Struggle

...Funny how those three little dots can have so much meaning.  For me they evidence my thoughts on life, God, Church, fill in the blanks.

It's been a little over 8 weeks, I have been told I need to get over it, that I choose where I am, that depression is not of God.. that "the enemy" is attacking...bla bla bla, dot. dot. dot.

For the record. I used to say the same things, I used to think that God was intimately involved in the daily life of the people he created, the people that follow him, that when we read he orders our steps, it actually means there's a plan and path that is set out for us and all we have to do is "read the map" the map being the Bible.

More and more I am leaning more toward a deist view of God.  God exists, don't get me wrong, but I am increasingly coming to the conclusion, at least for me personally we are set down into this world and then he kinda walks away...things like the Big Bang theory shouldn't be seen as a lack of belief in God, rather as God creating through word, deed, volition, and then watching to see what happens. Feelings of being called may come from God or they may come from the fact that we are created in the image of God and as such find our worth in doing something beyond our own human capacity for survival and the pursuit of happiness.   The degree to which we "tap into" the image we were created in then determines the vocation we choose.

I am fully aware that the above paragraph is going to further alienate me from the people I grew up with.  I understand that for many of them as it was for me, this need to have God involved in an intimate level with their activities of daily living is life and breath and faith to them.  If at any moment they begin to doubt, to question, to wonder, they look for and find a space, usually their church or small group, or family members that will offer the encouragement that lets them quickly slip back into the Jesus Loves me this I know type of faith that is so much easier to live in, but for me at least has become hollow and meaningless.  We choose the call, we choose the work, we choose the fight, or we don't.  God watches, God sends the butterfly to flap it's wings at times, but ultimately it falls to us to do what it takes to fulfill the calling we FEEL is placed on our lives.

Which brings me to where I am now..

There's a much better song that fits where I am but sometimes we realize that it's better to edit...

As it stands now I have been gone from the Church for two and a half months, it has not gotten better, I have not gotten better.  People talk about being dead inside, and while there have been times in my life where I have understood this feeling to some extent, I am not sure I have ever lived in it as much as or as acutely as I am at this point. I am so angry at the people involved but no where near as angry as I am at myself. We gave a lot, and before you say but Jesus gave more please don't this is not news to me.

We are hurting, I am hurting, we are not going to see family because the leadership of both the church and conference decided that they didn't need to help though a very trying time financially.  Yes I am working but Joyce had to take 8 weeks off for surgery.  Oh well deal with it, seems to be the take away. I have never hated anyone in my life, yet that is where I find myself, hating others, hating myself, angry at God beyond imagining, and still so many people want to tell me that God cares, that God sees, that God knows that God is ordering our path and steps, to which I reply...then God can stop doing so.  God can go spend time with someone else for a while.

If anything this has not served as a push me to my knees time as much as it has to a push me away because of all the times I have fallen to my knees the Heavens have rung hollow.  People will point out when Joyce was ill...I would point out there was no reason for it, people will say but she survived cancer, to which I say she never should have had to deal with Cancer.  I know that's silly, I know all the answers but for me I yes I can't do it any more.  I can't listen to God cares platitudes, I can' hear you the evangelical right wing christian friend from my past tell me again that I must have done something or that the trying of my faith works patience, or that God has something on the other side that is huge and important and wait to see what he does.

I don't want God to do anything else...

Merry Christmas.