wrestle

i cannot find God.

i'm trying...quite desperately. i've even demanded that he show up...but...nothing.

it's definitely not like the game that ken, rob bell, and others have described. this is not hide and seek. i am not catching glimpses of God as he runs around the next corner. i'm not even sure i have the rules to this game right...or that i know there's anyone else playing.

i don't know what this means for me. i don't know how long to wait.
i heard about ken's sermon last sunday. how he asked everyone to draw what they thought God looked like or their version of God, or something like that. it got me thinking...what in the world would i have put? i don't think i could have...
what did others draw? what do they see? a man? a big heart? glue?

this is hard to talk about. i don't really know how to even form it into words though i've been thinking about it constantly.

ryan and i talked about jesus the other night.
for me, i've thought of 'coming to jesus' or the 'pathway to heaven' as following his example. i've believed that all people...whether they know it or not...have a chance to get into heaven. that they don't necessarily have to accept jesus to be granted entrance through those pearly gates, they just have to live the life he showed us. i want to think Gandhi got it. i want to think that my agnostic friends that have no idea what they believe yet have better hearts than most christians will get in. i want to believe that when j.c. said 'way, truth, and life' he was a lot more inclusive than we tend to think, and that he was more concerned with our way of life than our belief in him.

but ryan made a good point and i'm afraid i'll do a terrible job of restating it....but, what's the point in simply following an example? where's the relationship in that? he asked me what it would be like to follow ken's example...though i find it to be good and honest...without ever having known him. without having a relationship...without loving him.
without feeling his love.

there's something cold about just wanting to follow an example. there has to be more.

this is also a hard subject for me: karen once posed a question about what God's love feels like. i'm with her...i've felt love through other people around me, but is that the best example? i want to feel the love of God...can someone draw that for me? i'd like to see a picture of it.

i want to see. i need to see.
because i don't, and that worries me.

i'm still looking around in my peripheral vision for God. maybe ryan is right and maybe 99.9% of the population really haven't experienced a relationship with God.
i've been good at talking about it and vomiting back up what others told me a relationship with God should look like...but isn't it ironic that i should be at such a place?
i want to talk with God and not feel like i'm talking to myself.

i want to sing worship songs and really mean it.
i want to hear him...in my heart or in my ears.
is this just me needing proof? has my doubt gone too far? because i've scared myself. i've come to a place i never thought i'd be....i'm wondering where God is.

"on my worst nights i lay in bed feeling like a single parent unable to sleep because i knew i did not have enough love in me to go around. God was the boundless lover, but for many people God was the parent who had left.

they still read about him in the bible and sang about him in hymns.

they still believed in his reality, which made it even harder to accept his apparent lack of interest in them.

they waited for messages from him that did not arrive.

they prepared their hearts for meetings that never happened.

they listened to other christians speak as if God showed up every night for supper, leaving them to wonder what they had done wrong to make God go off and start another family...

...we were engaged in a more ancient drama, wrestling far more primitive fears.

because i was wedded to the One who was gone, i stood in for him.

i took many of the blows intended for him and received much of the adulation.

i kept old stories about him alive and told some new ones as proof of his ongoing vitality.

i blessed, fed, and forgave the children in his name, reassuring them that their fears were ungrounded and hopes well placed.

the unspoken deal, i think, was that as long as i did this, no one would openly question God's love or existence. as long as i filled in, no one would ask where God was or why he was not more attentive."

-leaving church, bb taylor

i've never had a parent leave. i've had unconditional love that most kids never get.

right now as i nanny for 2 1/2 weeks i've learned a lot of what she's talking about.

i'm exhausted...especially of covering for the absent parents.

i'm tired of people telling me stories in his absence.

i'm tired of telling them too.

i'm tired of wrestling with those primitive fears in an ancient drama.

i'm just....tired.