Consumed: Part II

"As I unhappily sat in her apartment, she told me that I wasn’t really a Christian because I didn’t really trust God and that I was unhappy because I wasn’t living a life having fun in sin or really trusting God... so I was camped out in purgatory, not having any fun and that’s why my life sucked.  I thought she had some nerve to tell me all of these things; she didn’t spend time with me, she didn’t know me, she didn’t care about me.  She sucked as far as I could tell and could take her “camping out at the end of the pier” story somewhere else.  She didn’t know me. 

God came in the room then and tore my life apart.  He came in right as I was about to lay a passive aggressive guilt trip on Laura.  He came in like a wrecking ball, smashing my life to pieces just as I was clearly missing the point about all Laura/God was saying.  I remember not wanting God.  I remember fighting for control over my life and failing.  I was no match, obviously, and I think God only let me struggle with Him for the few seconds that I did because He knows that I like to wrestle.  My world was crushed, my life was broken.  I was naked and vulnerable before Him because that was what He demanded.  And then I was done. 

Everything changed even though nothing did.  I was joyful, which was a big deal for me at the time.  It was like a veil was lifted that had been covering my eyes my whole life.  I understood that Bethel College was full of people who found in God only the comfortable and gentle things, perhaps because that was what they needed at the time, but perhaps because that’s all they could accept from Him.  And, I understood that I wasn’t wrong for not knowing God that way. 

I think the important thing was that I realized that God did exist and loved me.  I realized that He is not a prescription that treats every person the same way and I realized that year, that God does not approach me gently.  I would look around in Chapel and see my peers so filled and exhilarated by the worship music we were singing and not get it.  I didn’t understand what people were talking about when they would describe their inner peace after they had read the Bible or spent time in prayer.  I didn’t understand how God came to them and made them feel safe and comfortable.  That year I only understood that my life was not what it should be.  I was wrong and my life was wrong; I felt it in every fiber of my being.  And, every time I tried to approach God in the way that was prescribed to me, in the way that made God out to be a big teddy bear or a comfortable blanket, I felt empty and alone. 

I think what I was seeing was that men; people, humans in general, have tried to create a god that suits them.  Man’s god.  I think people do that.  It can be easier.  But, God isn’t really there.  And, for me at least, God isn’t gentle.  He is too big to ignore; like a mountain bearing down on my soul.  And, His mercy is too complete to swallow in one gulp.  It is terrible, His love for me.  I have never felt good enough and perhaps that is the reason why I ran and cut and hid and cried."

(To be continued. See "Consumed" Part III tomorrow.)

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