sometimes intense heartbreaking emotions fly at me and run me through the ringer completely out of the blue. it always leaves me breathless and dizzy. i had one of those mind boggling afternoons on sunday. i can't, so i won't, attempt to explain it. but i was talking on the phone with a dear friend, and suddenly i was weeping. and i mean weeping. and i felt almost panicky at the immense nature of the flood, worrying that beneath it all something damlike broke inside of me and would never be fixed. and i muttered loudly through my tears, "what's wrong with me?!" and then i found myself half-laughing because my friend said she was wondering the exact same thing, but perhaps with a different spin on it. it may have been the kind words she was saying to me of the sweet meeting we had unexpectedly 8 years ago. or it may have been my ever-increasing awareness that i will soon be 29, and i have so many desires left unmet...we spoke of the balance between contentment and desire which i find impossible to master (perhaps that's for a later post).
i've been trying to be more honest with myself lately. and in discovering the truth beneath what seeming beliefs i have built up, declaring them as my own, i discover that really i have a pretty shakey foundation afoot. and then i try to tell the God of the Universe about it. and the very act can feel false as i declare i don't have faith. i don't believe you! (do i dare to yell it?) but i know that healing comes by being honest and not just with myself either, in secret. that's only where it has to start. my friend has been helping me to see that unbelief is the core of all sin. unbelief? sin? these are words i'm not so used to using as i've been in some communities that avoid these taboo words out of a reaction to a pained past with the church. (no judgment here, just statement.) so hearing them again and even using them makes me a bit squirmish, but i think it's right. it's time. and i am daring to say them to my current community. asking for honest discussion about sin to happen between us. let me not be so reactionary and so determined to fight for social justice that i let the rest of who i've been called to be fall asleep, grow lazy, be kicked to the curb and ignored. i can only truly do what i am passionate about when i am truly being who i am made to be.
i prayed this morning, "i want to be a woman of deep faith whose actions and words flow from that solid foundation." i want to change the world through the yuck of me lessened that goodness of God as more... and more.
"i believe! oh Lord help my unbelief!"
do any of you struggle with unbelief? how do you dig down to the the bare-boned truth? then what do you do with it all?
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Of course we do! Or at least I know I do. I think there are levels of belief in our lives and if we are following hard after the Lord in a true and real way, that the Lord will lead us into deeper belief when we need to. I am afraid to put "all my weight" on the Lord for fear of disappointment. So this begs the question, Why is my God a disappointing one? Is it in His nature or did I put it there? Obviously my God is too small. And so is my imagination. I also need a bigger heart to take more of Him in. Like Augustine wrote in his Confessions: My soul is like a house, smnall for you to enter, but I pray you to enlarge it. It is in ruins, but I ask you to remake it. It contains much that you will not be pleased to see: this I know and do not hide. But who is to rid it of these things? There is no one but you . . . " Book 1 Chapter 5
ReplyDeletecrazy, this is the 3rd blog i've read today dealing with unbelief. you, phil, and julia bloom. (juliabloom.wordpress.com) - check hers out, it's great.
ReplyDeleteanyway, me too!!! glad you and tammy have re-connected. she's a goody. love you lizzie. i wish i could lighten your load. know that you are loved and that the questions mean that you care deeply, and He more than anyone else knows that. i miss you. sarah