Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna
Day 12 – Tuesday after 2nd Sunday of Lent
To Read:
‘Mister God made everything, didn’t he?’
There was no point in saying that I didn’t really know. I said ‘Yes’.
‘Even the dirt and the stars and the animals and the people and the trees and everything, and the pollywogs?’ The pollywogs were those little creatures that we had seen under the microscope.
I said, ‘Yes, he made everything.’
She nodded her agreement. ‘Does Mister God love us truly?’
‘Sure thing’, I said. ‘Mister God loves everything.’
‘Oh’, she said. ‘Well then, why does he let things get hurt and dead?’ Her voice sounded as if she felt she had betrayed a sacred trust, but the question had been thought and it had to be spoken.
‘I don’t know’, I replied. ‘There’s a great many things about Mister God that we don’t know about.’
‘Well then,’ she continued, ‘if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?’
From the Scriptures:
Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the work of God, who makes everything. (Ecclesiastes 11v5)
To Reflect:
The next few days of Anna’s words are perhaps the most famous of her words and have been used frequently at funerals and other places where faith feels faint. When we get to their conclusion it will become plain why they are so rich and deep.
Today Anna begins to send Fynn on a torturous journey which only her deep thoughts coming from a heart with no filters could take him.
These words tell us about the journey we are going to go on with her:
‘if we don’t know many things about Mister God, how do we know he loves us?’
Questions such as this have bemused wise theologians and new Christians down the centuries. It seems that it is only the Mystics (who are completely wrapped up in their faith) and those with childlike hearts (who are happy to sit with questions yet still believe) who do not find this a challenge.
Not everyone can be like Saul turned Paul by a blinding vision on the Road to Damascus.
Not everyone has a personal Pentecost when their ‘heart was strangely warmed’ as did John Wesley.
A few, by sheer force of will and logic come, as did C.S. Lewis sometimes called ‘The Most Reluctant Convert’, to a place of an inescapable belief.
It seems that not even Anna had some special Theophany or moment when Mister God became ‘real’ to her.
The more I ponder her gentle deep faith the more I come to learn that I, along with other followers of the Way, spend too much time sweating the small stuff! Not that Anna’s questions are small. Today’s questions, and the ones she will pose in the next few days, have been enough to feed my journey for decades and I ain’t done yet. Or should I say I know Mister God ain’t done with me yet…
Joan Chittister and Rowan Williams in their book, Uncommon Gratitude: Alleluia for All That Is reminds us that
It is doubt that is the beginning of real faith.[1]
For only when we learn to question faith can it become more real to us. When we refuse to question faith, when we refuse ask the One Who Loves us Best how they love us, we descend into the realm of dead dogma which is the exact opposite of a lively faith.
Doubts and questions are the bumps in the journey of life which strengthen our faith and enable us in the end to move mountains.
To Pray:
O God, the well of life,
make us bright with wisdom,
that we may be lightened with the knowledge of your glory
in the face of Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Prayer for Psalm 36 – Common Worship)
To Do:
1) Plan to read the Book of Job and notice how God uses the doubts of his ‘comforters’ to strengthen Job’s faith. Also note, later in the book, God uses Job’s complaints to strengthen his faith further still.
2) To hold on to faith often means letting go of something we have been holding on to. Have another look at your Lent disciplines and ask yourself if they are ‘doing the job’. If they are not, strengthen them. If they are a burden let some of them go….
Please Note: These reflections are also published on my blog: suffolkvicarhomes.com on Bluesky as @suffolkvicar.bsky.social, and on my public Facebook page Suffolk Vicar – Rev Andrew Dotchin. If you would like them as a daily email please send a request to revdotchin@gmail.com
If you have enjoyed reading them please make a donation to The Clergy Support Trust who provided a generous grant to help me find the space to compose them.
Acknowledgements:
Quotes from the book ‘Mister God, This is Anna’ are Copyright © Fynn 1975
Illustrations from the book ‘Mister God, This is Anna’ and ‘Anna and the Black Knight’ are Copyright © Pappas 1975
Psalm Prayers from Common Worship: Daily Prayer, material from which is included here, is copyright © The Archbishops’ Council 2005 and published by Church House Publishing
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
These Reflections, ‘Finding our Middle – 40 Days with Anna’ are copyright © Andrew Dotchin 2025 and may be reproduced without charge on condition that the source is acknowledged.
[1] For a short overview of the book and a link to it click here
Suffolk Vicar 