A God of Love, Not Destruction

Happy Lent! I do love this season. I know it has a penitential tone to it, but there’s also that gentle, earnest invitation from God right at the onset of this season, “Even now . . . return to me with your whole heart” (Joel 2:12).

Even now, with everything going on in our lives and everything going on in the world. Even now, in our imperfections, in our not quite-there-yet-ness. Even now, in the dead of winter, when, in the Northern hemisphere, many of us are weary of cold and darkness. Even now, in this moment, just as we are. Even now, God seeks me out, and seeks you too. Even now, even now, even now — God wants us to return to God with our whole hearts.

What an invitation that is! And with everything going on in the world, the news of war and violence and tragedies, it’s hard to remember that God has seen others through their tragedies, but God has. In the First Reading this Sunday, we’re privy to a conversation between God and Noah and his family. This happens after they’ve finally been able to disembark from the ark where they lived while the flood destroyed the rest of the world. God makes a covenant with them, promising never again to allow a flood to wipe everything out. God gives them a rainbow as a sign of this covenant, which, I hope, reassures them.

It reassures me too, actually. The God whom I’ve come to know and love is a God of rainbows, not destruction. That’s the faith in which I was raised, and the faith my community, friends, and mentors have helped to cultivate in me. I’ve also experience the God of Love in my own prayer and by walking with people in ministry. Sometimes bad things just happen. Even Jesus was tempted for forty long days in the desert and was not spared from loss, persecution, and execution. Jesus had plenty of heartbreak in his short life. Did God cause it? I just can’t think so. Our Christian faith, as I experience it, holds the paradox that God is all-loving and people suffer; both are true.

The question of why people suffer is big one, to say the least. I can’t answer that for anyone else, but I’ve done plenty of reflecting on it myself. I think it’s a question that we have to grapple with as we try to make sense of God and the world and ourselves. As I’ve accompanied young adults, I’ve seen how seeking answers to the why of suffering is how they mature in their faith. And for all of us, when life gets hard, the question of suffering can swing back around again for us to wrestle with. It’s an important question. As we try to answer it, we learn a little more about who God is.  

Sometimes when people wrestle with the question of suffering, they get to a space of blame. They might blame themselves. They might blame people involved. Maybe they were at fault or maybe they weren’t, but is blame helpful? I don’t know. In the face of tragedy, I’ve also heard people blame God. They say that it’s a punishment from God or a lesson God is teaching us. I personally don’t think God does things that hurt us in order to teach us, but it’s in these difficult times when I have to dig down into my faith and remind myself that, even now, God is a God of love and not destruction. Are there lessons to be learned from the hard things? Of course. And I hope that when something happens, I don’t miss a chance to grow from it. However, I also feel like that growth is how God helps us through hard times.

Maybe after Noah and his family finally set foot on dry land, after their traumatic and rather confusing voyage, they also wondered if God was punishing them even as God was saving them. They had been confined indefinitely on the boat with each other and too many pets (which may sound familiar, given our pandemic life a few years ago). But God showed up and reassured them, even giving them a sign in the sky.

Here’s the thing about a sign from God – you have to notice it. Noah and his family could have seen the rainbow and disregarded it. A rainbow. Big deal. But it was a big deal. It was a sign of the covenant. The kinds of signs that God sends me are subtle too. Sometimes a sign of God’s care is a sunset or a thoughtful text, something that means something to me.

One sign that God gave me happened many years ago, before I entered my community, but when I was thinking pretty hard about it. It was so long ago, in fact, that I had a boyfriend, and we had had an argument. I was really struggling, not really because of that fight, but because I felt like I couldn’t figure out my vocation question. It wasn’t a tragedy or even a crisis, really, but at the time it felt stressful and intense, the way things do when you’re twenty-three and life is a giant, looming question mark. I was afraid of making a mistake that would set my life on the wrong course.

I decided to deal with my existential angst by washing the car, you know a karate-kid-style wax-on-wax-off coping strategy. I was getting ready to turn out of my street to go to a car wash, when two Sisters of Divine Providence drove by. I recognized them, first by the Providence bumper sticker, and second by the kind of car, a Tercel, which sisters drove at the time. I couldn’t believe it. Here I am trying to figure out what to do with my life, and God sends me a sign, two sisters from Kentucky driving by my street in Cincinnati. What in the world? I didn’t know what to do, so I followed them as if they were some kind of nunny Pied Pipers. It wasn’t long before following them made me feel creepy, so I turned around and went home. I’m not sure if I ever washed the car.

Now, was that a sign from God telling me what to do it’s my life? No, not exactly. If I wanted to stay in that relationship and not be a sister, I think I would’ve figured that out. But the sign from God showed me in my heart of hearts what I wanted. It wasn’t the sign; it was my reaction to seeing the car and that Providence bumper sticker. Something in me just knew. And even if that one incident didn’t resolve my vocation question, the presence of God in that sign was tremendously reassuring. It let me know that God was there. It brought the intensity down. It made me laugh and gave me a reset. When you’re that stressed out, you should never make any life decisions, and I didn’t — not that day, anyway.

That example from my life is not a sign that solved a crisis. Signs from God usually don’t. Even Noah and his family had to rebuild their lives and figure out what to do next, even what to have for dinner (I mean, what did they eat on that boat anyway?). However, they knew that God was with them.

God is very close with us always, and in those hard times, God is still there, even when it doesn’t feel like it. God is always talking to us, always trying to catch our attention, to reassure us, to let us know that God’s with us, that God loves us. God is a God of love, not destruction. If you need a sign to reassure you, go ahead and ask. Maybe, if you stop to notice, you’ll see that there’s a sign from God right in front of you. Our God who loves us always wants to reassure us. Even now.

For reflection:

• Has God ever given you some kind of sign, something that caused you to notice God’s presence and God’s care? What was that like? How did you react?

• Have you ever been a sign to someone else of God’s love? How did that feel?

• When you’re going through a hard time, where is God in that? How do you experience God’s presence?

By Sister Leslie Keener, CDP

Leslie is the director of God Space, a community-building spirituality ministry in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. She’s a Sister of Divine Providence with a Masters in Ministry and a Certificate in Spiritual Direction and Retreats from Creighton University. She directs retreats, meets with people for spiritual direction, and serves as the vocation director for her community. She also serves on the Board of Spiritual Directors International. She enjoys music, dancing, and meaningful conversations.