as i was sitting and reading my book, i got to thinking about the circumstances of my life in the last 8 or 9 months. lots of hurt. lots of pain. lots of regrets and questions and little or no relief or answers. in the last month or so all of these things have immensely intensified, and i have literally just been hating my life. crying myself to sleep 3 or 4 nights a week. i've been so hurt by certain events that have been happening that i've come terrifyingly close to letting go of god in everything. i'm just having trouble finding a way to hold on when things are soooo bad. up until very recently my faith has never been something i've struggled with, and so i think this experience has had a pretty profound impact on me. i think i've been going through all of the normal phases and emotions that are common to experiences of deep pain and suffering. questioning god's existence, his ultimate role of good, whether or not he is loving and truly caring. etc. i've come dangerously close to turning my back on him several times in the last month or so because i'm almost certain that's what he's doing to me. and i really just can't take that kind of rejection from a god who professes to be good and to be my true father.
so as i'm sitting and reading, it hits me. i am way, way too wrapped up in myself. the minute we expect god to conform to us and wrap around our lives like some kind of security blanket that will protect us from everything bad, is the exact minute that we take god out of his role as the deity of the entire universe (which for the record, is much, much larger than i am), and put him into a tiny box that we can wrap our simplistic minds around. and the minute a god who is much to infinitesmal to fit inside a tiny box created by a simple mind is put into such a box (well, i shouldn't say put into a box like it's actually possible, but in our minds put into such a box), he will begin to move and creak and groan against that box. creating discomfort. creating disillusion. simply because we've deluded ourselves into thinking that he should fit into that damn box, why isn't he?
so i stepped back a pace or two to ponder my situation. i started to remember that god is not some cosmic slot machine, whose cherries or sevens align when we pray the right prayers or do the right things. god is a living, breathing, adapting being, and one that is actually grafting each one of us individually into the greatest story of romance and redemption that has ever been written, and is in fact, still being written. i started to remember that god is romancing me. always. because he loves me. and as i started to remember that fact, i thought to myself, maybe all this pain isn't god's way of punishing me or putting me through "hard tests to instill character." what churchy bullshit. i started to think of my story as part of the larger story, one of romance. one of redemption. i thought of love stories, where the lead character estranges himself from the pursued character, much to the perturbment of the pursued. she (or in my case, he) doesn't know why the lead character is distancing himself. feels pain, feels hurt, feels betrayal. but she (i) can't see quite yet what the lead character (god) is doing. she doesn't know that he is planning one grand swooping gesture of love and romance as such to knock her clear off her feet and into a love deeper than she has ever known. i started to think that maybe god loved me enough to orchestrate such an event for me.
i can't say that any of this is certain. but i think i'm at a point where i'm hopeful. i just know that somewhere along the way, i completely forgot that i trust god. and if i trust him, then why would i ever believe that this pain would be without purpose? i don't know. sometimes i get backwards.
after all of this thinking and complete rearranging of the lies i've been developing in my heart the last few months, i decided to step out onto the patio for a cigarette. and as i sat there, i was startled into a conversation with an old friend that i wasn't really expecting. an old friend whom has been estranging himself from me for several months now, as i just mentioned. we talked for a few minutes, sharing a light hearted conversation. you know those conversations you have with your closest friends? the kind that always come late at night, often for me around a fire. not terribly deep conversations in the amount that's said. just going around in a circle posing the deepest questions a man's (or woman's) soul burns with, not really looking for an answer, more just looking for an affirmation that someone else ponders the same questions. questions about life. about god. about infinity. about everything and about nothing. no answers are really given because no one is really looking for answers. mostly just more questions designed to make you think about life's purpose. i had one of those conversations with my friend jesus this evening. it was wonderful. he's the best at those kinds of conversations you know. the first few minutes we just caught up. i'll try to give you a basic rundown of how things went, i don't remember exactly, so don't hold me to this. haha.:
me - where are you?
god - (instantly) right here.
me - you startled me, i didn't expect you to be so close!
god - what did you expect?
me - i don't know, it just seems like you've been so distant lately.
god - relationships are a two way road you know.
time out this exact statement has been a recurring theme in my life lately. irony? or sarcasm? if you didn't know, god likes to be very, VERY sarcastic. or at least he does when he's talking to me. haha. continue.
me - oh good one, like i really wanted to hear that right now.
god - so you expected to never put any effort into our relationship whatsoever and just assumed that all the problems were on my end, and instead of seeking me out to try and fix these problems, you just wrote me off?
me - well when you put it that way it doesn't really make much sense.
god - haha no, no it doesn't.
me - what do you think about all of this?
god - i don't really deal with life in questions, questions leave too much room for doubt and pain when they go unanswered,. i only deal in love.
me - what does that mean?
god - that i love you. but if you ask me what i think of all this, what i will say is this. sometimes i just do not understand you people (humans). i can't understand why you live your lives having to question everything, it only leads to emptiness and pain.
me - but, you're god, aren't you supposed to understand everything?
god - yes, the universal deity side of me understands everything completely. but you're missing the point. i'm not interested in that side of me, i don't understand why everyone is so obsessed with that side of me. that's not the side of me that's talking to you right now. the side of me that's here and now is the side that loves and feels and desires. and this side of me can't understand why you would ever let unanswered questions and doubts take the place of meaningful relationships in your life. all i've ever known is love and relationship, and that's all i've ever tried tos how you of myself. it makes me sad to see you living your life in such a way that your relationships are replaced by pain and suffering and doubt.
the conversation went on to other area's that i won't dive into here, but needless to say, this was one of those conversations that just rocked my world and completely destroyed what i thought i understood about god. i feel like what i tried to type down is not really an accurate portrait of the way things went, but i wanted to try and help you understand. and all of this conversation happened rather quickly. over the course of my cigarette. but it got me thinking. got my heart pumping again. feeling again. feeling love. asking myself questions without answers rather than asking myself questions that i've already formulated negative answers for. more than anything it just reminds me of a god i used to know, a god i've let slip away. sitting there and smoking a cigarette helped me relax enough to get in touch with god. and after that conversation i wiped my cigarette on the stucco wall to put it out. now every time i look out on the patio, there's an ash mark on the wall that reminds me that god is here, now, and he loves me very very much. i think that's neat.
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