Believing Again
People question the existence and love of God when there is so much pain and death in the world. When we cannot accept God’s sovereignty because we are so consumed by our own pain, we lose confidence in His wisdom. We become frustrated and blame God for not preventing tragedies from happening. But the reality is that we are living in a broken world. Tragedy changed my perspective about faith. We reveal who we are through the questions we choose to ask ourselves. Tragedy and mourning expose both the good and the bad. It is not easy to choose to become the best version of myself. Each day I die to my previous self — the self who thinks she is right. The self who accuses God of making the wrong decision.
One Sunday, I heard a message in church explaining that since the beginning, Satan’s way of deceiving people has been the same:
1. Doubt. Make people doubt the truth of God’s word.
2. Deny. Deny the goodness of God by making people think that God is depriving them of something good because He is selfish.
3. Contradict. Make people think that there is something wrong with God by contradicting His Word
I had doubted the truth of the Bible because things didn’t happen the way I thought they would. I felt and assumed that God had deprived me because of my past sins. I felt that focusing our purpose or existence on Him was pretty selfish of Him. I thought that there was something wrong with God. I questioned His character. I realized that I was falling for Satan’s lies.
I asked myself, How do I believe again? How can I see beauty again? What do I do when I am back in that dark pit, angry and hopeless? Instead of asking, Why should I believe? I asked, What did I put in my head that made me stop believing?
Embracing God’s sovereignty wasn’t just about accepting that He knows God does not approve of all things. It required me to surrender joyfully to the fact that He is God and I am not. Once I dug deeper into the Word in order to understand my faith, my faith became mine.
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This is an excerpt from More Than Most: The Story of Courageous Caitie by Feliz Lucas and Jay Jay Lucas, the inspiring true story of finding hope while grieving the loss of a child.
More than Most takes readers on a journey of faith, pain, loss, and love, as seen through the eyes of Feliz and Jay Jay Lucas, the parents of Caitlin “Courageous Caitie” Lucas.
Caitie was a three-year-old girl who suffered from a rare disease. After months of inconclusive diagnoses and medical procedures in the Philippines, she was brought to Singapore, where she was finally diagnosed with juvenile myelomonocytic leukemia (JMML). Caitie’s courage and her parents’ faith throughout the ordeal, chronicled in the news and on social media, touched the hearts of thousands of people across the world. Caitie passed away in 2016 but despite her brief life on earth, she lived a life of influence and hope.
The book will soon be available at OMF Lit and Passages Bookshops for only P275. You can pre-order it at our online store .
We’ll be launching this book at the upcoming Manila International Book Fair. Join us on September 16, Sunday, 1-3PM for a meet and greet with Feliz and Jay Jay!