life story

Nadia Bolz-Weber 6-26-2012
Jesus calming the storm, Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com

Jesus calming the storm, Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com

This might come as a shock to all of you, but I have not always gotten everything I’ve wanted. And I’m sure unlike all of you … sometimes I blame God for that.  

As a matter of fact, there are things in life that I prayed like hell to either get or to keep – because I knew if I could have them I would be happy and all would be well. And yet, I did not get them. Some of these were slightly more critical than others. 

When I was 9, I wanted a ventriloquist’s dummy I saw in the Sears catalogue and didn’t get it; when I was 14, I wanted my disfiguring auto-immune disorder to go away and it didn’t; when I was 22, I wanted to be able to drink like a lady and I couldn’t.

I had reasons, good reasons for God to do these things for me. I had a certain way I wanted things in my life to work out, and when God didn’t make these simple things happen—things I deserved, things that would make me happy—I wondered why God was not doing what I wanted God to do. I wondered why God didn’t seem to care. And by the way, why has God abandoned me?