Faith Bizzaro

Being totally honest with ones self is no easy feat. I hide a lot from myself. Not in the sense that I deny that its there...its there...the pain, the anger, resentment, disappointment, self loathing...but I refuse to engage it. Those parts of me are locked away in my own personal twilight zone. They aren't dormant. I feel them moving and shaking about like protons and electrons, rubbing up on one another, expanding in their little Bizzaro World, threatening to spill over into my chosen reality. I just choose not to actually deal with those things that threaten to upset my emotional applecart.

This is not an entirely successful practice.

Especially when it comes to my faith.

I have a deep and abiding faith in the Christian God. He is my Father. I love Him in the deepest depths of my soul. I cannot live without Him...and yet...I cannot live as He requires me to. 

It's not that He is a bad God or that He has let me down. It's that I don't understand too much. I'm hurt and confused by so much about who He is and the paradoxes of what He allows. And then there's my own life. I spent year after year serving and loving and worshiping Him with all I had to give...imperfect because of my humanity and yet true because of His grace....and it was never enough. And He made it clear that it would never be enough.

Let me clarify...

My service and love pleased Him...but the peace I so desperately crave, the love and support and oneness I am starving emotionally for....is not for me to obtain on this earth. I will know no peace until I'm on the other side. Talk about a kick in the teeth. On top of that....though He will always care for and watch over my family...I personally will always be in turmoil, my life consumed by suffering and chaos, and my only companion will be His deep and abiding love.

I know this all sounds weird and presumptive. Take it on faith that I am just an odd enough duck that I believe God talks to me.

Part of my reclaiming of myself is going back to church. I don't miss the judgmentalism or the fellowship. What I miss is corporate worship and not getting to choose what message I hear. I miss hearing a perspective on Christ and Biblical principals from someone other than myself. And...yeah...I could listen to or read sermons and musings from other believers...and I do...but it's not the same. Church is something I need...no matter how uncomfortable it is.

Anyway...

Over the past few weeks I have learned some things about myself that are important to acknowledge because they are a part of what blocks my creative, personal energy from flowing freely. Not that I am trying to change them, mind you....i love God but the distance between us is deliberate.

1. I don't want to be intimate with God at this time in my life. I know He knows me and I cannot hide anything from Him and that He sees everything I think, want and do...I just don't want to talk to Him about any of it. I don't want to hear His opinion. I don't want to feel known. I'm wounded at a soul level...cut and bleeding from so many wounds that...were I to acknowledge all of them...I am afraid I would fall apart entirely. Being intimate with God requires that kind of openness. It requires us to let down the walls and allow Him into the infirmary of our soul to expose and cleanse so we can heal. I'm not ready for that.
2. Jesus is not enough. To clarify...He is....but I don't know how to be content with what He has for me. So, while I know He is enough, a perfect God who loves me unconditionally and can take care of me better than anyone or anything including myself...what He has offered me is not enough for me to want to depend on Him. Not that what I have now is better....but if I am going to earn misery let me earn it with bad behavior and not with good behavior that leaves me broken by ,y position as a proverbial whipping post.
3. I don't depend on anyone...not even myself. I have no faith in anyone at all to take care of me or be there for me or support me. I don't trust anyone to give me stability...to provide financially...to be true to their word. I don't depend on or expect anything to ever be “ok”.
4. I am a sheep, hiding in a cave, away from the rest of the flock and that's the way I want it...for now. My wounds are too deep and my condition too delicate to risk further pain right now. I cant afford to can't give anyone, not even God, the opportunity to hurt me. And if you don't think God hurts us...you're sadly mistaken. He does not harm us however His lessons, His discipline and sometimes even His love can be very,very painful. 

Right now...my faith may be a little off kilter, but its real and its mine and...no matter what it may mean for my eternity or my right now...I will never deny my belief in and love of the Christian God. He is Abba....even when I am prodigal