What Next, God?

FAITH IS HARD
Sometimes when you’re waiting on something, faith gets hard.

Or impossible.

God has been helping us the last few months take care of 2 mortgages, because we still haven’t sold our old home. Now August looms with no way to make payment in site, and only one home offer – 10% below the asking price. Are they serious?

I’ve been losing heart over this, quite a bit. In fact, this weekend we saw my family and I forgot to add to Chris’ story the line I’ve been adding for months: “Really, we’re paying one mortgage and God’s paying the other.”

ANGRY WITH GOD
Have I lost faith? I don’t see any answer. So tonight I was very down on myself and told off God. Down to the wire – why does it always have to be this way? Why? Why can’t it either just be ok or be horrible? Hope is very painful when it comes down to this. I have not been able to bring the money in the last few weeks like normal, and never mind mortgage, there are bills too. I’m terrified and can’t see a way out or around or under or anything.

I know God can still come through, but I’m too tired. I feel like Cinderella – why do I always need God to be a like a knight in shining armor? This is not what I want.

CONFUSION
In fact, I’ve had a really hard time hearing God despite daily prayer and Bible readings. I don’t know what He wants of me, at all, anymore. I’m very very lost, and being lost causes me great pain, even more than loneliness. I’m not sure where to go, what to do, and this is all I’m sure of.

If you’ve been reading my Mom-Blog, you’ll know that my family has been extremely ill the last few weeks. Viruses, ear infections, sinus attacks and pinkeye have run rampant between my husband, my 2 kids, and me. Well, I think I’ve mentioned before that my own personal sin and temptation attacks most strongly when I am sick. I’m sure that part of that has to do with being weaker of will when we don’t feel good.

At any rate, I went for several days in a row of excruciating pain, plus body aches, sore throat, and runny nose. I managed to avoid my sin for a while, but I didn’t think I had enough willpower for much more illness. So when I started to think the pain was receding, I got pinkeye. (The kids had it forever without me getting it, so it was weird.) That was only uncomfortable for one day, and the following day I felt much better – weak, but better. That night I got attacked by sinus allergies, painful ones. My temptation was not over, it seemed.

In fact, I got these horrible attacks for the next few nights. It occurred to me, at some point, that these were not exactly attacks but more like tests – a la Job. I had gone through a week of illness and fought the temptations with worship – even through my pain – and they were not done yet. I felt as if the devil were somewhere going, “God, one more day – one more night – she’ll fall, you’ll see!” In thinking that, it gave me more courage to try and succeed.

I’m happy to say that I pulled it out. In fact the last time I considered my temptation it had barely any attraction at all.

You may think this is no biggie, but for me, it is. It’s something I’ve been battling since my youth and to me, that is an awesome victory. But it’s not mine, it’s God’s. He helped me pull this out. It was His Voice in the back of my head, night after night, saying (softly) we can we this, you and I. Hang in there.

I hope I don’t get tested for a while but I’m a realist and I know that to stay on this path accurately, more tests need to come. I will take them as they rise.

I’m sorry I haven’t written so long, but I’ve been working, parenting, and even writing. I’m facing a conundrum, and I’m not sure what to do.

My beloved pastor is leaving my former beloved church – for one year – and we are going there a lot to say goodbye. He expects us to continue attending monthly – no more than that, and I wish I could go every Sunday but that’s impractical in so many ways (it’s an hour away).

So we tried the nearby Wesleyan, and we felt a lot of love there and a need for growth. The problem was the sermons didn’t reach me. At ALL. They felt childish – ok, you can call that hubris, but at a certian spiritual level you need a certain amount of nourishment. So Pastor L suggested we try this other church I’d mentioned before we left, and we went. It was great – a certain lack of community, maybe, smaller than the other church, and nearly impossible for me to reach at this point since I haven’t learned highway driving yet. (I’m from NYC, driving is an OPTION there, so I didn’t get my license until less than 2 years ago.)

Trouble is the new church called (AND sent a card). They are having evening growth groups for families with kids similar ages, and vacation bible school in July, and they want us back. New church hasn’t contacted us at all, while the other church keeps at it. New church is much more liberal – first time there, pastor did a George W. Bush joke. TOTALLY up my alley, and personally, I’m again starting to get repelled by Christians who believe that God started this awful Iraqi war and don’t question our ‘great’ leader just because he’s (allegedly) a conservative Christian.

What do I do?? Go for like-minded but mostly inaccessible (at this point) church, or go for nearby and welcoming (or is it stalking??)? I’m REALLY interested in finding people who can help me on my Christian path, but won’t stick their hand in my face because I believe that you are born gay, or that Clinton really WAS a good president, or that abortion is more of a grey issue than black and white.

I must not be too smart. A few years back, a Christian friend from, I believe, the UK, heard me blogging on my parenting blog about my spiritual confusion and fear of Christianity, and she recommended I find a Unitarian Universalist church.

Well, I looked but none were to be found in my very rural area. At that time, too, God had plans to put me into a conservative, right-wing, loved-filled, Holy Spirit enthused church. They welcomed me (and my rebellious ways) with open arms and zero condemnation, and I had to rewrite all the left-wing condemnation and prejudice I had learned about conservatives. I’m sure that was his purpose, and some of my closest friends now are people who have a 180 degree view on life, God and politics than I do. Now THAT is a miracle!

We’ve been bouncing between churches and hiking back to our old church from time to time (Pastor Lenny MADE us promise to return monthly). But I’ve felt something missing. I made one Christian connection here that I was excited about but had to let go. I’m enjoying the new church but it’s far and I’m so uncertain.

Addofio had recommended a book called “If Grace is True: How God Saves Everyone” (IGIT), and I read an expcerpt, was intrigued, put it on my wish list for when I had some dough, got “What’s so amazing about grace” first, read it, FINALLY got grace, then went back to my list, and saw IGIT, looked up the chapters, saw universalism, looked it up, found a site, and here I am AGAIN back at Unitarian Universalism.

Which is exactly the sort of thing I think I want.  Because my days on The Path to Perfection are not behind me.  And I simply cannot believe that God condemns anyone PERMANENTLY to hell (not true on the Path either), still believe in successive lives, still struggle with the divinity of Christ, can’t find a church that DOESN’T take the bible literally and inerrantly, and still think we need to have perfection.

I may be wrong here.  The Lord has to lead, but I must say, He’s done an amazing job of leading since I learned to shut up and ask for help. 

It’s not something everyone wants to talk about, but an in-depth look at sin and some of the roads to it are on my mind tonight.

YOUR GREATEST SIN
To be frank, it’s been on my mind for a while because a recent series of events led me to my sin. I believe that while all sin is wrong, to be sure, everyone has their own greatest sin. By “greatest” here I mean the one you’re most likely to give in to, the one you struggle with the most, the one that you have to put on all KINDS of armor to protect yourself against. For example, an alcoholic’s greatest sin, most likely, is drinking. (I say most likely because perhaps that alcoholic is, for example, a hitman. Then I wouldn’t think that drinking is his greatest sin.) By “greatest” here I mean the one you’re most likely to give in to, the one you struggle with the most, the one that you have to put on all KINDS of armor to protect yourself against.  (My sin will remained unnamed. Perhaps when I am healed of it, I will be able to speak of it and help others, but I’m not there yet.)

THREE D’s THAT LEAD TO SIN
While reading “Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World” in 05, I learned the three “d’s” that lead to sin: distraction, discouragement, and doubt, in that order. So let’s cut back to the week before Mother’s day. I was, as usual, distracted – I was working on a project that I had no faith in myself to handle, and the kids were a bit out of control. A family member was required to babysit while I worked.  She lets them do whatever and the girls take advantage and go wild. When I was with them – which was frequently to babysit my babysitter – my mind was on work, and at work my mind was on them. I probably should have had God front and center but I didn’t.

I began to get discouraged about the kids and my parenting. The work I muddled through and accomplished what I needed, but in my really important work, motherhood, my confidence went completely out the window. Their misbehaviour spilled out of the house and I began to feel humiliation and failure as a mom. Perhaps this was fueled by the looming Mother’s day and by visiting my mom (feeling like I failed as a faithful daughter) and a few home catastrophies. This mounted all week so that by Friday, I had complete doubt in my entire ability to be a good person AT ALL.

SIN STEPPED IN
And in that space of doubt, in stepped temptation and out went my will power. The sin was with me for 2 days and I was immersed so deep that I did not know how to climb out. When at last I did, I wasn’t ever sure that my apology could be accepted by God, because I had thought of Him in the midst of it all and didn’t know how to turn back.

Sunday’s sermon was helpful – about how God creates nothing bad, only good, only we can be shaped and reshaped over and over by God into something good AGAIN.

LOOPHOLE OF FORGIVENESS
I’m still having echoes of my sin, so I don’t know if I accomplished anything quite like repentence. In “What’s so amazing about grace”, Yancey talks about the loopholes – loopholes that initially helped drive me away FROM Christianity – about how we can do anything and THINK we will be forgiven in advance.

I’m not saying sin is planned, necessarily, all the time, but sometimes it is, and sometimes it’s ongoing and you just don’t know WHERE to draw the line of forgiveness. And Christianity is all about receiving grace and how ONLY grace can save, but I feel like there’s something missing to the puzzle, that your sin (back to the one sin that personally plagues us) has to be conquered absolutely and without that true repentence cannot be reached.

I don’t know where I go from here. I often wonder if therapy can help me find a way through my sin because it is born of all the ugly things inside me, and none of the good things that I am as a creation of God.  I often wonder how to navigate the stormy sea of sin without drowning because it does seem to me that sin brings you down into a vacuum you cannot see or hear in.  It’s your responsibility for putting yourself there, but what is the RIGHT course of action to get yourself ALL the way out?

Sometimes God is distant, unclear, hazy, far away.

And then like a friend of mine just said, the sky clears and sunshine beams down on you.

GRACE: I FINALLY GET IT
I’ve been reading “What’s So Amazing About Grace” by Philip Yancey and it’s AWESOME. Why didn’t I read this sooner? From the moment I saw it in my not-so-grand Waldenbooks, I knew I needed to get it – it’s been on my wish list at Amazon for a year or more. I’ve learned MORE about forgiveness in just one chapter than a whole lifetime of walking with God.

So I realize it’s after 3PM and I haven’t read my bible yet, although I have read some Yancey, and I’m ALSO reading studies on the Lord’s prayer by Max Lucado. I’m in one of the later chapters, but the selection I was up to was 2 Cor. 12:7-10.

GOD’S GRACE TRUMPS OUR JUSTICE
Without doubt one of my favorite biblical verses is 2 Cor. 12:9. (Paul is at his best when he’s so human about how he’s failing.) Paul is asking God to remove a thorn, a tormentor and God’s reply?

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’”

At the same time, “Follow You Jesus” was playing on my Sirius Spirit station. I love this song, because no matter what conflicts I have, I can DEFINITELY follow his example – whatever his nature, which is surely pure and God-sent. And even if the exact words or meanings got lost in the translations of 2000 years, the faithfully applied principles of Jesus’ teachings still WORK.

And what is odd is that while I have a hard time worshipping Jesus as THE God (I think there is more to it, or something we humans are missing), I asked God if I should follow.

THIS AFTERNOON.

MOMENTS BEFORE READING THIS SCRIPTURE AND HEARING THIS SONG WHILE READING A BOOK ON GRACE.

GRACEFULLY PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER
You may wonder how these things are all related.  Ah, but they are, becaue to follow Jesus to accept the Divine indulgence of grace in the form of forgiveness. Christ’s sacrifice negates our culpability.  Do we need to improve? Yes. Do we need to repetively repent? Absolutely. Make amends? Yup, even with grace we must pay our dues. Strive for perfection? Of course. Why else would it be true that the closer we get to God, the minor infractions suddenly matter, the omissions now matter too, and the mistakes suddenly ARE all our fault, even the accidents?

FORGIVING SUCKS
Why do we need to do this, to still forgive, to still make amends?  Because on this Christian path, we are closer to grace ourselves. We become more like our Creator as we follow this path closely, and we need to be more like Him to rejoin Him.

And forgiving sucks.  Last year, the Lord required me to forgive my sister.  No one had ever hurt me as much, had ever misunderstood the situation as much, had ever been so blind to me – in my opinion, that is.  And yet I had to forgive her to get over my pain.

Don’t let the Dr. Phil’s of the world let you think this is easy: Forgive and get on with your life.  It ISNT’ easy, but it IS necessary for spiritual AND emotional well-being.

But it sucks.  It’s painful.  It’s frustrating.  It feels like injustice.  It feels like surrender.

Ah, but isn’t that what God always requires?  Absolute surrender to His will.

And so while doling out grace is painful, it’s completely required.  We cannot live otherwise – and wouldn’t want to.

I must admit a few things. I’ve been doing some hardcore battle with depression that stepped in to my life, unwanted and unexpected, and did nothing but warrant the writing of a lukewater poem about God who feels far far away.

FAR FAR away.

Needing support and I don’t know where to find. I’m too uncomfortable talking to Christians. Well, not my old pastor but for some reason I’m too embarrassed to speak to him, and I really don’t want the “but it’s in the bible” argument, which is completely circular.

I know I need some fresh resources and faces. Time to look, but I’m not sure where. Lead me, God, you’re the only one who can rescue me.

And right now I need it.

So tonight I was reading more of “Bee Season” and it struck me that this is another book about the search for God. I had NO clue in advance, I thought this would be more about a brainy girl, but there is QUITE a lot of mysticism in the novel. I considered my belief that there are no coincedences and that here and now I’m on a quest and found these 2 books on the same day.

I’ve started to realize, as one person commented, that all religions are one. “Misquoting Jesus” isn’t really challenging my faith, it’s challenging what I’ve learned these last 2 years in my return to Christianity.

And I’ve found that the more I learn, the more I am me. Christianity is the right ticket on many levels, but there is so much I cannot buy, and I do believe it’s because my soul has learned more advanced truths that it cannot deny.

Who was Jesus? I’m closer to thinking that perhaps He was a perfected person, or a perfected being, and separate from God. Still, we can pray to him, respect him and honor his sacrifice. And while I don’t think Christianity is a short cut to God, his life and death did bring those of us who follow closer to the Lord by bringing in the concept of forgiveness (a concept that I believe is WIDELY misunderstood and even abused).

I can’t help it, but deep down I believe:

-there are many paths to God. He created a limitless universe, how can only one road lead to Him?

-there are many lives. We need to really get perfect or close to perfect just to be in His holy presence.

-there was nothing but God and God created everything, therefore He is in everything. I was shocked recently to learn this is considered pantheism in some circles. This explains that “God shaped hole” we all have and our need to fill it. We just want to return to our Source.

-all religions are one – this is a slippery concept because of course there are false teachings, false prophets and falseness in general. But there are universal truths that we can call get to and quite frankly, lately, I’m seeing them EVERYWHERE. This leads me to confirm that God is everywhere, permeating everything, and evil and falsehoods cannot dam up Divine Truth.

-a merciful God would not condemn anyone forever. Yes I do believe in Hell and that it is eternal, but God is beyond eternal…so something lies even after THAT.

Whew! Some of that was hard to write. It’s hard to admit when you’re not what so many others want you to be. I cannot subscribe to the idea that because I’m not digesting Christ=God that I will be condemned eternally and ever to hell. That’s just not logical or merciful.

THE “ANGRY” JESUS
I have been reading, as mentioned, “Misquoting Jesus”. This is actually a kind of hurtful book in a way. I have never expected the Bible to be verbatim, it HAS been nearly 2000 years since most of it was written, that wouldn’t be possible. But some things I read disturbed me, for example, the section about “the angry Jesus”, which deals with a changed line from the gospels about how he was angry at a leper he healed – changed to “filled with compassion”.

I started to get bothered by this, because honestly, I cannot model an angry Jesus. And there WAS an angry Jesus, I can only claim that his anger was righteous, because whatever else I may be conflicted about, I do believe he was born perfect. As for me, I am LIGHTYEARS away from being able to only be righteously angry, so I cannot really touch that one.

THE MESSAGE MATTERS
It was at this point that a lightbulb went off and this disheartening book suddenly revealed a new truth. It is not the fact of the events of 2000 years ago SO MUCH as what they teach us. And while God perhaps would not intervene* with a Bible that ended up more humanly than divinely inspired, I cannot believe that He would let Christians end badly because of they *possibly* worship a man and not a God, not if they are pure of heart.

THE CHOICE MATTERS TOO
Which leads me to THIS conclusion: perhaps faith IS a choice. Because right now what I want is to be a Christian, wholly and totally. And following the Jesus of MY choice, the righteous man who demonstrated something extraordinary in his sacrifice is bringing peace, clarity, calmness, and frankly, joy into my life.

When I get detracted from that path, I lose all that and so much more.

JESUS AND HIS HUMANITY
What is amusing to me is that when I read the next part in the book about how Jesus didn’t suffer by the grace of God, but that the original text much more likely read “apart from God”…now THAT made more sense. Because for the sacrifice to be valid, he had to be apart from God – alone, scared, shamed, in agony – just like every other person who got crucified or who suffered in any way on this earth. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me, in the sense of I can FINALLY see Jesus as completely human AND completely divine. (I still don’t see him on equal footing with God, and see some evidence of that even in our current Bible, but that’s a whole other post.)

So where does this leave me?  I think I am going to finish that book and buy a few recommended reads on grace (a concept the REALLY boggles my mind!)  For now, I’m going to be content where I am and stop for a little bit digging and digging AND DIGGING.  I will go back to excavating the Real Truth I’m sure at some point, but for now, I’m just going to enjoy my readings and get back to church tomorrow, to worship my one true God.
*NOTE: It’s my opinion that God CANNOT interfere that much, or free will has no meaning. Where can/does He draw that line? No one can say, but there must be enough free will for our choice to follow Him completely matters utterly.

I *was* going to post on this thought that I had while watching one of the 100s of shows last night about Don Imus – about perhaps the outrage is so great because society, or at least a larger part of it, is becoming more civilized, more spiritual, more socially conscious. Maybe we’re improving.

And then today happened.

It was a day of bad news. First, about a dear friend and her brand new baby. Then about a new, kind acquaintance with a tragic situation. And then of course the massacre of Virginia Tech.

I got on this “need to know” mission this afternoon, following the news stories for a little while, because this incident hurt me badly. Charles Gibson did a mini-piece about how universities are our sanctuaries, and I realized that was part of it.

College for me – a woman who’s never finished her undergrad degree and dreams of having a master’s – has always been a kind of haven. It was the first place I was popular in my youth. It was fun, it was intellectual, it was the first place I learned the independence and freedom I craved since I was a small child.

It was like a really great church sanctuary. I attended, in my college on-again-off-again career, 5 different colleges, each of them I loved for a different reason. Classrooms were ok, but libraries and professor’s offices were heaven. Even the caf, with its smell of nasty over-cooked processed meats, was comforting. I loved to stroll my different campuses, try to find the pools and think about learning to swim, walking the paths, finding accessible rooftops.

And now that’s gone.

But now, when I consider the insecurity and danger in this world around us, where we least expected, when I think about my friend, those traumatized parents of the deceased students, the trials of my new acquaintance, when I add in terrorists and pandemics and poverty and on  and on, my spine is straight, my heart touched but in place, and my peace still whole. I am thankful I was not affected, but I am more thankful that I have a good sturdy God standing behind me. And where once I would have needed to fall backwards, repeatedly, into His Arms on a day like this, today I can turn to Him and smile that He’s got my back.

And I know that’s true even on those days when the terrible things happen to me.

May you be safe, dear reader, and remember to pray for all those parents who lost their promising, beautiful, bright young children, because their hearts will never be the same again.

peace.