God is Good (ALL the time? You Sure About That?)

By: JANA GREENE

The year of our Lord 2023 can go suck eggs. It can suck eggs, eat my shorts, lick rust, and eat glass. I’m not one for oversimplifying (I can’t stand it when people say “the whole YEAR sucked!” because I’ve learned that the same year that held loss and grief also has it’s moments too. I can’t recall many right now, but they definitely happened. Small victories like medical lab results marginally improving, family birthday parties, lunch with friends.

Well, was it a bad year? It either was or it wasn’t, right?

At the beginning of 2023, one of my acquaintances posted to Facebook this ALL CAPS EXCITEMENT BOMB, and for good reason. “PRAISE GOD, YA’LL! HE IS SOOOO GOOD! IT WASN’T CANCER!” They had a cancer scare, and it turned out to be ‘nothing.’ So I rejoiced alongside my friend, with the cringe-comment, “WOOHOOO! GOD IS GOOD ALL THE TIME!” Hey, I was an evangelical a long time. The catchphrases die hard.

The very next day, I received news that a friend who was like a sister to me was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer. She was given months to live. What the actual HELL, God? God did NOT seem so good anymore, in that moment – less than 24 hours after celebrating my acquaintances’ good news.

I was angry, and it set the tone for the whole year. I wanted to retract my praise for my FB friend’s diagnosis – not because I wasn’t thankful that they’d be okay, but because God knew devastating news was coming and he let me rant about how ‘good’ he is! SO good at healing, knowing good and damn well he was going to take my sisterfriend from us.

I don’t know about you, but I like absolutes – something this world is stingy with.

God is good, or he’s not.

Either “it is finished” by Jesus, or we are all still waiting in spiritual limbo.

Either God heals or he doesn’t.

A funny thing happened on Bitterness Road though. Our close friend group rallied around our sick friend. She herself had beautiful spiritual revelations in the last months of her life. REALLY profound, amazing realizations. We – the ladies in our tribe – learned more about facing death with grace and dignity than we had never known. She too was angry for a time, because of COURSE she was!

But in her terrible struggle, she also introduced us all to a peace that truly passes understanding; a peace not sullied by all the temporal shit we contend with every day. She was going home, and she showed us all how to do it with grace.

I still say 2023 was awful, as a whole. But there were so many glimmers. The high points didn’t look like winning the lottery, or losing weight, or getting a promotion, or any of the other things we think of as manifestations of God’s love for us (that we label as “success.”)

Manifestations of God’s love show up in the grace of going through the very worst life has to offer. And I guess I’d prefer that to a holy love that only manifests as “good” things. That’s a love entirely too shallow.

Today, I choose to believe the lovingness of God far surpasses the crappiness of life.

And on days (years?) when I struggle with thinking of God as pure love, I choose to believe God is only, simply love – no fillers or by-products. We can lean into that love. We MUST lean into it.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it, because my spirit knows it to be true. So maybe don’t lick rust, 2023 – you taught me a lot. But I welcome 2024 with the expectation that God is good, and the assurance that when life isn’t, he still is.
Blessed be, Friends.