Sitting here at my computer in my little room at my apartment, I am on the verge of tears. I can’t understand what God is trying to do. Up until recently, I have been able to see God’s hand at work in pretty much every aspect of my life and I have been growing in leaps and bounds in my relationship with Him. That has recently changed. Right now, I am sitting, wallowing in the pain of my past life (I use that term loosely) and can’t understand what God is trying to do through this, if anything at all.
Two weeks ago at Joshua House, Jonathan Rue was speaking on the topic of trusting in God even when we don’t agree with him. This message was a very good one, and kept my attention very well, but during the sermon something happened that I didn’t expect at all. Jonathan made some off-hand comments during his message that acted as trigger points for me. Although I can’t remember exactly what they were, I do know that the questions pertained to questioning God’s motives and reasoning during hard situations in our lives. Like I said, they acted as “trigger points:” I heard those questions and immediately became very, very angry. All my old feelings about my mom’s death that had been buried in my soul for years, resurfaced in one angry, foul swoop. I reverted to my old ways, yelling at God in my head, questioning his reasoning behind “killing” my mom, once again screaming at his audacity for taking my mother away. The funny thing was, that while this was happening, I felt like I was living two people’s lives at the same time: my old one that was very hurt and bitter, and my new one which knew not to be angry at God or at my mom, which knew that I had already dealt with these questions and accepted the not-knowing. It was, in short, extremely confusing.
I later talked with a friend and my dad about what happened and they both agreed that either I was being spiritually attacked, or that God was trying to break through to me and let me know that it was time that I really, honestly dealt with my buried feelings of anger and hurt before I could move forward in my relationship with Him. I almost hoped it was the former, not the latter, because that way I could rebuke it and move on, not having to dig up old feelings that I believed I had already dealt with and moved on from.
Two weeks past and nothing happened. I sort of forgot about it. Then this morning I went to church. Mistake….or God?
This morning, Rich preached on anger. How ironic. During the sermon, I once again had the same feelings that I did two weeks prior, and now God had my attention. What did he want from me? I felt like I should go up and get prayer at the end of the service, but once again, I stayed in my seat. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I wonder about me sometimes.
After talking to friend tonight about this morning, I realized something. I think that God is honestly, trying to get my attention and tell me that its time I deal with this. I think that maybe I buried my feelings and grew up around them, hiding them and forgetting all about them, believing a lie that I had dealt with them, and now it was time to really deal with them.
I realized that the reason I did not go up for prayer was because of pride. After my mom passed away, I became fully the “big sister” for my little sis. I learned to buck up and take whatever the world handed me, take it for the team, that I didn’t need and couldn’t rely on anyone else. I became so consumed within myself that I believed it was wrong to lean on anyone else, and therefore found it really difficult to trust anyone else with my problems. I believed that by trying to lean on other people, I was an annoyance, and so I leaned on myself…but wait, you can’t lean on yourself. You fall over. Which is exactly what God is teaching me. The Christian life is not designed to be lived by yourself. You need others, you need community. I however, didn’t believe that and stuck God in the box that I had lumped everyone else in. I thought that by going up and getting prayer, I was appearing weak and vulnerable to others, and when your mask is impenetrable strength for yourself and for everyone else, appearing weak is the last thing you want to look like.
I’m a daddy’s girl and I’ll never forget something my dad told me when I was growing up. He said, “I’m so proud of you for not using your mom’s death as a crutch.” That statement eats away at me. If you only knew, Dad, if you only knew.
Something a friend told me tonight at dinner was this: “You’re going through surgery. Surgery sucks. It hurts. But what God is doing is taking out all the old broken parts and replacing them with new parts. Let him fix you.”
I’m trying. But pain hurts. Hurts bad. I feel like I’m being dragged through the mud of my previous life. Hopefully God will reveal his plan soon and let me know what he wants to do with me through this, because I wish I could just get back to growing happily. Not painfully.
