This week a family who are very dear to me have made the immensely painful decision to give up their 4-year-old foster daughter. They’ve come to the agonising realisation that they cannot continue to meet the complex needs of both her and their slightly older foster son in a way that is safe and healthy for the whole family. It is the hardest decision of their lives. They thought they were following God’s will to lovingly raise both these children, so why has that changed? Were they wrong? Have they failed? Has God failed them? Can they still trust God with her future, and with theirs?
This Sunday’s reading of the sacrifice of Isaac is for me one of the hardest in the Bible. Whichever way you spin it, God still asks Abraham to kill his son. How can God ever ask that of someone? How can we love and trust a God who does? I want to put it aside as the myth of an ancient people with a very different set of values (especially when it comes to children). But the immensity of God’s request, and Abraham’s seemingly unshakeable faith, won’t quite let me go.
So, this week I have only confusion and anger to offer. Confusion and anger at the hardness of life, the decisions with no right answer, the responsibilities that are too heavy, the love that breaks us. The poet Rainer Maria Rilke writes, ‘Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now.’ But sometimes the questions are difficult to live.
Susannah Woodd
