Embrace Your Questions
A Reflection by Christine Jurisich
What do you do when your questions have no answers?
Or no good answers?
When no answers bring comfort?
What about when there is more than one answer, leaving you unsure which to believe?
Start by sitting with these questions. Let them linger. Give them space to breathe. Think of them as seeds being planted in your heart. Seed questions you are watering and feeding with time and prayer so they can grow into bigger questions. The kind of questions that will grow you.
There are times when sitting with questions is hard. I can feel sad and lost in them. As I think about the victims of war, violence, and natural disasters around the world, my questions emerge with raw honesty.
How can there be such suffering in the world?
Who is God?
Where is God?
When I experience an unexpected kindness or see growth in myself or others, the questions are asked with a deep sense of gratitude. Letting my questions simmer feels humbling.
How big and merciful is this God of love and forgiveness?
When I see the interconnectivity of every living plant and creature on earth, my questions emerge with a sense of wonder and awe. Allowing the questions to take on a life of their own feels energizing.
Are there any limits to a creating God that continues to inspire me?
Sitting with your questions, letting them simmer, and watching them grow is an invitation to place them in God’s hands. Asking God to hold your questions is one way to release anxiety, fear, and the need for quick solutions. Let the questions settle into your soul. Allow them to take root in a way that leads to deeper, wider, and fuller questions. Watch them dangle in the air until they become bolder, more creative, and daring.
What of God’s self is being revealed through me?
Am I courageous enough to live into the answers?
How big, merciful, and generous is God?
And if I begin to confront these questions, what does this mean for me and my need to forgive; to reach out and serve others?
When questions feel too big, confusing, or dark to handle, there is comfort in a sort of surrendering to the mystery of life and the mystery of Christian life. I have come to my own beliefs and narratives that serve as a container for my questions at this moment in my life. You have—based on your thoughts, lived experience, and values, your own mantra or belief system to serve as the container for your questions.
What do you know to be true no matter what?
At the center of your faith lies what?
Name one belief you can rely on in this one present moment.
These are questions to help you create the container to hold yours. They may also be just the beginning of your journey of questioning.
Since this is a reflection encouraging questions, I will end with a question from the article, “Question Marks and Turning Points: Following the Gospel of Mark to Surprising Places,” by Kathryn Vitalis Hoffman and Mark Vitalis Hoffman, which inspired my writing this month.
“Could it be that we could recognize God as one who shepherds us with questions, leading us along with a question-mark-shaped shepherd's crook?”
May your journey of questions be a fruitful one.
Listen to this reflection on YouTube.
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What helps you to embrace your questions?