On a slightly more serious note...

In Christianese, there's a phrase people say to those who are struggling with something. If I have a problem, particularly a lot of worries, the phrase someone would say to me is, "Lay it down," followed by some designated location for such a struggle, such as at the foot of the Cross, at the feet of Jesus, at the throne of God, and so on and so forth. A similar concept would be the jujitsu term, "sutemi." It is an abandonment of the self, letting things go so that something better can happen.

A while back, I was struggling with something. It was a constant thing for me, every week, I would "lay it down" and ask God to take the pain away. And every Sunday (and a lot of nights in bed), crying and giving everything over to God was somehow relieving to me. And then I noticed that a few hours after all that happened, the pain would come rushing back like a boomerang and hit me in the face.

So I stopped all that, and I decided that if that crap wasn't going to stay there at God's feet then what was the point of wasting all those tears and all that time to lay it down there? For a long time I had a quite uneventful church life. It was awesome. I won't say I was "mad" at God, because I wasn't exactly mad but there were things I didn't understand and didn't have the energy to try to work it out. Kind of a lover's quarrel or something. I stayed away from church emotionally and it was great. I didn't have to deal with the changes our church went through, I didn't have to deal with the family with the crazy kids, and I didn't have to worship a God who couldn't hold onto my problems for me. I was there physically but my mind was blank. I went to the Caribbean while my body went to church.

Today though, we had a different speaker than usual, one of the elders, and the father of an elementary-school classmate of mine. The sermon was about how God is always trying to speak to us, whether we listen or not. I started thinking about some of the things I've been reading here and there that may have been God talking, if I'd been listening.

I read something just last night, that suggested maybe instead of seeing God as the Author who controls the whole story, maybe we should see God as the main character. The Gospel of John starts out with "In the beginning" just like Genesis. John takes it farther back than the beginning of the world. John talks about intimacy within the Trinity. The whole thing, then, might be about God, not us. Maybe we're just supporting actors, the ones God interacts with.

As I sat there, listening to my friend's dad preach, I was wondering what it is that God could be saying to me. I wondered why I would try to listen when I felt like He let me down, and all of a sudden a thought popped into my head. "Why do you think God let that pain come back and haunt you all those times?" I hadn't really tried to figure it out. Maybe there's a reason. Could it be that by remaining in pain caused by a certain person it will keep the topic fresh in my mind and will keep me praying for that person? Could it be that person really needs prayers right now? Could a highly talented author who once wrote "prayer gives strength to the angels to fight your demons for you" have been dead-on accurate?

As if to confirm what I was thinking, I heard a song on the radio today that had the lyrics "why would You ruin my life to show Your love?" and I thought... y'know, that's kinda how I feel. Its like the country song, "Jesus loves you, I don't." Just because I can't bring myself to care about this person anymore is no reason God doesn't care about them and its no reason I should stop praying for them; its no reason to deprive that person's angels of the strength to fight the demons in their life.

Soo... to sum things up... God never stopped talking to me, I stopped listening, and started again today. It doesn't mean everything's alright with us again, it doesn't mean I got all my questions answered or even that I understand in plain English what God's saying to me. But its a step in the right direction. Or A direction, anyway. Better than standing in the middle of the road with an upside-down map and a Polaroid camera.

Ok thats all.