Well, what do you do when life doesn't make sense? There is a wellness and a wholeness in Christ, no matter what our circumstances, that we really can say it is well, and that is truly only because of Christ. And I am more convinced than ever that that's the hope I need most. Welcome to Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman, New York Times best-selling author of "The 5 Love Languages" .
Today, author and motivational speaker Jennifer Rothschild shares her riveting story of doubts and questions and confusion that shook her faith. If you go to the website buildingrelationships.us, you will find simple ways to strengthen your relationships and our featured resource, Jennifer's book, God is Just Not Fair. And Gary, I think a lot of people feel that way. They have prayed, they've begged God for something, and it feels like either he doesn't hear them or he doesn't care. Have you ever felt that God just was not being fair with you in your life?
Yeah, Chris, the first time I felt that was I was rather young. I had just finished high school. and had gone off to Moody Bible Institute. And I had dated a girl three years in high school, and I was in love with her. And about six weeks after I got to Moody, I got a Dear John letter.
She said, Chicago's too far away. I think we should each go our own ways. And I cried, you know, and then I prayed, oh God, change her mind, change her mind. God, I love this girl. I mean, I need her.
Looking back, I just felt, you know, wait a minute, God, I've spent a lot of time with her. I've invested time. I know this gal, you know. But, you know, looking back on it, I'm sure glad God did not answer that prayer because then I never would have married Carolyn, my wife of 63 years, you know.
Well, in one sense, he did answer it. He just said no. He just said no. That's right. That's right.
Yeah. And maybe somebody's listened today and God has said no so far. That might be the best thing. I think Jennifer Rothschild is going to have something to say about that. She is the author of 19 books and Bible studies, including the best-selling Lessons I Learned in the Dark.
She's the founder of Fresh Grounded Faith Women's Events, and she hosts the 413 podcast. And Gary's been on that podcast. You've got to go find it and listen to that episode. She's been blind since she was about 15 years old, and she'll share more about that today. She and her husband, Phil, live in Missouri.
They have two sons, three grandchildren, and our featured resource at buildingrelationships.us is her book, God is Just Not Fair, Finding Hope When Life. Life doesn't make sense. You'll find out more at buildingrelationships.us.
Well, Jennifer, welcome to Building Relationships.
Well, I am glad to be with you, Gary. Thank you. I enjoyed our time on your podcast, and I'm delighted to have you with us today. Oh, me too. Thanks.
We heard uh your biography and uh some of the things that you've done, but uh for those who don't know you Who is Jennifer? Oh my, I guess it depends on who you ask.
So I will say Jennifer is a woman who loves God, who is grateful to be a happy wife and mom. I've been married to my husband for almost 40 years, and he happens to be a professor, Gary, and his name is Phil.
So I have my own doctor, Phil.
So that's who I'm married to. And then we have two sons who were born 10 years apart. And now we have daughter-in-laws and grandkids. And who else is Jennifer Rottile?
Well, I love to drink coffee and I drink way too much. I love dark chocolate. I love reading dead authors. And C.S. Lewis is my very favorite.
So there you go. And yes, I do like to write books. And I'm grateful that's been my calling.
Well, that's good. That's getting a lot of information in a short amount of time.
So take us back to your childhood. When did you sense that there was something going on with your sight? Yeah, well, Gary, when I was a girl, I could see perfectly fine. But I was in ninth grade and I was making a banner for our school. We were having field day.
And so I was a really good artist at the time. I loved drawing and caricatures was my favorite thing and cartooning. And so I was chosen from our class to be the artist who would create this banner that we would hold up on field day, you know, to bring us to victory, I'm sure. And anyway, I had this brand new white bed sheet that my mother had bought for me from Kmart. And I remember in the cafeteria when all the students had left, I unfurled that bed sheet on the floor and I began to sketch this lion.
Well, as I did, I noticed it looked like there was eraser dust on the sheet, which I tried to wipe away and it stayed. I noticed that the more I focused on trying to draw this lion over on another part of the sheet, it looked like they were. like black sharpie marks all over the sheet. And of course I tried to wipe those away. I said to the friend who was helping me, I don't get it.
This was a brand new bed sheet. I can't believe it's so dirty. And her response to me was, I don't know what you're talking about. This is a perfectly clean. Bed sheet.
Well, that was the first time, Gary, I realized something was wrong with my eyes. And what it was at that point was that my retinas were beginning to deteriorate and floating within my eyes.
So I was seeing what looked like eraser dust and what looked like Sharpie marks.
So, anyway, when I told my mom, within days, I was at an eye doctor and then at an eye hospital within a week or two. And that's where I was diagnosed with a disease called retinitis pigmentosa. And so, you know, I had this deterioration. I was already legally blind at that point. It happened very quickly.
But the prognosis of the disease was total blindness when the remainder of the retinas deteriorated. Yeah. Well What was your relationship with God at that stage of your life? And did you think, you know. God, what's going on?
Or did you ha feel like God was going to heal you? Or what were the thoughts and feelings you experienced at that juncture? You know, 15 years old, I did not have an emotional warehouse totally stocked with all the right experiences and responses.
So early on, I remember paying attention to my parents and their responses. Very, very authentic in their sadness, but very resolved in the can-do spirit and. Very unshakable in their faith, which I appreciate so much because. I watched them without realizing that's what I was doing. And when I didn't know how to respond, I think I imitated them until their response became my own.
But at the same time, I just am really convinced, Gary, that God's grace was so huge on me that I didn't really contemplate. Oh my goodness, why would you let this happen, God? Or maybe you can change it. I had already known Christ for five years. I loved the word.
I trusted him. And perhaps it was the naivete of youth, or maybe just the depth of grace or the combination. I had a very trusting response. And I think with my parents modeling that, it just made it. less complicated at that point in my life.
I'm just reflecting on, you know, I wonder how I would have felt at that stage of my life.
Well, obviously losing your sight uh meant that you lost some of the dreams that you had for your life, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mentioned, you know, that I loved art, and that's really what I wanted to do is be an artist. My mother was an artist, so I was trained to have a very sharp eye with the nuance of color and shadowing.
And, and, you know, no one will ever really be able to prove this wrong or right.
So I'll just say, yes, Gary, I was an amazing artist and I had so much potential. But I did love it, and it was my superpower at the time. And I was, you know, that was the thing I did the most. And so I do remember driving. home from the eye hospital, I was sitting in the back seat feeling my fingertips and thinking, Oh my goodness, am I going to have to read Braille?
And I'm never going to be an artist. And that was really all I did and all I wanted to do.
Well, what's beautiful about that, though that was just draped in disappointment, what happened next was something I never expected.
So we're riding home from the eye hospital. It's quiet in the car. Nobody's speaking really, because we were all so shocked from the diagnosis. And we went inside and I immediately just sat down at our old upright piano we had in the living room. And I had taken a few years of piano lessons.
I wasn't great at it, but I had had a few years of lessons. But this day I sat down at the piano. and I couldn't read anymore out of the hymnals or sheet musics I used to read from. But I began to play a song I had never played before, and I played it by ear. And it was as if the kindness of God just transferred that gift of art from the palette to that piano.
And it's beautiful because, Gary, to me, the biggest gift was not. That I played by ear. I mean, that's pretty amazing that God would allow me to do that. But it is, I think, even more poignant the song that I played, because that song. That I played was It Is Well With My Soul.
And, you know, for those of us listening who know that hymn, it really does say at the very end of that stanza that. whatever my lot. Thou hast taught me to say it is well. And I think that's what happened for me: is that God, even then, was instilling within me that truth. It may not be well, you know, with my circumstance, but God was making it well with my soul even then.
You know, you said that the greatest lesson you learned in the dark is that it doesn't have to be well with your circumstances, to be well with your soul. And that's really what you're talking about, right?
Well, it is, and you know, so here I am decades later, and I've lived in physical darkness longer than I've lived in physical light. And now, I will be honest, blindness can be more complicated emotionally and spiritually now. Than it was when I was 15. Because of my gained life experience, because of my recognition of loss as I grow, as I have children and grandchildren, and I don't see their faces.
So there is a complexity emotionally and spiritually that comes with that. And so I can say with even more affirmation that I am convinced, unless God heals me here on this side. It will never be well with my circumstances. But then can I be honest? Even if he does, there's going to be other reasons it's not well with my circumstances.
But the reality is, there is a wellness and a wholeness in Christ, no matter what our circumstances, that we really can say it is well. And that is truly only because of Christ. And I am more convinced than ever that that's the hope I need most. Jennifer, tell me about the title of your book, God It's Just Not Fair. Does that have a double meaning?
You know, when I first published it, my pastor was so kind to tell our church about it and he held it up. He said, There's just one problem with this title. She forgot the comma. And here's why. Because you're right, Gary, it has a double meaning.
I think it expresses how we feel. And what is true in one sentence? Because sometimes we feel like God is just not fair. Like, why did this happen to me? Or I've served him my whole life.
And look at this diagnosis. Like, God, it's just not fair. We feel that way. But then there is a truth. That God is just?
Not fair. In other words, God is absolutely perfect, 100% reliable and correct in all of his ways.
So God is. just. He is right, even when it doesn't seem fair to us. Yeah. I have to admit, Jennifer, I did not see that until you explained it.
Yeah. Well, that's why my pastor said that I needed a comma. He's right. He's right. Yeah, I get it.
He's just, even though sometimes we feel like it's not fair. Yeah. Yeah. So in the book, you describe a, and I'm quoting here, blanket of faith. Mm-hmm.
Tell us what that is.
Well, Gary, this is just my way of communicating what it feels like when we're walking with Christ. When we come to Christ, it's like we receive this blanket of faith. We are wrapped in our salvation, in the goodness of the gospel, in the presence of the Lord. And as we're walking this journey, wrapped in our blanket of faith, Things happen. There's a cancer diagnosis and it's like it rips a hole.
in our blanket of faith. God Do you really care? Like, if you're going to let this happen to me, do you care? Or we pray and we pray and we pray for years, and then that person we love. dies anyway and it rips A hole in the blanket of faith.
And God, do you not even hear this prayer? You know, and so what can happen is the more life we live, the more unanswered questions we have. It's like it just creates these holes in our blanket of faith. And then when we try to wrap ourselves in it, we don't feel as sheltered. It doesn't make sense.
We don't feel as protected. And so here's what we try to do sometimes, Gary. Those are legit questions, legit suffering. But sometimes we try to patch up our own holes in our blanket of faith. With, um should haves.
Or myths, or well, maybe if I just behaved better, or maybe if maybe God just isn't so good, and so I'm going to find this other alternative belief system. And we and we try to patch up our holes with anything other than the true good character of God, and it leaves us wanting. And so, what I do in the book, God is Just Not Fair, is I help us understand what these holes are in our blanket of faith and then how we can patch them up so that we experience the reality of our salvation. Yeah. That's a beautiful picture, very graphic picture, the blanket of faith.
Wh where were the holes in your own faith or questions that kept coming up in your mind?
Well, you know, for me the The biggest one, once I began to really process as I walked in blindness, um was this angst I felt. And I would of course hear it from others.
Well, if you had enough faith, not and I didn't hear it from a lot of people, but if you had enough faith, you know, you would be healed or things like that. And of course, I had to contemplate while someone else prayed and they're healed. And so I'll never forget when this came to fruition for me in just the most poignant way. I was, our oldest son was only three years old. And we were going to this with a girlfriend and her son.
We were going to this summer movie series. Like it was, you know, a dollar on Wednesday mornings for the popcorn and the movie. It was a good deal.
Well, I, Gary, could only handle so much of this. I had been three weeks in a row. And even though I couldn't see the cartoons, like I was so bored. And so this particular Wednesday, I pulled out back in the days of cassette tapes. I pulled out my Walkman and I pulled out a cassette tape I had.
had for many years that I had intentionally not listened to. I had avoided it because I didn't want to hear it. I knew what it was about. I just didn't want to hear it. But for whatever reason, I put it in my Walkman that day.
When we got to the theater and the movie had started, I put on my little earbud. And I pressed play, and it was a story of a lady named Marilyn Ford. She had the same eye disease as me, and she chronicled how much she longed to be able to see, how much she wished she could drive a car, how she prayed for healing, how she had children and couldn't see them to take care of them. I mean, it was my story spoken in someone else's words. And then she gets to the part that I was dreading the most.
And she talked about how one night She got down on her knees with her husband, and they prayed. once again that God would heal her eyes. and this time when she opened her eyes, She could see. And she went to the doctor the next day. He verified that she did not have enough retina to justify her visual acuity.
Like it was a true healing. And I remember as I was sitting there, While these cartoon sounds are going on around me, I am beginning to weep. Because it was the very thing I didn't want to hear. And it was as if on that day, I just was like, God. You're just not fair.
You are just not fair. You would heal Marilyn Ford, but you have not healed me. It just doesn't seem fair. And it was this moment. Where in my mind's eye, I got to look.
Straight into the face of blindness and straight into the face of healing. And see God in both. And that was the moment that, as I was just in my heart resounding, God, you're just not fair, that I heard it differently. God is just. He's not fair.
And as for God, his ways are perfect according to Psalm 32. Even though it doesn't feel perfect to me, I got to trust him. And there was a brutal freedom that occurred for me that day because I had really experienced that sense that maybe God wasn't fair. But when I was really honest about it. He proved to me that it's not fairness I want from him.
It is his just character on my behalf that I need most from him. Yeah. That's powerful.
Okay.
Now, you know, during that time, you know, I'm hearing you say you were questioning God, you may have felt angry. Is it okay to... have doubt. And is it okay to f feel angry with God sometimes in the midst of these things?
Well, I think those who doubt Are those who have the greatest faith? Because it's an evidence that they have an honest faith that they're grappling with. And in fact, you know, Gary, you think about in the Bible Thomas who said, you know, I just really need to see the scars so I can believe. And he's been called over the centuries doubting Thomas. I think he gets a bad rap.
I think he's seeking Thomas. And I think we need to be kind. Toward ourselves and each other, when we are really trying to understand our faith and trust God, that means sometimes we're gonna have questions. And sometimes we wanna see to believe.
Now, Jesus did say, you know, well, blessed are those who don't see and still believe. Yeah, that's true. We are more blessed, but you know what? We're not condemned just because we ask the questions. And There's a difference, I think, Gary, for me.
Between um Asking questions. and questioning God.
So one of the things that I am careful about is that I want to ask questions of God and Scripture in context of my faith. Not to disprove or prove it, but to affirm the reality of what God has taught me to already believe through his grace. And so questioning. God is different from asking him questions. You know, you think of the guys on the boat in the Sea of Galilee.
Jesus is sleeping. There's a storm. They're freaking out. And what do they do? They run down to where Jesus is asleep.
And they wake him up and they say, Do you not care? Do you not care that we are perishing? That's very different. That's a little more accusatory than an inquiry. And so We protect ourselves.
From falling into bitterness and resentment when we take our genuine questions and confusion and trust God. to give us the answers according to his character rather than questioning his character and demanding answers. Yeah. So so asking questions of God in those situations, then I'm hearing you say it's not a lack of faith. Mm mm.
I don't think so. I mean, do you think it is? Have you asked God? Questions? I have.
I remember. You know, I had I talked to the mission board because Carol and I had a sense God was calling us to the mission field and I wanted to teach, you know, nationals to take the gospel to their country. And the mission board said, well, you need a PhD degree if you're going to teach in a seminary and train people, you know.
So my wife and I never thought about that, but we said, Okay So we went back to seminary and three years I got the PhD and then we got turned down by the mission board because of my wife's health and they said, No, she she she can't she can't make it and So you can imagine the questions we had in our minds. I don't get it, God. I don't understand what's going on here. Yeah. But now, all these years later, you're going to all those countries with your books, right?
Yeah, my books are. That's true. Your books are going places you and Carolyn never need to step foot. That's true. I know.
That's right. I love that. That's what I wanted to ask you, Jennifer, about that, because isn't one of the holes in the blanket? Us trying to figure God out and what He's doing.
So we place our faith in what we can figure out. Uh, you know, on the chessboard, and this is this must be what God's doing.
So, we place our faith in what we can know rather than just placing it in Him. Yeah, because I think sometimes, well, we long for certainty. That's just part of being human. We want certainty. And I think sometimes we think our satisfaction.
Emotionally and spiritually comes in answers.
Okay, well, if I can get this formula, if I can get this figured out, then I'm gonna have satisfaction. And our really our deepest and only soul satisfaction doesn't come from answers from God. It comes Completely from a relationship with God. And within that relationship, there's going to be some mystery. And that's where trust comes in.
But I've had to learn that lesson over and over that I may never get answers. I, you know, some people say, oh, I see why you're blind because God has used it.
Well, we don't know why. We don't know why, except that His sovereign mercy dictated it. And so I'm not going to demand anything from Him. I'm just going to. Trust that he knows best and ask for God, like I said in Psalm 32, his ways are perfect.
But you know what? There is a quote at the end of one of C.S. Lewis's books. It's called Till We Have Faces. And it's at the very end.
And it's this main character. She's been grappling with the quote unquote gods because it's a myth. But anyway, she gets to the very end. And she's frustrated that they've not answered her questions. And she says, I see, Lord.
why you utter no answer. Because you yourself are the answer. And I think that applies to our faith. He is our answer.
Well, let's uh let's talk about the six big questions of faith that you discuss in your book. And and which let's start with the one that has been the hardest for you. Hmm.
Okay, well, let me tell you all six of them real fast because they rhyme, so it's easier for us to remember, okay? Question one: God, are you fair? God, are you aware? God, are you there? God, do you answer prayer?
God, do you care? And I can't remember the last one because, like I said, it's been decades since I was 15.
So I won't tell you how old are it, but there is one more that I can't remember. But you'll come up with, oh, God, do you err? God, do you err? God, do you make mistakes?
Okay, so we got them all. For me, probably besides the fairness of God, one of the harder ones is the, God, do you care? Because I look at the state of the world and I know God is compassionate, but to see what I think is his inactivity or his lack of intervention, sometimes it's hard for me to understand how that is compassion. But I'll tell you, God is teaching me to trust his authority. Like I know his power.
Could change things, could deliver things, could heal, could cease wars, could his power can do anything. But God has chosen for his own power to submit to his own authority.
So therefore, I'm going to trust that he cares and recognize that it is compassionate authority that chooses to withhold his power in ways that I would like him to act and still see it as compassion and know that someday it will make sense to me. Right now, it may not, but I can trust his character. Thanks for joining us for the Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman podcast. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller, "The 5 Love Languages" .
You can find out more about the love language concept and take a free assessment at 5lovelanguages.com. You'll also see our featured resource there, Jennifer Rothschild's book, God is Just Not Fair, Finding Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense. Go to fivelovelanguages.com or buildingrelationships.us. Jennifer, I wrote all six of those down. God, are you fair, aware, there, prayer, care, and error?
I'm glad that you remember that last one. But the aware thing always gets me. It's like, God, don't you see what is going on? If you really cared and you saw, you were aware of what's going on here. Just like the disciples in the boat that you talk to, Jesus, don't you see that storm?
We're going to drown. You know, what's going on? Are you aware?
So how do you grab onto the awareness of God? Yeah, that's hard, Chris, because it's also a little bit abstract. But I think this awareness idea is, God, are you aware? Kind of what I said about with God, do you care? When you see suffering, you think, okay, well, he's either unaware and he's aloof, like he set the world in motion and then he's just taking a nap until Jesus returns.
Okay, so he's really blissfully unaware or he is aware. And he lets it go on. And for us, For me.
Sometimes neither of those feel very good. And that's why I have to recognize.
Sovereignty. And to me, that's what awareness is. It's this sovereign awareness, omniscience, that there is not one thing that he is unaware of. That means every tear that falls from your eye, he's aware of. Every soldier that falls on a battlefield, he is aware of.
And the beautiful thing about his awareness is it reminds me of kind of when I was playing chess with my brother, who's smarter than me when we were kids. Like he would do stuff, and I would think, oh, what a dumb move. I can't believe he did that. That's such a dumb move. And then he would win the game.
Why? Because he was smarter than me and he was aware. Of what the next move was going to be, and the next move was going to be. I am unaware. Of what God's next move is.
And so, We have to trust that in his omniscience, he is aware. And thankfully, when you couple that with the truth that he is there with us and he does care, then it allows us to trust and just suspend judgment and trust that he knows what's going on. Yeah. Well, you know, Jennifer, the subtitle of your book is Finding Hope. when life doesn't make sense.
Is making sense of the pain in your life, the goal Or is God obligated to help us make sense? of our struggles or not? Carrie, that's such a good hard question. And here's, I think, where we fall into the greatest despair because we do think.
Well, God kind of owes me an explanation. If I'm going to suffer, okay, and I can trust him with the suffering, then at least I should get the silver lining of an explanation. And sometimes we get it, but sometimes we don't. And I'll never forget one afternoon I had just read a couple of emails. And when I use the word read, I mean my computer reads them to me.
And one was from a guy who had been corresponding with me who had just, he had been, had cancer, he had been well, and now the cancer was back. And literally, he just said the cancer's back, and I'm afraid. The next email I opened was a young woman who I had just met, and she was very pregnant, and she had had the baby, but the baby was stillborn. She was heartbroken. And I remember just feeling the weight of it all and just asking the Lord, why?
Why cancer? Why stillborn babies? And of course, it's just the next heartbeat. And why my blindness? And why Alzheimer's?
And I just went through this litany of why. And then you know what the Lord did. It's like I almost saw this picture of the cross in my mind's eye. And my next prayer was And why grace? Why love?
Why peace? Why forgiveness? If I'm going to demand or hope for an answer. About the sin in this world, the hard things in this world, the suffering, then I've got to have just as much integrity to say, and why do I get the divine unfairness of relationship with you and love from you and peace from you? There's a lot of freedom there.
So when we ask why, we need to... follow it with asking why about the right things. Mm. Yeah. You know, when we're going through the middle of all these hard situations, It it's it it is difficult.
Yeah, it is.
So you're not minimizing that. No, not at all.
So let's talk to the person who is in the middle of some circumstance that gives them the feelings that we're talking about today, and they can't make any sense of what they're going through. uh sitting there in front of you. What what what are the kind of things you would say to them? Oh, well, the first thing I would probably say would be a hug. I would give him a hug and just say, you know, I'm sorry, it's hard.
What you're feeling is legit. It is hard. And then I think I would take them to the beach with me and my dad, because I learned something so great from him that helps me when I'm feeling the weight of life not making sense. I was with my dad. It was near the end of his life.
He was not well. He physically could not walk well. And he and my mom had surprised us at a family vacation at the beach. Everyone had gone down to the shoreline. It was just me and my dad.
Well, here's my dad, who can barely walk, and walking on sand is super hard. And I'm holding his arm because I can't see. And we're kind of wobbling down the sand. I can tell he's in a lot of pain. I'm sure people are looking at us thinking, who's helping who in that situation?
I mean, we were just a character. We looked funny together. But anyway, I could tell my dad was working hard to walk. I said, Dad. How do you do it?
How do you do it? Because he's had such chronic pain for so long. And of course, I'm asking about him, but I'm asking about me because I want to know how do I do it? And I'm asking for the person who's in the middle of the situation right now: how does she do it? How does he do it?
and my sweet Southern daddy said to me Well I have learned. You gotta be. Patient with yourself. Patient with others. and patient with God.
I have remembered those words so many times when life doesn't make sense. I got to be patient with myself. I'm in process. I got to be patient with others who are trying to love me well and who are just as much in the struggle as I am. And I got to be patient with God.
Trust is timing. Trust is ways. And that's what I would say to you if you're in the middle of it. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with others.
and be patient with God.
Well You know, a lot of times in the it's in the prayer context that we struggle because, you know, the scriptures say, Ask and you shall receive. Mm-hmm. And so, you know, here when God doesn't answer our prayers, at least we don't s sense an answer. What's your perspective on that? And especially, you know, this unanswered prayer, the sense that God's not hearing, not responding.
Yeah, like he doesn't have any clue what you're going through.
Well, first of all, we know from scripture that God does hear. And sometimes that makes unanswered prayers feel even more difficult because you're like, well, then what are you doing? Just ignoring me, God? My greatest consolation comes from the fact that Jesus had an unanswered prayer. I mean, he in the garden was praying, if if it's your, you know, would this cup be removed?
If it's your will, I, you know, nothing's impossible. And the cup was not removed. And then when he's on the cross, He asked God, why have you forsaken me? And he got silence from heaven. Jesus, the Lord of the universe, God's only begotten Son, our Savior, had an unanswered prayer.
And he was the one who always responded with, yeah, well, not my will. But yours be done. And so it is not that God is not always capable because He is fully capable. But it is if he is willing and we can trust his will in our lives. Why did God not answer Jesus' prayer?
Because he was answering on our behalf a greater prayer, he was giving a better answer, and that was that Jesus would be the sacrifice for our sins, forsaken by God because of the wrath of sin, so that we would never be forsaken. That's when I realized: so, if God doesn't answer one of my prayers in the way or timing that I think he should, I'm going to say not my will, but yours, because I know when I'm a part of his will, that I'm going to be living the life that he deems best for me. And I'm good with that, even if it means I die with blind eyes, I'm good with that. Yeah. Yeah, there are many times in my own prayer times with God that I'm asking God for things that I I think would be good.
But I'm drawn back to those words of Jesus many times to say, Father. Your will be done. Yeah. But what I really want is your will. Because I realize, you know, all of my thoughts are not necessarily the thoughts of God.
Yeah, I've sometimes also said to parents, uh you know, as a parent we don't give our children everything they ask for. That's right, because we love them. That's right. And the reason is love. In fact, I've said to parents, there's a time to say to your children who are asking you for something, to say, honey, I love you too much to do that.
Yeah. You know, because God sees things we don't see, you know, just like parents see things children don't see.
Well, and it's hard for the kids to trust the parent, but that's that's our role. is to trust our Father God. Yeah. Just to trust.
So Jennifer, let's talk as we come to our final session here about depression. Because I I'm assuming there must have been times when you felt depression along the way and you had to work through that.
So say say a word about that. You know, I I had uh moments of deep frustration. And even anger, but as far as just a real full-blown depression, that did not happen to me until I was in my 40s. And I'll tell you, Gary, it was very dismantling because it started subtly, but it lasted about nine months. And I finally did go to a doctor.
And that was the help that I needed to get unstuck, then to get well again more emotionally and spiritually. But I'll tell you, during that process, one of the hardest things for me was how I was becoming just dismantled in that, well, God, are you really good? And then, well, God, are you even real?
Well, and Jesus, like, I know, Jesus, that, you know, there's history proving you lived, but were you really. Really, the Son of God? Were you really deity? And it was this constant breaking away of everything my life had been built on. You talk about holes in my blanket of faith.
And so I'll never forget the day I was sitting in my office and I was like, Lord, I am, I can't even figure out where to go next. And the Lord led me to C.S. Lewis, and I began to listen. To all of these books. And I realized, okay, this guy's a genius.
He started as an atheist. He came to a recognition of theism, believing who God was. And then he came to salvation in Christ. And I thought, all right, if this smart guy. Can believe all this, then I'm just going to trust him right now to be this guide, to guide me back to faith.
And I cannot tell you how that helped me to really take this path and trust someone else to get me back to what I knew was already true. And then, of course, with healing of depression and recognizing that, you know, God is who he says he was. But here's the point of that, Gary. And I want your listeners to hear this. There is no shame.
In feeling the weight of human emotion, and sometimes that weight gets so heavy that it shows up in depression, it shows up in anxiety. And God has made us in such a way that physically, emotionally, spiritually, it all goes together. We need each other.
Sometimes we need to go to a counselor.
Sometimes we need to go to a doctor.
Sometimes we need to go to a friend.
Sometimes we need to go to everybody all at once. But we need to go to God ultimately and trust that He's going to carry us through. And He and He does. And again, we just need to be patient with the process. Yeah.
You know, in the book you also say don't let theological information become a substitute for faith. What do you mean by that?
Well, I think maybe this is just me, but sometimes if I can get good answers, it's almost like I can print it on a little bumper sticker and put it on my car and drive forward and move ahead spiritually and never feel and never really think. And what that does for me is it becomes this shallow substitute. For grappling with the mystery, which deepens the relationship. And so I think sometimes we want to settle for the sugar fix of quick answers. Let me make it make sense.
When what God is really calling us to is being okay with the mystery and moving into the relationship because asking those questions. That is what leads us to intimacy. You know, if we just repress all of it. That's what leads to depression. But honesty will lead to intimacy.
And so never let knowledge. Become a substitute for relationship because knowledge is like a sugar pill, but it and it fades away. But the wisdom and the peace and the security of knowing God and being in relationship with Him is what deeply satisfies your soul. Yeah. He also said that don't seek God only for the answers he gives.
Seek God Himself. Expand on that. I think it's easy for us to do, Gary. I mean, you know, if we know that our father is the God of the universe and he can give us anything, sometimes it's easy to just get what we want and move on. And again, to me, it's similar to knowledge.
When we're seeking God for things, we are again settling for a shallow substitute for deep relationships. I loved my daddy. He's already gone to heaven. But if I lived my whole life in relationship with my dad and it was only so he would give me allowance every week or so he would help me buy my whatever it was that I wanted as a kid That is so transactional. And not relational.
And God created us for relationship. And I think once we press into the relationship with Him, the answers to our questions seem less important. The things we receive from Him seem less significant because suddenly He becomes our treasure. whether he ever gives us anything. We have this deep, secure satisfaction.
Because of knowing Christ. Yeah. You know, the scriptures talk about, I think Jesus actually said this. A man's life does not consist In the abundance of the things he possesses. And so I've often said, then where does life find its meaning?
Yeah. And I think it's in relationships. It is with God and others. That's right. First with God.
Nothing more important than our relationship with God. And then relationship with others to be sure. Yeah. Yeah. We need each other.
Yep. What do you say to the person who compares their life with yours? And thinks everything has turned out well for you. And they want that, you know. Yeah.
Well, I wish I could invite you to my house because then you get to see what my life is like on a daily basis. I bump into walls. I get frustrated. I, you know, I get disoriented. I've broken my nose.
I've got bruises. I don't always behave the best with my testimony.
Sometimes when I get really frustrated, I guess what I'm saying is. What you hear and what you see is the polished version. It is still authentic. I got to be honest. I really care about integrity before the Lord and my family of God.
So it's authentic, but it's polished. But you know what makes you polished? A ton of heavenly sandpaper. And I'm just saying, I get refined all the time through blindness, and it's hard.
So. Only compare yourself to what God has taught you right now and whether you're being faithful to what God has taught you. And be patient with Him, be patient with the process. Don't compare yourself to anyone else because God loves you for you, and He's created you for your calling.
So steward the hard things, steward the suffering well, and compare yourself only to am I being faithful to what God has called me to do? That's really the purpose of the Christian life, right? Yep, faithfulness. Help me to do my part. Whatever it is, help me to do my part.
Well, there's a sense of dependence, too, that you don't want. But even doing this program today, Jennifer, you had to have somebody help you with the computer and get everything connected so you could talk with Gary, right? Absolutely. That's one of the most humbling And liberating things about blindness is that I know the person who lives inside my body, if she could just see. Dude, I could take care of all of this.
But I have to constantly humble myself and depend on others. And that's hard for your pride. But it is healthy for your pride also. There's a lot of liberty when we have nothing to prove, but we just receive what God has allowed. We trust him with it, and we esteem others.
As we invite them in to be part of our success, that esteems them to be needed. And I learned that from Johnny Erickson Tata. And that's been such a good lesson for me because when I feel like, oh, but I'm such a burden with blindness, I realize. Yeah, I may feel like a burden, but really God is using this to help someone else feel like a hero, and I can have the humility to receive that. Yeah.
Well, Jennifer, your entire book is on this whole idea of God being fair.
So what if a listener is is thinking, yeah, I hear all this, but I just have a hard time seeing how God is fair. What would you say to them as we close our time together? I guess I would say that, um You can trust God to help you process this. And perhaps before you even begin the conversation with him, you need to think about your definition of fear. Because if we define fair as equal, Well, God is just, but that may not always show up in the same ways in each of our lives.
But we can trust that if he were really fair to us and we really got what we deserved, Oh, my friend, we would not want it. We need to celebrate the fact that God is just not fair.
Well It's a powerful, powerful word, Jennifer. Let me just thank you for being with us today. Thank you for writing this book and all of your other books. And let me just encourage our listeners to get the book we're talking about today. And then, if they do, they'll read some of your other books as well.
So, thank you for taking what God has given you and using it for Him and seeking to. Accomplish his purposes for your life because that's what we all want to do.
So, thanks for being with us today. Thanks, Gary. Appreciate you. We hope Jennifer's story about her life has encouraged you today in wherever you are in your journey of faith. And if you go to buildingrelationships.us, you can find out more about that featured resource, the book by Jennifer Rothschild, God is Just Not Fair, Finding Hope When Life Doesn't Make Sense.
Go to buildingrelationships.us. And coming up next week... Your questions about the love languages, marriage, dating, and more. Don't miss the January edition of Dear Gary in one week. And remember, you can find more simple ways to strengthen relationships at our website, buildingrelationships.us.
Now let me thank our production team Steve Wick and Janice Backing. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening. Love Moody Radio?
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