July 21, 2010

• {it doesn’t always go that way}
  
  It was almost a year ago now. But I remember it as if it just happened.
  I can see where I was standing on the church parking lot. What I was wearing.
  I can hear my friends voice as it rises higher and higher in an excited tone.
  The plastered smile on my face while nodding my head.
  The deliberate concentration to listen.
  The excited tone I tried to match to hers.
  And the whole time fighting an incredible urge to stick my fingers in my ears and yell, “shut up.shut up. shut up!!”
  
  Instead.
  Smiling.
  Nodding.
  Listening.
   
  “It was just amazing, Amber!!! I mean at the very last minute God came through, just like He always does. And not only did He answer our prayers He went above and beyond by…..”
  
  My mind blurred somewhere at that point, because I don’t recall exactly what all the “bonus” parts were. But I recall getting in the van a few minutes later, turning my face to the window so my husband wouldn’t see the hot tears escaping the corners of my eyes. I brushed at them angrily. I didn’t want to feel this way. I didn’t like it. I knew I was better than this, or should be. I knew I was stronger than that, or should be. I knew it wasn’t right. Wasn’t “the Christian thing to do”….
  
  at the moment, though. I really didn’t care.
  yeah. I’m super mature that way!
  I know life’s not all about me – but I sure as heck wish it were at times.
  
  My struggle was while I was standing listening to my friends awesome answer to prayer, I was mentally reciting off my list of unanswered ones! {and seemingly within the very same week!}

  “God came through, just like He always does….” No. I couldn’t say that He had for me.
  
  These weren’t things like not missing Pottery Barn’s 75% off sale. Or that it wouldn’t rain on the day we were going to the zoo…
  these were things like, our electric bill is due and we don’t have the money. The deadline came and went and now we’re sitting in the dark.
  It wasn’t a prayer request that God would provide a way for us to go to Walt Disney World – it was prayer that God would provide where our next paycheck was coming from!
  
  I came to a point in my life of not wanting to pray. Feeling there was no need.
  Because God’s will was going to happen regardless, right?
  And for some reason His will for me wasn’t to have electric or food or gas for my car, and that was fine.
  But I wasn’t going to “set myself up” emotionally to once again be let down. so.. I just wasn’t going to ask.
  
  The scar tissue of disappointment had built a thick barrier around my heart.
  
  Yes. Yes. I know that God only, always does what is best for us.
  That we don’t see the whole picture.
  That trials purify and suffering draws us closer to Him.
  …..yaddayaddayadda…..
  No one could tell me anything I didn’t already know.
  I’ve heard it a million times.
  It was so engrained into me.
  Beaten in my head. And yes, that was it – it wasn’t in my heart.
  I knew that too. Knew that most of all.
  But truth was.. I wasn’t sure how to get it there.
  Squeezing your fists really hard and shutting your eyes tight while you say over and over, “I will trust you. I will trust you. I will trust you.” doesn’t exactly make it magically be absorbed into your heart. No matter how much you know that it needs to be. Want it to be. Wish it was. Wish it were. Wish you could be the modern Elisabeth Elliot of your day. That kind of faith.
  
  Instead. there’s a deadness. a hopelessness. a cynicism. even bitterness.
  You feel them suffocating your soul, and disillusionment sets in that this wasn’t the path you signed up for.
  Flipping through the road map going, “I know there’s a path that’s smoother. One with fewer rocks and sharp turns. One marked – EASY.”
  And you find yourself looking over at sister so&so who not only apparently has a less difficult journey, but she’s skipping along praising Jesus for her 100 dollar angora sweater she got for 25!!!!
  
  and before anyone starts composing a private message in their head to me about minimizing God answering the smallest of requests….
  I know He does {my ring}. I’m glad He does.
  
  but… I’ve just been thinking since my last post that I also know what it’s like to read something like that and think,
  “gee. that’s good for you, Amber. but I’m not exactly feeling that God is coming through for me lately.”
  
  You’re standing there with that foreclosure notice in your hand.
  That grocery bill that was more than you could afford.
  That negative pregnancy test on the sink.
  {this one especially near my heart since i was there not so long ago myself- “The English language lacks the words “to mourn an absence.” For the loss of someone we have all manner of words and phrases, some helpful, some not. Still, we are conditioned to say something. But for the absence, for someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like silent, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?”} 
  Or that pregnancy you’ve prayed so long for end in miscarriage.
  That sick child you thought God would heal, now buried. 
  The look of disappointment on your son’s face when you tell him there’s no money to play football this year.
  Those lonely nights while your husband is working that second job.
  Or maybe no internet service to even read something like this because it’s been shut off from not paying the bill!!
  
  And I would like to say that HERE is my great insight from that dark time in my life. of feeling God was a thousand miles away and didn’t care. HERE is what I learned. HERE is what I now see. and HERE is what you can do too.
  
  but no. I don’t really have a here.here.here&here.
  there are some things that I will never understand.
  some prayers that I will never get why God didn’t answer…
  circumstances left the same.
  people left unchanged.
  “needs” that went unmet.
  and faith that wavered and weakened.
  
  Times that came and went where I was left looking up like, “God?”
  Reminding Him how much glory He just missed out on if only He would have answered.
  Feeling confused by Him. let down. even hurt.
  
  Some people purse their lips and scold… “Now. Now.. be careful. God is God and you cannot humanize Him.”
  
  Yes. I know that God cannot be humanized – but I cannot stop viewing Him from my very human perspective.
  
  If anything… those dark times of the soul have taught – no, that’s not really the right word because I feel I still haven’t quite learned it yet. But rather, shown me that God is okay with my humanness. He is never surprised by my response. Baffled by my questions. Confused by my doubts. Or exasperated at my anger. He knows me. He understands where I’m at. He’s not standing there impatiently taping His foot and drumming His fingers. Even in those times when that 3 yr old inside me comes out in all her fit throwin glory that things aren’t going my way… even then, I can picture Him just kinda sitting down next to me. waiting. silent. 

  … and when all the kicking and screaming finally stops He looks at me and smiles. “Are you done now?”
  Then He opens up His arms extra wide and lets me run in.

  It doesn’t mean the answers immediately come.
  or that they come how I want them to, or think they should.
  Or that I suddenly feel all cool with everything.

  But there is this surprisingly, unexplainable….
  
  quiet.

  the kind of quiet that doesn’t have anything to do with what is happening externally.
  
  and no, it doesn’t change your circumstances. but somehow it changes your heart.

  __________*
    
  
  So in writing this I wanted those of you out there who might be going through a time of doubt or darkness and feeling God is so far away and doesn’t care to know very simply on this rainy afternoon here in Ohio, from a nobody important sort of person that I’ve been there too. That regardless of how much you might try to minimize what you’re feeling or going through – your pain is just that. yours. And it stinkin hurts no matter how you try to slice, dice, spiritualize, or reason it away.

  You’re not alone in your journey. Trust me.

  but most of all – Trust Him.

  “The point of Christianity isn’t to learn alot of truths so you don’t need God anymore. We don’t learn about God in the abstract. We are drawn into His life.”     

  
  ¸.·´¸.·¨) ¸.·¨)
  (¸.·´ (¸.·´ (¸.·¨¯`♥ amber  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 6:34 pm
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