A few weeks ago, InterVarsity Christian Fellowship’s Washington DC Urban Program sent student leaders from around the DC area to Corhaven for a mid-project retreat. We posted about it here. What follows is a reflection from Krista Cocozello, a recent graduate of George Washington University and participant on the program, about her time at Corhaven this past summer.  The program is called “Bridge DC”.

…I came to Bridge with a lot of strong feelings towards God and doubts about His presence in the world. I wondered if He cared about the awful things happening in the news and I wondered if He cared about me. It took numerous group Bible studies and weeks worth of reading the Bible to finally calm those feelings and to be able to speak to God about them. Through prayer and more reading, I soon realized that I had come to believe many false things about who God is. I felt that I couldn’t trust Him with my future and that He didn’t know what was good for me – which led to an underlying belief that God is incomplete, not fully good, and only present when He wants to be. That is not the image of the good Father that God shows through Jesus. Still, the questions remain… Where is God in this broken world? What is He doing about suffering, injustice, and wrongdoing? These questions have followed me throughout Bridge DC.

We spent the weekend in VA for a special trip. where we stayed a small retreat center [Corhaven]. On the property of this retreat center there is slave cemetery from the mid-1800s. As I walked through the cemetery and saw numerous graves of both children and adults, the questions of God’s goodness and presence in the world plagued me again… God, how could this have happened? God, how could I allow my heart become periodically numb to this historical reality? God, why is it so hard to accept that the pain of this reality still echoes today? And God, what the heck are you doing about it? …

I learned that the property owners decided to honor the deceased by providing a dedicatory funeral service – a kind act that showed honor and dignity to these human beings who likely never received it during their lifetimes. Although this act didn’t resolve my questions of suffering and injustice in the world, it gave me some hope. People can care. People can decide to make a difference. I can make a difference. We can all make a difference. The question for me has become, how? This is the question I ask – God, how can I be of use? In particular, how can I use my vocal and artistic gifts to speak about the suffering and injustice in the world?

Krista, we will pray for you as you seek God for the answers to these questions.  At Coracle, our deepest hope and purpose is to help give a platform and safe place to converse with God about exactly these things, be formed by the answers He gives, and to allow Him to draw us more fully into the stories He is writing with our lives and into the Ultimate Story, that He’s been writing since the beginning.  We know He has great things for you, and all those who truly follow Him!