Maybe I am naïve.
I pretend as though I do not trust people at times, but I really do.
I expect good people to do good things.
In fact, I so believe in people, that I expect bad people to do good things.
If you say you love me, I believe you do, and will, till the end of your life.
Not my life, should I depart first, but your life.
I am filled with hope and approach each day with that same hope.
I see good things in the potential found in others, everywhere I go, in people I meet.
Moment of vulnerability.
However, there is a type of person I tend to be hesitant regarding.
The person who says, “I have never wrestled with God. I have never doubted. I have never questioned my faith.”
The Apostle Thomas, also unfortunately is remembered as Doubting Thomas.
I have often thought Thomas was given a title he did not deserve.
Thomas sitting in a room of other believers, had just seen Christ killed, buried, disappear and Christ had now walked through a wall into a locked room, where these same disciples had gathered.
Thomas merely voiced what everyone else was thinking when he approached Christ and asked to feel his wounds.
I believe that to be courage, not doubt.
Thomas so wanted to believe that he would do anything to disprove his own doubts.
I had five minutes of doubt myself just a few days ago.
My grandson, Beau, all of eight weeks old, was in my arms.
As though it was a moment ago, I remember where I was standing, as I pulled Beau in close to me, and allowed his innocence to overwhelm me.
Contemplating, I wondered how could an adult hurt and abuse a child, so helpless, so fragile, the very mirror of God’s love, and how could God allow that to happen?
The age old question rose up in my heart, “How can a good God allow evil to exist?”
Why would God not strike down dead anyone who would harm another person, especially and specifically a child?
And for a moment I doubted the very existence of God.
Only God’s non existence would allow such evil to happen.
No one knew.
I did not raise my fist toward heaven.
I simply and quietly doubted.
Then I came back to the innocence of a baby wrapped in a cloth, safely tucked in my arms.
And then my mind went to another baby, also wrapped in a cloth, who came so that I might know innocence forever.
“There is nothing but goodness in Him.” Psalm 92:15
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