This post comes from some Facebook messages that were exchanged many years ago. I'm sharing it with you now in hopes that it helps you wrestle with and explain to others how they respond to God when they're haunted by the challenge that their own faith might be causing them to miss out on His best in their lives.

The mother who wrote me the message was spending her days at Vanderbilt Children's hospital with her 2 year old hooked up to life-saving devices because she'd been diagnosed with leukemia. 

(Remember this was many years ago...)

A few weeks ago, I received this facebook message from a friend:

“Hey Leighann, I am struggling with all the Scripture that people teach about having enough "faith" and people will be healed. I feel so stuck, I feel like I am still processing most of what we went through…before my daughter was sick, I just thought being a Christian meant that God was just gonna bless my life and not have any bumps along the way. Especially...

   I don’t know how your elementary schools ended their field days but mine always culminated with a great big game of tug of war. We lined up on opposite sides of a mud pit, grabbed hold of that dirty rope and held on tight as we wrestled with the team on the other side. We strained against the pressure, heaved and hauled as hard as we could. Back and forth we’d go as the bystanders hollered and our faces turned purple. We grunted and groaned until we either fell on our backsides in victory or found ourselves face down in the mud pit of defeat.

  That was fun.

  Those tug of war games remind me of Jacob’s wrestling match with God, and what a wrestling match that was! Jacob, a mere man, afraid, vulnerable, and completely at the mercy of God, versus the Lord Almighty, the ultimate power of heaven. Is it just me, or do you too find it interesting that, while Jacob was terrified of his brother, he didn’t hesitate to take on God? I love that!...