Grace for Awkward Questions

You’ve probably had awkward moments in your host country. You use the wrong verb or vocabulary word in a conversation that brings the room to silence. You get asked very personal questions that cause you to do a double take and stumble to answer. Most times you can laugh about it and go on. Language and cultural exchanges can be fun and even funny.

Until they are not.

Our daughter was born in Beijing and fought illness after illness until the last battle led us to the US for further testing. After several months, she was diagnosed at ten months old with a rare genetic chromosomal deletion, Cri-du-Chat Syndrome. Soon after that, she had surgery to insert a feeding tube just above and to the left of her belly button. She went from meals of mashed sweet potatoes and blended greens from a spoon to an IV bag of fluid pumped into her from a machine. That machine brought a lot of awkward questions, especially in our host country where, at that time, people with disabilities were still hidden. I always found that the questions from children were easier to answer than questions from adults.

Conversations tended to go something like this:

“Why does she eat like that?”

“Well, she doesn’t have the strength to swallow her food properly. Before she had the tube, some of her food would go into her lungs instead of her stomach and it would make her very sick.”

“Oh, that’s bad.”

“Yes, in some ways it is. She can’t have ice cream, but she doesn’t have to taste bitter medicine like you do when you are sick.”

“Oh, I don’t like to take medicine.”

And then they would talk with her a bit and be off on their way totally fine that she was different.

But adults don’t always ask what they are thinking. Knowing the culture we lived in, we knew that many of our neighbors and maybe even friends were wondering what we had done to deserve this. Or they wondered how “bad our blood was” to have a child born with such complications. Medically, neither my husband, Uwe, nor I are carriers of this gene. It is something that is scientifically unexplainable.

Due to our daughter’s need for more regular speech therapy, we moved to Taiwan. Since that move, she has grown in strength and maturity. She no longer needs a feeding tube, but the awkward questions still come from those who are brave enough to ask.

A few years ago, my husband was talking with a local pastor whom we knew well. He asked, “Why would God give you a child with disabilities? Your parents were missionaries here for many years. You have given your life to do his will by living here for so long and yet you have a child with special needs. Why would he do that?”

And that is the question that so many want to ask but don’t. It is a question that we all struggle with. And so we awkwardly ask:

Why would a good God give us hard things in our life?

Why would he allow us to suffer?

We question God, even wrestle with him over it.  But that question led me to search out what the theology of suffering is and what I honestly believe about it.

It led me to Genesis 3 and what has become known as “the fall”, when Adam and Eve ate from the one tree that God told them not to.

It is the time when disobedience entered into the world and separation from God began. Death was ushered into all areas of creation. What was once deemed perfect, now was stained and unholy. Broken.

Now before you pick up your sign to protest, I do not believe that my daughter is “broken” in the sense that she has no value. I think all people are made in the image of God and therefore, she has value, not because of what she can do but because of who made her.

In this world, we tend to think that broken things are not normal or should not be normal. No one should be diagnosed with cancer, especially someone who has spent her entire life serving in the jungles of Ecuador.

Children should not die. No matter what.

Dads should be around to walk their daughters down the aisle.

Moms should survive complicated childbirths, especially today.

But, this world is broken. It broke the day that Adam and Eve took a bite and disobeyed God. And it will continue to be broken until Christ returns.

So, until then, I have had to reframe this thought of what is normal. If this world and all that is in it is broken, then my daughter’s body is normal.

This may sound awful, but seriously think about it.

For believers in Christ, this broken world is not our home.

And if we stop for a brief moment longer, you may realize that we are all broken. Some of us are more visibly broken than others, but we are all broken for sure.

Awkward conversations can lead us to search our hearts and our souls for answers. They can have us take a step back and rethink what we actually believe. To test our thoughts. To line them up with what God’s word says.

My daughter is broken.

I am broken.

You are broken.

But, through Christ, we are being made whole and our full restoration will happen soon.

But until that time comes, I challenge you as I challenge myself—accept the awkward questions and answer them in love and in grace. Remember that maybe we are just as awkward and broken as the questions that are asked of us.

What awkward situations might need some extra love and grace in your life right now?