The Not Quite Happy Ending

A simple revelation is what I needed and what it took to begin breaking the ice around this issue in my heart.

I couldn’t really connect the sense of abandonment to a particular instance in my life.   However, while praying one day, I saw an image of myself as a young child being dropped off at an event for the day. The event doesn’t matter really, what I remember is the feeling of a shy child being left alone at something – a birthday party, a relative’s house, a new school situation, or some children’s event.

“I don’t want to be dropped off.”

“I don’t want to do this alone.”

“I don’t want to be a big girl.”

“I can’t do this.”

Decades later, the scared little girl inside was still trying to deal with the big issues of life and mostly feeling alone and afraid.  This totally fit my picture of a God who had dropped me off, left me to deal with things on my own, and would eventually make everything better when He came to pick me up at the end.

Maybe a week later, while praying this image came back to mind, and I felt like God said, “I want you to know Me as the God who is right there with you.”  In the moment, this felt like both a promise and an assignment.

I often think of joining God in what He is doing, trying to see the world with His eyes, and listening for the Spirit about situations I encounter.  But this time, I felt like God was saying, “No, you’re not joining me.  I am joining you.  Where you go, I am going too.  Not just the good places, but the hard places, the scary places, even the bad places.  I am going along.”

And it felt overwhelmingly relieving to realize that God has been there in the middle of all my “I can’t do this” moments and that He would teach me how to know Him in those moments.

One thing I have learned is that when I quit expecting God to be with me, I quit seeing Him. By focusing on the things I don’t have, I refused to see all that I am invited to be a part of, all that is already mine, and to join the invitation to His presence.

The big and sometimes scary circumstances in my life haven’t suddenly resolved themselves.  However, instead of gritting my teeth, I am focusing on seeing and trusting God to be with me.

I appreciate the stories and encouragement that you have shared with me.  Much of what you said adds to what God is teaching me through all of this.  I hope that sharing this is an encouragement to someone else too.  Most of us don’t really need more information, we just need God to continue revealing Himself to us in ways that will personally transform us in the ways that we need Him most.

The Heart of the Matter

This is all kind of hard to describe, and I am a little concerned about painting a wrong picture.  However, I will do my best to explain and hope that is adequate.  I don’t want to either exaggerate or minimize the problem.

I want to emphasize that I really am at peace in the Father’s love and acceptance.  There is nothing in me that believes that I must strive or perform for His approval or blessing.  Maybe that is the point.  As my understanding of Him has become more beautiful, my lack of trust becomes more incongruent with what I know to be true.

I no longer accept pat answers and formulas about faith and prayer.  I do not think God needs me to exaggerate or reframe the facts to protect His image.  The only thing I know to do in the face of unanswered prayer is to simply keep asking, knowing that intervention was never dependent on me.  So, I haven’t quit asking, but I see that miraculous responses seem to be a rare exception.  Perhaps the biggest change is that I gave up any illusion that I can somehow elicit the miraculous response.

The past year has been really difficult for me.  Nothing in comparison to what others suffer, but there have been days I wondered if I could stand the pressure.   I became more sarcastic and cynical (I know, shocking) which made it somewhat obvious that I was basically angry.  The anger was rooted in the fact that I was overwhelmingly disappointed and frustrated.  So much of my life seemed beyond my control, and there seemed to be nothing I could do to avoid the pain or change the circumstances.

The whisper of the enemy that I struggle with the most is, “You are on your own.”  This plays itself out in many different ways in my life.  In this case, when things get difficult, I grit my teeth and try to buck up.  Aside from prayers thrown up for a change of circumstance, I have not leaned into God’s love or care because while my head knows that He is always with me, my heart believed that I was on my own.

That’s enough for today, and I will write one more post explaining how I am dealing with my unbelieving heart.

I’ll end with this quote from Richard Rohr:

I will offer you a simple litmus test to determine whether a person has healthy or unhealthy religion. What do they do with their pain—even their daily little disappointments? Do they transform their pain or do they transmit it?

We all have pain—it’s the human situation, we all carry it in a big black bag behind us and it gets heavier as we get older: by betrayals, rejections, disappointments, and wounds that are inflicted along the way. If we do not find some way to transform our pain, I can tell you with 100% certitude we will transmit it to those around us.

At the end of life, and probably early in life, too, the question is, “What do I do with this disappointment, with this absurdity, with this sadness?”

Trusting God

As I mentioned, the topic of conversation recently in our discussion group has been, “What is your picture of God?”

Considering this, I realize that I am finally secure in the Father’s love and acceptance.  It took my whole life to get to that point.  I used to think I was only accepted by God on the group plan – God had to love me because He loves everyone.  Believing in God’s love is a big hurdle in many peoples’ lives.

It might seem like a contradiction to say that I am confident in God’s love and yet admit that I struggle to trust.  Obviously there are things I have yet to know and experience of His love if I am not trusting Him.

While I have known for some time that my picture of God is still screwed up, I have not known how it will be fixed.  I just keep going to Him in my messed-upnesss because I know that the only chance of fixing this is in Him.  Basically, I realize that apart from Him revealing  something to me, I’m stuck here.

The point at where I was/am stuck is on the degree of God’s intervention in our lives.  Perhaps this is a common struggle.  My theology that God rarely directly intervenes left me in the position of being an unbeliever – not that I didn’t love God, but I didn’t believe He would do much about the circumstances of my life.

Our lives are impacted by distorted and competing pictures of God.  Our theologies play themselves out.  After reading the recent tornado of articles and comments around the blogosphere concerning Piper’s precipitant piece on meteorology, I realized that I am not alone in the process of working out my theology.  (I also realized that there are theological systems and conclusions that I will never agree with.)

Do I know that God loves me? Absolutely.

Do I believe that God will take care of me? Not so much.

A friend asked me the other day if I have trust issues.

My response was, “No, I just have low expectations.”

Pathetic as that might sound, that is where I have been.

The Hazy Night of the Soul

A few years ago, fine print became difficult for me to read.  I needed longer arms, better lighting. Some of you know what I mean.

Recently, that is how things have been for me spiritually.  It feels like everything that used to be so clear, suddenly became blurry.  There are moments of clarity, maybe when the light is better or when I can stand back far enough to get a little perspective.

I haven’t experienced the darkness of depression, just the slow-dawning realization that I am in a bit of a ditch.  Looking back, I can see the early signs, the issues that came up and my avoidance of those issues.

I don’t want to be broken again.  I thought the whole spiritual abuse thing would be my big brokenness event.  So why after healing from all of that would I need to be stripped and pruned again?

During this time of floundering for me, at our coffee-shop gathering we have been dealing with our picture of God.  This has forced me to either deal with the issues I’ve tried to avoid or fake it.  I’m trying to deal.

I’ll share some about the slide into being stuck and maybe a little of what I’m learning in the ditch. I am uncomfortable with being so publicly introspective, but I guess if I shouldn’t be on my blog, maybe it’s time to quit blogging.  Anyway, if you don’t like personal and raw, please just move on.

If you find yourself stuck, especially when you know better, I hope it helps to know that you aren’t alone. Feel free to comment, but I don’t know if I can or will respond to the comments, however I always read and appreciate your thoughts.

It’s hard for me to blog about this.  This post has been in my draft file for a couple of months.  I would rather post it with a nice well-wrapped ending.  Maybe the only reason I can post it now is because I see a glimpse of light at the end of the tunnel.

Well you know what they say about lights at the end of tunnels.

What Do We Get Away With?

First a great quote from Shaun in the comments of the previous post:

The best of us are not nearly good enough and the worst of us are not bad enough that His grace can’t reach us.

As promised, a few quotes from Between Noon and Three (Robert Farrar Capon):

…they will not be discovered, ever…no other scandal than the divine foolishness by which the human race is assured that there is nothing it isn’t going to get away with…

In our fantasies, immorality can never be allowed to simply succeed; cosmic disapproval must be given the last word.

Whatever happens, the books are always balanced, the notes due called in, the mortgages foreclosed.

No, much as you and I prefer that sort of thing, I shall not give it to you.  First, because it is a strange preference, no matter how universal it is.

…however much we hate the law, we are more afraid of grace.

We do in fact get away with almost everything.

Grace cannot prevail…until our lifelong certainty that someone is keeping score has run out of steam and collapsed.

We insist on being reckoned with.

Honestly, this kind of blows me away.  I know that grace, mercy, and forgiveness are this extreme.  But I wonder if we ever get away with anything, if there is even such a concept for followers of Christ.  I guess I still believe that sin always destroys. Not that God reckons us with punishment, but that sin reckons us with soul destroying consequence.  Maybe I’m still hanging onto a measure of law or the need for guilt in that regard.  I don’t know.  I haven’t finished the book yet.

What do you think?