Remaining Anchored When Life Isn’t Fair

By: Dr Carol Peters-Tanksley

I had gone home to get some much-needed sleep. Just a couple hours later the phone call came; “You need to come to the hospital now.”

And three hours later I returned home a widow.
Nothing can prepare you for the disruption such a loss brings. “But we do not want you to be uninformed … that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Paul does not say we do not grieve, but that as followers of Jesus we grieve differently. Only someone who has been through such an experience can understand how it’s possible to have such indescribable pain and irrepressible hope at the same time.

Loss and grief happen to all of us. This isn’t only the death of a loved one. It’s also the loss of a relationship, a job, a home, a dream. Life isn’t fair! What do you hold on to when everything, everything, seems wrong?
Superficial spiritual-sounding platitudes to “trust in God” sound good and may be “true,” but they are decidedly unhelpful. It’s when the storms come that you discover if your soul is anchored to something that will really hold.

There are many things that won’t hold. Your emotions are fickle and can’t be trusted. The recent Covid-19 pandemic has proven to all of us that society and the world around us are not secure. Your job, your health, even your friends, family, or church family can fail you.

Your head knows that God is the only One who will never leave you and never change. But when the big stuff happens our relationship with God is challenged. How do you make it work when even what you thought you knew of God seems disrupted?
Let me offer two things.

1.Bring Both Parts of Your Brain Online
It’s an oversimplification but you’ve heard this before; our left brain is largely linear, logical, focused, and verbal. Our right brain is primarily emotional, sensory, non-linear, and experiential. God made both parts of your brain, and you need them both.

For your left brain, take in truth–from God’s word and from other healthy sources. And for your right brain let your emotions come to the party. Bring your anger, anxiety, sadness, frustration, or any other emotion into God’s presence.

2.Run TO God, Not Away From Him
Imagine a toddler, yours or one you know, and they’re really upset. Imagine picking up your child and holding them while they cry and pound on your chest until they can finally accept your presence and comfort.
That’s what God does with you. Bring Him your toughest questions. Cry and scream if you must. Beat on His chest. He’s the One you bring your toughest stuff to.

Sometimes you get answers to your questions. And sometimes you don’t. At least not logical answers.
But God Himself will become the Answer.
And that’s an Anchor that will hold.