After I finished telling him everything that I felt and everything wrong with me, he looked at me and for the first time in my entire life, I felt like someone saw me. Actually saw me. And he said, "I don't "get" it. But you have a God who doesn't just hear you, but understands everything you're saying."
Truthfully, I just wanted a prescription to make my anxiety more manageable.
My relationship with God and religion and church and Christ has been everything but easy. I don't always "get" the way in which things work and the absence of concrete answers for a girl who thrives on solid facts leaves me struggling. Faith is a concept I just don't understand.
When I was a second semester freshmen in college, brand new at Mizzou, I had a girl sit across from me at lunch and laugh as I told her a story about growing up in the church I did, as she said, "I would have had no idea you've ever even set foot in a church." As an 18 year old, confused college student, the very thought of christianity couldn't have been farther from my mind. I was lost and I had no idea. The memory, today, nearly a decade later, leaves me cringing. I have spent years running away from that part of my life, simply because it is painful to admit that I have failed and I have missed out on what a testimony it would have been, back then, to live as a Christian in a not so Christian friendly college world. If I stay in that place though, I give more power to the sin and allow those thoughts of inadequacy and the lack of self worth to creep in.
It's a place I cannot live anymore.
As a child, I was the happy kid. The kid who laughed at all the wrong times, and talked too much in the back of the classroom. I was the kid who's parents shook their heads in wonder as I danced across church pews and hung off tree limbs. I laughed, had this odd sense of humor, and told inappropriate jokes that I overheard adults laughing over. I didn't match my socks or my clothes for that matter, and kept everyone literally on their toes from the moment I said my first word. I never paid attention, never followed the rules, and I hardly ever existed in the same world as everyone around me. I had a zest for life and I believed anything I wanted was achievable. Anything I wanted was within reach. Anything I wanted was mine as long as I chased after it.
Most importantly though, I was a child who grew up on faith. I believed in all things church, Wednesday night dinners, and youth group shenanigans. I believed in laser tag, in bowling on Saturday nights, and in reading last week's passage of scripture as fast as possible in the five minutes before Sunday School began. I believed in bringing casserole dishes to every gathering, picking out perfect bible covers, and in closing your eyes before meals as deacons prayed over food. I believed wholeheartedly that if a couple people sat around a table, somehow, supernaturally, God would also appear too. I believed in memorizing the 10 commandments, however, I lacked all understanding of what it actually meant to follow them. I believed in mouthing the words to every hymn and to smile and wave and hug all the little old ladies who sat on the back pew. I believed in church and having relationships with the people who occupied the member list, but somehow in the midst of all of this believing, I failed to create a relationship with the God who created me and who was the reason for religion in the first place.
Truthfully though, looking back, I chose not to form that relationship. I made a choice, unintentionally, even from a young age. I didn't grasp the importance. I didn't understand the privilege. I didn't understand the need for God in my perfect world as a child.
As a child, and even young adult, my world just wasn't in need of the saving grace of God and the hope I could only find in Him.
As I've gotten older, I could list every detail of my life where something didn't go as planned, or every opportunity that failed, or every disappointment, heartbreak, and moment that made my heart drop... but my feelings on life can all be summed up in one easy sentence without going into gruesome details; Simply, this life has been really hard to live.
So many times even just scrolling through Facebook or casually in conversations, the same theme is brought up time and time again. Why do bad things happen? I've asked myself that same question a hundred times. Whenever I get sick or hurt or upset, I constantly think, "Why me?" Why did this happen to me? Why did I get that cold during the busiest week of my life? Why did I fail that test in grad school that would've opened doors for me? Why did I date that guy, or fall in love with this guy, or why was I rejected by those friends? Why did I lose my job, a job that I was so passionate about, one that I was good at? Why did I make that mistake, walk away from that opportunity, or why was I the one laying awake crying over something that meant nothing to everyone around me? Why me? Why was I asked to live this life, to have this story, and to be the one girl who desperately searched for answers, only to come up empty handed? Did God not promise that whoever searches for Him would find Him? Why am I not finding Him when I am looking for the very thing he claims to give out freely?
Why me?
As I rolled over the passage in the Bible that my doctor handed me this last week, it was as if my questions that I have been asking over and over and over again were being listed out before me. Why are bad things continuously happening? As a child, I gave my life to Christ. As a teenager, I gave my life again. As a young adult, I gave my life back to Him time and time and time again. But the problem is that my life has been God's since I was born and since the first time I gave him my heart, but I have failed time and time again to live my life in that freedom I received. See, I was giving him my past, but not anything more. Each time, I handed over everything that I had done and thought and sinned, but I refused to give him my future and my plans and my life that I was going to have.
Why did all these bad things happen to me?
As a young adult on my own, I walked out of the church that I grew up in, lacking a foundation to stand on, held my breath, hoped for the best, and walked away completely without any form of faith grounding me to the childhood I lived inside the church walls. It was a moment, just like all the others, where I made a choice saying that my life was mine. It belonged to me. Me. It was mine. No one else, and sure as hell not, the God of the Universe who knows my name and created the hairs on my head. He was not going to have a say. How can I expect God to shield me from everything around me, when I was the one shielding Him the entire time from truly knowing me?
What was I thinking?
You see, it's simple. I wanted God to save me, but I didn't want Him. I wanted Him to get me out of all of the tough situations, to reach down and make the hurt stop and to see me sitting on the kitchen floor, but I didn't want Him to stick around afterwards. I searched for God, but I came up empty handed, because it wasn't what I was searching for that was failing me, it was how and where I was searching. I searched in people, in guys, in relationships, in fancy clothes and perfect nails, and on social media, pinterest, and twitter. I searched everywhere that I could find, even at the bottom of a bottle, but somehow I could never find Him... and all of that hurt convinced me that I must not be worthy of knowing the God everyone else claims to worship so easily. so freely. so genuinely.
How did I get here?
This life has been really hard to live. Hard. Difficult. Trying. Exhausting.
Because even while I was looking in all the wrong places, I knew I was intentionally moving one step at a time further away. I smiled and prayed and posted fancy scriptures, I pinned quotes that sang about the grace I wanted to appear to know, but my heart was turned so far away that even the depth of grace couldn't be felt. I was intentionally choosing my life, the plans that I had, the goals that I wanted, and the dreams I could barely see.
You see, I didn't want God. I didn't want a life that had God in it. Truly in it. I didn't want Him. I didn't want His grace or mercy or hope...
You see, I wanted to be my own savior.
But, I am not. I am not. I cannot save myself. I cannot carry on with a life, no matter how much I wanted it, without the God of this universe in it.
I can't do it anymore.
Today, at this point, I have no where else to look because I found Him in a tiny little office room with the answers I craved scribbled across a note simply because a doctor cared enough to realize that I wasn't just searching for a prescription to feel better, but I was searching for more to life. I was searching for a way to crawl back to the God of the church I grew up in, the God of the stories I heard as a child, and the God who was supernaturally somehow there when two or more were gathered.
There is hope.
Thank you God for second and third and one hundred and ninety chances. Thank you for grace, for hope, for life, and for doctors who know You and see me and puts it all aside to give the answer You have been trying to give me all along.
You.
You are the answer.
