So God and I had a little fight...
...Well, actually, the truth is, it wasn't so little. God and I had a big fight--it started out as a prayer and ended with a one-sided shouting match (and you guess which one that was...). I've been in this extremelly un-repentant place in the last few months, and finally last night I put aside all pretentious attempts to appear as if our relationship was not facing any greater challenges than in the past.
Umm, LIE.
The truth is, this is the biggest challenge I've ever faced in my faith. I've never encountered something so very difficult to repent of. I want to repent, and I want more than anything for this to be over. Well, maybe not more than anything. If I'm being really honest, wishing for this lack of repentance to end is only second to actually wanting this thing from the Lord in the first place.
Hence the problem.
But before I get ahead of myself, I should explain what I'm talking about.
When I was younger, I always relied on my family members (particularly my Mom) for comfort and security. For me, that meant simple gestures like being held or hugged tightly. But as I got older and my Mom grew distant, I got more emotional and upset. There would be times where I distinctly remember going into my room, lying down under the covers in my bed, and clinging to my Raggedy Ann doll like she was my only lifeline. Because, in essence, she was the only thing I could hold on to that would enable me to just cry and be comforted.
Then I met Christ. I found that instead of buying my face in Raggedy Ann's soiled apron, I could bury my soul in Jesus. It was a relationship the likes of which I had never encountered before, and it filled me with not only a comfort, but a JOY that was beyond description. I miss those days of reveling in this new-found love.
As the years have passed, though, I've become frustrated by having to rely solely on God's invisible love. People who receive love through words can open His Word. People who receive love through gifts or service only have to watch to see the Lord giving to them both physically and non-physically everyday. Those who interpret love through time can turn to God at any point during the day, week, month, or year because He's listening at every millisecond. But when I'm upset or lonely, God isn't going to come down to earth to give me a hug. This is what makes me bitter.
And at first, it shouldn't. I should be able to retain my faith in the Lord without His physical touch. I should be faithful enough to feel His love anyway, and that knowledge should be enough for me.
But there's a certain point at which you get tired of feeling like you're talking to a wall or just to thin air. At some point, your desire for a physical presence while opening up your heart to someone grows. Quite simply, even with the knowledge that God's still listening, you get lonely trying to deal with the most complicated and terrifying problems in your life in bed in the dark late at night.
This bitterness is only compounded by the fact that the other logical response is, of course, that God can love on you physically, only, through other people. Which, in my case, is utterly useless, because there are so many things that I only ever tell God about and of course, those are the things about which I could use the most love and comfort.
So my query to God lately has been: If this is something that I genuinely feel I really need, why aren't You providing?? And if You really know me as You say You do, then surely You know You created me to be a physically loving person, and You know how much I crave someone to hold on to. Someone through whom I can receive Your love when I need it most.
And NOW we get to the can-this-possibly-be-more-embarrassing-and-make-me-any-more-vulnerable part of the post, after which I am going to cower under my bedsheets.
Ahem.
In the last few years, this person, vis-a-vis my five-year-old imagination, has been a boyfriend/lover/future husband. And he has doubled, not only as a loneliness fix, but also as a lifeboat to escape the old-fashioned values that govern my family with which I disagree so whole-heartedly. I've had this image in mind of marriage as being the door to a new family life that I get to re-make on my own, instilling my own values (and ones which hopefully be more God-derived) in my children, and developing much healthier relationships with them than that of mine and my mother's. If I am to be totally honest, I have no ONE overriding aspiration or goal for my life beyond becoming a Christ-like wife and mother. I'd also like to be challenged everyday to love every student I teach in the future, and I hope to maybe publish a fiction novel, but all I really, REALLY want is to 1) fall in love, 2) get married to said person, 3) raise children who will one day hopefully meet Christ as a person themselves and decide to follow Him.
LAME and totally BACKWARDS in this pro-careerwoman era, right? Yeah, I know. Especially in my university. If I was to admit this to my roommate, I think she would laugh. No, actually, she'd be too grieved and appalled to laugh. She's going to be a politician.
But, anyway, I get so jealous of my friends sometimes, and how blessed they are with families, friends, and boyfriends that support them. They have so many resources for people to talk to and trust in and from whom to receive Godly love and knowledge that I simply don't. Without those relationships, I feel like my life is just sort-of sitting in a solitary limbo right now, because I'm too dumb and untalented in this increasingly brilliant and talented world to really have a purpose. I feel like I have nothing to offer anyone, including God. I'd like more than anything to actually know I'm important and special to someone on this Earth. Perhaps this is why I love children. They actually value me when, for the most part, I'm ignored by the majority of my peers.
Umm, LIE.
The truth is, this is the biggest challenge I've ever faced in my faith. I've never encountered something so very difficult to repent of. I want to repent, and I want more than anything for this to be over. Well, maybe not more than anything. If I'm being really honest, wishing for this lack of repentance to end is only second to actually wanting this thing from the Lord in the first place.
Hence the problem.
But before I get ahead of myself, I should explain what I'm talking about.
When I was younger, I always relied on my family members (particularly my Mom) for comfort and security. For me, that meant simple gestures like being held or hugged tightly. But as I got older and my Mom grew distant, I got more emotional and upset. There would be times where I distinctly remember going into my room, lying down under the covers in my bed, and clinging to my Raggedy Ann doll like she was my only lifeline. Because, in essence, she was the only thing I could hold on to that would enable me to just cry and be comforted.
Then I met Christ. I found that instead of buying my face in Raggedy Ann's soiled apron, I could bury my soul in Jesus. It was a relationship the likes of which I had never encountered before, and it filled me with not only a comfort, but a JOY that was beyond description. I miss those days of reveling in this new-found love.
As the years have passed, though, I've become frustrated by having to rely solely on God's invisible love. People who receive love through words can open His Word. People who receive love through gifts or service only have to watch to see the Lord giving to them both physically and non-physically everyday. Those who interpret love through time can turn to God at any point during the day, week, month, or year because He's listening at every millisecond. But when I'm upset or lonely, God isn't going to come down to earth to give me a hug. This is what makes me bitter.
And at first, it shouldn't. I should be able to retain my faith in the Lord without His physical touch. I should be faithful enough to feel His love anyway, and that knowledge should be enough for me.
But there's a certain point at which you get tired of feeling like you're talking to a wall or just to thin air. At some point, your desire for a physical presence while opening up your heart to someone grows. Quite simply, even with the knowledge that God's still listening, you get lonely trying to deal with the most complicated and terrifying problems in your life in bed in the dark late at night.
This bitterness is only compounded by the fact that the other logical response is, of course, that God can love on you physically, only, through other people. Which, in my case, is utterly useless, because there are so many things that I only ever tell God about and of course, those are the things about which I could use the most love and comfort.
So my query to God lately has been: If this is something that I genuinely feel I really need, why aren't You providing?? And if You really know me as You say You do, then surely You know You created me to be a physically loving person, and You know how much I crave someone to hold on to. Someone through whom I can receive Your love when I need it most.
And NOW we get to the can-this-possibly-be-more-embarrassing-and-make-me-any-more-vulnerable part of the post, after which I am going to cower under my bedsheets.
Ahem.
In the last few years, this person, vis-a-vis my five-year-old imagination, has been a boyfriend/lover/future husband. And he has doubled, not only as a loneliness fix, but also as a lifeboat to escape the old-fashioned values that govern my family with which I disagree so whole-heartedly. I've had this image in mind of marriage as being the door to a new family life that I get to re-make on my own, instilling my own values (and ones which hopefully be more God-derived) in my children, and developing much healthier relationships with them than that of mine and my mother's. If I am to be totally honest, I have no ONE overriding aspiration or goal for my life beyond becoming a Christ-like wife and mother. I'd also like to be challenged everyday to love every student I teach in the future, and I hope to maybe publish a fiction novel, but all I really, REALLY want is to 1) fall in love, 2) get married to said person, 3) raise children who will one day hopefully meet Christ as a person themselves and decide to follow Him.
LAME and totally BACKWARDS in this pro-careerwoman era, right? Yeah, I know. Especially in my university. If I was to admit this to my roommate, I think she would laugh. No, actually, she'd be too grieved and appalled to laugh. She's going to be a politician.
But, anyway, I get so jealous of my friends sometimes, and how blessed they are with families, friends, and boyfriends that support them. They have so many resources for people to talk to and trust in and from whom to receive Godly love and knowledge that I simply don't. Without those relationships, I feel like my life is just sort-of sitting in a solitary limbo right now, because I'm too dumb and untalented in this increasingly brilliant and talented world to really have a purpose. I feel like I have nothing to offer anyone, including God. I'd like more than anything to actually know I'm important and special to someone on this Earth. Perhaps this is why I love children. They actually value me when, for the most part, I'm ignored by the majority of my peers.
And this is why I'm angry at God. Doesn't He know how lonely I am? And if He's choosing not to affirmatively answer my prayers--not gonna lie, I have no right to it--but I'd really appreciate an explanation. Even giving me simple understanding I feel like would help guide my heart to soften and repent. But right now it's harder than my head, which is telling it to stop because we know we're wrong. And that's saying something.
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