When Doubt Meets Love
a devotional for Saint Thomas
Thank you for joining us!
Before we begin our devotional, I wanted to share a Comment Highlight from last week:
As usual, you all came through so beautifully with the comments! Today, I’d like to highlight this comment on our devotional, from
:"We don’t always get a second chance to fix a mistake. But grace grows wild in hidden places, just outside of where we usually look."
Oh my word - I am so thankful for not only second chances, but third, fourth, fifth (decades of chances) ... A life of foolishness, kept safe by the unseen hand of Grace, continually revealing itself in chance after chance until I saw it and embraced it clearly in my heart. Thank you for how "gracefully" you presented this.
I think many of us can relate to having WAY more than our fair share of chances, and yet grace continues to abound! Thank you, Cork! Cork writes a newsletter here on Substack cleverly titled Life UnCorked where he shares all kinds of thoughts, essays, and stories steeped in his Christian worldview. Check it out!
If you want a chance to be featured in next week’s Comment Highlight, all you have to do is post a comment on any of this week’s posts or threads. That’s it!
Now, on with this week’s devotional…
to believe I have to see, and why not? my eyes my hands my ears are all I have. without them, where would I be? the stories are not enough. the feeling is not enough. my God, why do I have such questions? why is doubt so close when You feel far? and yet… my eyes see You in the gaze of the sun. my hands feel the scars in the treebark and the stone. my ears hear Your invitation in the grasses waving, in the birdsong hymns. my God, this doubt! this sacred doubt! I see now, I feel it, I hear… it longs to take my hand and lead me straight to Your side.
I wrote this poem last year for Saint Thomas’ feast day, and it was accompanied by this excerpt:
Can you imagine your enduring legacy being doubt about a miracle, let alone the world’s most history-shattering miracle? Thomas was one of Jesus’ disciples who, when he heard about the Resurrection, said, “Um, nah. I don’t think so. I’ve got to see it with my own eyes.” And while that was enough to label him Doubting Thomas for the rest of all time, I think there’s a profound message there. Thomas wasn’t especially bad or unusual for wanting proof. He was just astoundingly human. And I think it says something very powerful that instead of punishing him for it, Jesus gave him the proof he asked for by holding out His hands for Thomas to feel the scars from the Cross and letting Thomas feel the wound in His side.
History (and perhaps a bit of legend) has it that Thomas went on to become the apostle who converted much of India to Christianity and is considered the patron saint of India to this day where he is highly venerated. His feast day is July 3rd.
It’s interesting to me the way my grown-up feelings have changed about Thomas. When I was younger, I assumed that Thomas was foolish for doubting; after all, on this side of the Cross it’s easy to believe. We have hindsight. Thomas didn’t.
But lately it occurred to me that Thomas’ doubt could have had a deeper motive.
He, along with the other disciples, had already started down the path of grief, believing that someone they loved very much had died a gruesome death. He was trying to accept that Jesus, the person, was gone. Not the sterilized icon of Jesus we tend to imagine, but the Man Who Lived. All of those months and years of walking together as friends, the shared joy, the shed tears, the time spent talking and singing and traveling? Gone in one horrific afternoon on a lonely hillside.
Can you imagine being told that the violent death you saw had been reversed and that the friend you loved was alive again? What a horrible hope to give someone, if it didn’t turn out to be true!
It’s possible that Thomas wasn’t doubting Jesus. He was merely saving himself from deeper despair on the far side of false hope.
How often we try to armor ourselves against such pain!
But the lesson of Thomas’ doubt is that love often walks hand in hand with pain. In this world, there is no other way. We give ourselves and our hearts to others, and pain is part of that package.
But love and pain bring strange companions with them, ones that Thomas met when he placed his hands in the holiest wounds: impossible hope, and miraculous possibility. And these have a funny way of leading us straight into the beating heart of our living, breathing God.
This God, this gracious God, who transforms doubt and pain into something unimaginably beautiful.
Thank you for reading!
Moved by this piece (or simply feel like supporting my coffee habit) and want to contribute a one-time donation? Click the Tip Jar button below!
Did this piece resonate with you? Take a moment to share it!
If you enjoy this piece, please let me know by tapping the heart to like, comment with your thoughts, share with someone you think will enjoy it, and subscribe to get instant access to my future work right to your inbox. Blessings!
"It’s possible that Thomas wasn’t doubting Jesus. He was merely saving himself from deeper despair on the far side of false hope. How often we try to armor ourselves against such pain!" Beautifully said. I agree, I see a lot of myself in Thomas. Fortunately, Jesus seems to find the very best ways of softening the skeptical heart, whether with Thomas in the house behind locked doors, or with Cleopas and his unnamed companion on the Emmaus road, or with Saul outside Damascus -- or with me.
Great Devotion, S.E.
Thanks for sharing about this altogether human response to what Thomas considered an incredulous claim by the other disciples.
But, I'm always struck by what happened next. As soon as Jesus appear to Thomas and repeated almost verbatim what he had just said to the others, he fell at Jesus' feet and worshiped him, calling him "My Lord and my God." The passage doesn't even say that he actually felt the nail prints or the spear gash in his side. Understanding flooded his heart and mind so that there was no need.
Faith as a concept is interesting. Sometimes we get to see something that enables us to believe. Many times, though, we "see it" in our hearts and minds" as clearly as if it were visible. That's why Hebrews 11:1 describes faith as the "substance" and "evidence" of things we cannot physically see (yet).