions then. Questions for which I was sure there were answers.  I demanded them, not yet realizing that this side of heaven they often don’t come.

Years of wondering why my father stayed away. Still not answered.

Of why a gift of a man was given to me at an age that now sounds so young. And then what about the discernment to marry him? Wisdom beyond my years I still don’t understand.

Of cancer and miscarriage in people I loved. And redemption in them both. And loss beyond understanding there too. That’s just it, the beyond understanding. Every year, every life passing, I knew less of how God works, and yet was more comfortable in not knowing.

Of four girls, all who were carried between these baby-bearing hips, how they were handed down from heaven for me to care for. Despite the fact that I fail them with harsh words and impatience and distraction, they were assigned to me. I failed once as a mother and God trusted me three more times. Why?

Of how each one of these girls, with the same combination of genes as her sisters, is uniquely created. With her strengths and heartaches all her own. How does new life come out of this meager woman? I was there when they were born, otherwise I might not believe that such wonder could come from someone as ordinary as me.

Grief and joy in the same set of circumstances. God, I simply don’t understand.

And the more I don’t understand, the more I believe.

Because those words from years ago are true. Faith is believing when you don’t have all the answers. Because in all of this questioning, the truth stands out so boldly. It is easier to see what is right and good. To find it in the mix up of life. And give back to God the questions.

For I know that He can handle them. My questions are not too big for Him. As much as I’d like to conjure up my worth, I don’t intimidate the Almighty, nor do my doubts.

So I give them, my doubts, my questions, my disbelief, to Him and choose to believe what I know to be true. What I see evidenced in the extraordinary disguised as the ordinary of my days.

He is the source of all things good and beautiful.

He created me.

He sees me.

He loves me.

And the same is true of you.

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Alexandra Kuykendall works at MOPS International (Mothers of Preschoolers) where she encourages mothers of young children to keep growing as they take on their new mothering identity. She is a regular contributor and consulting editor to MomSense magazine, Connections magazine, and the MOPS blog. A frequent speaker for MOPS, Alexandra has been featured on Good Morning America. As the mother of four young children, she continues to refine her mothering identity. She lives in Denver, Colorado, with her husband, Derek, and their daughters.

Alex is also the author of The Artist’s Daughter: A Memoir, a book full of short, moving episodes that transport readers into her life that included a childhood in Europe, a spiritual conversion marked more by questions than answers, a courtship in the midst of a call to be with troubled teens, marriage and motherhood – and always, always, the question of identity. Through her personal journey, women will discover their own path to understanding the shape of their lives and a deeper sense of God’s intimate presence within it.

Don’t forget. We’re giving away FIVE copies of The Artist’s Daughter! To be entered to win a copy, visit Monday’s post.

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