My son asked me on Sunday, while popping peanuts at Five Guys after church …”Mom, why did God create bad guys?” I used to avoid these questions like the plague before getting real with God. I didn’t feel comfortable asking because I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t want to say anything because I couldn’t confidently tell him the TRUTH.
Anybody that knows me, knows my curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I was talking to my mom recently and I asked her, “Mom, was I always super curious?” Without hesitation she answered…”YES!” She told me I would ask so many detailed questions she would finally have to say, “Abigail, I don’t know. I don’t have any more answers for you.” Unlike me, my mom didn’t have immediate access to information to help me satiate my thirst for the truth.
Shawn, one of my 6 year old twin boys, has my same thirst for knowledge. He is so curious about the world, how it works, the purpose of everything and God! He asks some of the most intellectual questions. He has kept me on my toes but also reignited my love for learning & teaching. It’s not a surprise that he would be the one to ask me why God created bad guys.
My introduction to God happened at a young age but I think my thirst for the answers wasn’t quenched during my formative years. When I got older, I didn’t look up the burning questions in my head because I think I was too scared to find out the answers for myself. Maybe I thought I was not “good enough” for God. Maybe I had shame & guilt for my sins and thought I was condemned to Hell. Or maybe I just thought it would be too hard to live the kind of life God wanted me to live to make it to Heaven.
Why did I start getting real with God and finding out the Truth? My kids. At the beginning of COVID (the dreaded C-word), my life at home had become unmanageable. I was running my audiology practice working full time, with a husband who works full time and drives over 1.5 hrs round trip to work, and had 4 year old twins and a 3 year old – all boys. I was excelling at work but failing at home. I was terrible at keeping a tidy home – it wasn’t even organized chaos. It was just chaos. My husband and I couldn’t connect. And I was getting quick to anger with my kids…over the most trivial things. I was failing at the 2 most important things in my life at the time…being a wife & mother.
I can’t remember if there was one incident that woke me up or if it was a series of incidents…but I realized I needed help. I didn’t want to yell or spank my kids like my dad did to me. I didn’t want to traumatize them. I finally saw myself as a little girl through the eyes of my children and realized I had to do something. My journey to healing didn’t start on the spiritual path, but retrospectively I can see God was there the whole time and he helped me shift my priorities from (1) WORK (2) FAMILY (3) GOD to (1) GOD (2) FAMILY (including my needs) (3) WORK.
I talked to a friend at church about how I was desperate to change but didn’t know how. She recommended my therapist who I still see today. He was a real DIFFERENCE maker in my life & has a spiritual gift of helping unlock trauma in people suffering from PTSD. My therapist helped me see myself through the eyes of Jesus, a perspective I had never had before, and also validated all of my angry feelings I had towards my kids and my husband. He told me they were automatic. caused by the PTSD. He told me these responses were hardwired into my brain and my husband & kids triggered trauma responses that were undeserved, just like my trauma was underserved. He gave me space to cry & grieve for the little girl who lost herself as a child. He said my anger towards my husband was a result of the abuse from my dad and anything that reminded me of my dad would cause my body automatically go into fight mode. To be clear, my husband is nothing like my dad. So I feel like it would be helpful to give you an example. One of my traumas from my dad was that I was not allowed to express emotion or I would get “spanked harder”. If I felt like my husband didn’t understand or validate my emotions in an argument, It would trigger a trauma response and I would get very angry. My kids triggered my trauma when they would do something innocent, like spilling their drink for the 2nd time, because my dad got angry at me for the same things.
The different circumstances that were causing me to feel angry and also horribly guilty in the same breath, were reflexes due to the PTSD. Just like if you go to the doctor and they shine a light in your eye, your bodies reflex is for your eye to dilate. You can’t stop that from happening. I couldn’t stop the “fight” reflex from happening because I didn’t know what it was!!!
Were my actions justified? NO! Were they fair? NO! Did I wish I could change them??? YES!!! Just like “fight” was hardwired into me because of abuse, my dad too had the “fight” response because of abuse he suffered in his childhood. I couldn’t change my “fight” response until someone called my PTSD by name. I couldn’t change my “automatic anger response” (AAR) until someone made me aware of it. I couldn’t change my AAR without VALIDATION of the trauma I suffered. And i couldn’t change them until my brain really processed what had happened to me as a little girl. My whole life, I thought, “My childhood wasn’t that bad” & “people have it far worse”. And let me tell you, those are whispers from Satan discouraging you from healing!!! He wants you to doubt yourself. He wants you to question your purpose? He wants you to say, “Why me? A loving God wouldn’t allow bad things to happen to good people!”
My diagnoses of PTSD & the years of trauma I endured are examples of “horrific circumstances” and not “deserved consequences”. They are an example of ugly side of free will. But the beautiful side of free will is giving & receiving unconditional love.
When I finally woke up from my trauma, I apologized to so many people, including my husband and kids. But, I had to do a lot of work and healing to finally forgive myself for my sins against my husband and children. I was finally able to forgive myself when I turned my “automatic anger response” into an “automatic love response” and realized I never had the tools before. I had to, with the power of prayer, intentionality & working on all aspects of my health, rewire my brain. It’s honestly a MIRACLE! The heaviness, anxiety, and internal battle are GONE! I now have PEACE! I know I will still get angry, but I also know anger is a normal human emotion so I’m not scared when it happens. I’m no longer scared because I can control it. My automatic response is no longer anger and I no longer feel like I’m being held captive by my emotions. Once I was aware of the source of the problem, with the power of free will, I was able to improve my emotional health and stop the trauma responses.
Because of my anger and the fact that my kids were exposed during their younger years, they struggle with different trauma responses themselves. Some behaviors are “normal kid behaviors” and some are clearly tied to me not giving them space to be kids. I didn’t give them space to do normal kid stuff. I didn’t think of them as little humans with their own minds. I expected them to respect me because I was their mom. I expected them to do what I say because I’m their mom. I expected them to listen because I’m their mom. I would get frustrated when they didn’t meet my expectations and then I would get angry and sometimes punish them. So, I was met with defiance, explosive meltdowns & hitting to name a few.
But, praise Jesus, now that I know the error of my ways, have found my “automatic love response” and have been a disciple (teaching in love) to them, my kids have changed dramatically!!! They are happier, more peaceful, more content little humans who are making way more good choices!
I’ve been super intentional about making every opportunity a teaching moment. (Praise Jesus and thank you for teachers because teaching is exhausting). They now have choices and the power to choose. And, if they make a choice that isn’t favorable, they are already aware of the consequence for that choice so they in turn “chose the consequence” eliminating my need to feel guilty. I now realize I was punishing them, and in turn feeling guilty for losing my temper. A punishment is something someone gives you but a consequence is something you choose.
My power struggles to try and MAKE my kids do what I want are a thing of the past. Now, don’t get me wrong. They are still kids and I still get upset. It’s not all rainbows and unicorns in the Sweeney house. But, when they do get upset, it doesn’t last as long. I validate their emotion and try and figure out what they need. They throw fits sometimes just like I wish I could from time to time. But I now realize their frontal lobes are not fully developed and they don’t have the life experience to know what is right & wrong all the time. And that’s where I come in to teach them in love and give them space to feel so all of those emotions don’t get trapped inside of them like they did in me.
Now back to Shawn’s question. “Why did God create bad guys?” I was so excited to answer this one because I knew they would understand based upon the way I had been disciplining to them already.
“Shawn…what does mommy always say to you, Smith & Parker. You have the power to…?”
All the boys yelled. “CHOOSE!”
“Right, you all have the power to choose. Well, God gave everyone the power to choose. That’s called free will. So, when mommy gives you choices and I ask you to choose, that’s because mommy trusts you will make the best choice. God also hopes we make the right choices too. When you don’t make the best choice, you know there is a consequence. Even if you make the wrong choice, mommy & God will always give you grace. But, it’s still important that mommy teaches you about the power to choose when you are younger because one day you won’t have mommy & daddy with you all the time. We want you to be able to make the right choice on your own. You know how if you hurt someone on purpose, mommy gets upset and we talk about it. We figure out why you hurt them, like if you’re angry because they hurt you or called you a name and we talk about how to handle it differently next time. Mommy tells you it’s ok to be angry but it’s not just ok to hurt someone. Like what could you choose to do if someone hurts you?”
All the boys replied, “Walk away & tell an adult.” PROUD MOMMA MOMENT!
“That’s right! Mommy is so proud of you all for listening and learning. Ok, so now think about the boy who hits and is mean to kids at school. Maybe his mommy or daddy aren’t nice to him because they haven’t made good choices themselves. Like, it wasn’t a good choice when mommy would yell at you a lot. Some kids don’t have a mommy or daddy and they don’t have someone teaching them about choices and consequences. Usually, people who are mean to you, aren’t happy because something else is going on with them…stuff we can’t see. Maybe kids are mean to them. Maybe their family is mean to them or hitting them at home. If a kid doesn’t have someone who shows them love and teaches them about consequences, and also like encourages them to make the right choice, they can become a bad guy when they get older. So you see, God didn’t make bad guys. He just gave us the power to choose. But, the power to choose is so amazing because that’s what made mommy choose daddy. I chose to love him. Nobody made me. And mommy & daddy chose to have you all, nobody made us. Mommy chooses to love Jesus. And mommy chooses to love you all with all of my heart and it’s the best feeling ever. And the amazing thing is…if you just keep making good choices, learning from your bad choices and believe in Jesus, no matter what scary things happen on earth, we will be together in heaven…forever and will never feel scared again!”
I’m so grateful for perspective and healing. I’m grateful to God for my kids who helped kickstart my healing. And today, I’m extremely grateful for free will, or the POWER TO CHOOSE!
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