He Still Comes

The Glorious Table is excited to welcome Kerstin Lindquist, a journalist, television show host, and author of the recently published 5 Months Apart, to the table today.

Being angry with God is okay.

I was. For a long time, I blamed Him. That time was the furthest I have ever felt from my Lord, but the closest I have ever been to Him. Even when I felt alone, He was with me through all the ugliness. He had known I would be there, and He wasn’t going to let the darkness destroy me.

I walked away from my family and friends and Bible study and devotionals. The only thing I clung to in my life was my work, my career. I didn’t know how to continue; I didn’t know how to pray. I smiled and faked it for four hours a day on TV, but I couldn’t communicate with the Lord or with anyone else in my life off-camera.

“He told us to do this. He promised!” I raged on the phone to my executive producer, J.R., a man who was actually a pastor but worked as a journalist to support his ministry. I remembered sitting in our small living room weeping with my husband as we felt the Lord telling us to keep going: adopt a child in need, try again for another pregnancy, expand our family. I felt so betrayed.

“We trusted Him. We did everything right. We fell on our knees daily, we prayed morning and night, we helped those less fortunate, we tithed our ten percent that we didn’t even have, we gave, we trusted, we obeyed! And we lost it all!” I needed answers from this man of God. I needed to know why the Lord let us suffer.

“He didn’t do this, Kerstin. He wants you to be parents. This isn’t God punishing you,” he murmured.

“But now what? What do I do!?” I genuinely wanted an answer. I needed a plan. I could barely breathe.

“Well, I would say you need a drink,” he chuckled.

J.R. wasn’t your typical preacher. He was awesome at bringing people to the Lord because he kept it real.

“Just rest, Kerstin, just rest. You keep thinking God is going to bless you based on your works. He’s not concerned with that. Stop being the model Christian, stop helping all your friends at church, and giving all your money away and quoting Scripture. You think He will give you a baby based on how good you are, but that’s not how He works. He loves you no matter what.”

“I know, but why? Just why? It’s been years of us struggling! Why? So many of my non-believing friends have such easy, blessed lives, and I struggle constantly. How can I be a witness when my life is a mess!”

“You are the witness He needs! He never said being a Christian would be easy. In fact, my love, I’ll tell you it’s the opposite. Loving Jesus often means your life will at times be harder. You will suffer. But you have His promise. Right now.”

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“Of what!? That we will be in agony, and my husband will lose himself drinking because his wife can’t stop crying because she’s worried she can’t pay our bills, and I lost another baby?”

“Ah, sweetie, I know you are hurting, and I love your passion for our God. Even in this trial, you are seeking Him. You are asking me how to get back to Him. He knows you are suffering, and He is suffering with you. Please, just rest. Put down the Bible, get off your knees and let Him come to you.”

I was the woman at the well in John 4. I was depleted. I had given everything to the world and my Lord in my attempt to woo Him into blessing me with a child. I was angry; I stopped looking for Him because I no longer believed He was there. If my good works didn’t gain His favor, there must be no favor to be had.

The Lord appeared to the woman at the well, just like He came to me. In reality, He’d never left. She was broken and had nothing to offer Him. She wasn’t even seeking Him, and He came to her. I had nothing to give, nothing to offer my Lord. I had lost it all in the years of darkness.

But He still came to me.

Excerpt reprinted with permission of Elk Lake Publishing, Inc., Plymouth, MA 02360

Kerstin Lindquist is a survivor of infertility and the turbulent adoption process. An Emmy Award-winning broadcast news journalist and host at the leading home shopping channel, Lindquist’s confessional nature and intensely personal stories, both in writing and speaking, have endeared her to multiple generations of women who have struggled with creating a family. Kerstin and her husband are raising their three little Christians in Pennsylvania. They spend their free time in warm climates—preferably with sand. Learn more at www.kerstinlindquist.com.

Photograph © Felix Russell-Saw, used with permission