Bitterness

Bitterness?  How can i be struggling with bitterness just a few days after experiencing such joy & passion?  Lord knows, i must just be seriously twisted.

I "freaked" out about an expense today - Highly Stressed.  It zapped every molecule of energy within me. 

 

 But what i've really been struggling over is the coming Sunday.  Is it ok if i just stay in bed & cry all day?  I did contemplate going to the Catholic Church, where much will be said of the veneration of the Holy Mother, but much more will be said as well.  

I want to post about all this, & hardly anyone is reading either blog, but i'm afraid of the whinging & whining.  I'm tired of listening to myself feel sorry for myself.  I don't want to live a life where each year on this one day i have to hide away.  I know i'm not alone in this feeling, but it does seem the possibility that Mother's Day was created just to make some of us feel incredibly inferior & deeply depressed.  

EJ just posted that she got to hear the baby's (well she said "babies") heartbeat.  That simply crushes me.  This year it is even more clear than ever that this will NEVER come to us.  Duane is hurt & disappointed, but philosophical.  

Me?  Bitter.  Life seems to be incredibly cruel.  God seems inept.  The people who parrot about "God's perfect plan" dense.  The "promises" in the scriptures simply daft.  

 

I could go on, so much has been bouncing around in my head.  But, to what purpose?

I may feel bitter, but this bitterness has more to do with expectations than anything else.  Too many people go on about "God's perfect plan" & the promises of scripture, & having "enough faith" & so much more.  

I think they take many of those verses out of context.  However, Jesus said, "My yoke is easy & my burden is light."  I must be doing something wrong, for i don't find it to be so!

Never-the-less, what i HAVE to hang on to is that God is good.  I may not understand all of this, & i may never be satisfied about this.  But above all, i do believe that God is good.  I strain to believe that, sometimes.  I look at all the injustice, unfairness, & grievances, not just in my life but in the world in general.  Life is so often a paradox, ironic, incongruent, illogical.  It just doesn't make sense!  It just isn't fair!

 

I believe that life is just a bundle of events, circumstances, & other weird occurrences.  Some are directly related to my own choices, good & bad.  Sometimes i'm effected by the choices of others, good or bad.  Often i have no say or control over any of this.  The promise is that God will take that bundle & weave it into something which will be beautiful & glorify him.

 

I think i have it hard.  Yep.  I do.  I think many of us, most of us, all of us have things with which we struggle.  It usually feels unfair.  But God requires some give their very lives.  People go to their deaths for being Christian.  So whinging about not having the "perfect life i planned, with a wonderful career & 2.1 children" is just smack.   

 

This is what it is.  This is what we have.  

I don't believe in "God's perfect plan."  I do believe that somehow, all this mess, all the weird & bizarre things happening, all the senseless & ugly things, will come together & glorify God.  I don't understand how or why.  I don't need to.  I don't run the world.  Obviously i would not run it this way.  But God doesn't account to me.  

One of my favorite songs for a long time has been Depeche Mode's Blasphemous Rumors.  

I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors 

but i think that God has a sick sense of humor

& when i die i expect to find him laughing. 

And, frankly, this is often what life feels like. 

 

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.      1 Corinthians 1.25

That's about all we can hold on to.  What we see of God in our world will often make no sense.  We simply have to trust.  God is good.

 

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More on that thought

I've long known that the Christian life isn't about me.  "Not my will, but thine be done."  I'm not promised happiness, or wealth, or my desires in this life.  Those promises are from the Old Covenant.  Jesus brings in the New Covenant, & his promises are eternal life, & abundant life.  I have to admit that following Jesus often seems harsh to me. 

The church folks that talk about life of abundance (as in the "American Dream" type) that can be obtained by positive thinking have mixed "The Secret" with the Gospel.  This results in a prosperity gospel that has little resemblance to the Gospel preached by Jesus.

I do not accept this for myself.  I've had folks tell me that because of chronic illness by which i'm limited i'm not praying the right way, or not "tapping into" the power that is promised me, or i'm not reading the scripture enough, or . . . something i'm doing is wrong.  I am hurt by this, of course, but i reject the thinking behind this.  God does not promise me anything here except he is sufficient for me, & that in my weakness he is strong, & that all things will ultimately work together for his glory.   

Amrita, of Yesu Garden, posted on Chundra Lela, a saint of India. Part of the story Amrita shared is:

After the seven years she spent visiting these holy places, Chundra was still not at peace . . . She said, "I felt that for all the outlay of money and time and for all my sufferings I had found nothing soul-satisfying. No knowledge of myself, nor yet of God for a vision of whom I had been willing to endure so much." . . . One day she prayed ,"O Jesus if thou art the true God, grant me a vision of Thyself." She says, "While I was still praying, my little house was full of light and a vision such as I am not able to describe. It was the Mighty and Glorious One. I fell on my face before Him and remained thus, my heart overflowing with joy. Then and there I resolved to become a Christian."

It is hard for me to read this.  As a child & teen prayed that God might show himself to me over & over & over.   There are lots of reasons i can use to justify why God would not "reveal" himself to me but does to others.  I can't help but wonder, "Jesus, where is the abundant life you have promised?  How is it that i'm a Christian but still so echoingly empty inside?"  I had this conversation with my sis last week.  "How can i be a Christian & still so empty inside?  Where is the joy & the abundant life promised?"  And from my childhood, tho i reject these thoughts now - "Can i really be a Christian when i cannot feel the presence of God, when i am so barren, so hollow, so lacking?"


"Jesus, where is the abundant life you promised?"


I'm beginning to wonder, even tho i've accepted Jesus into my life, have i just been wearing him as an appendage, someone to point to as the pattern, the mentor of my life, but not someone i've really submitted to, as really having trusted him.  I think i've more searching to do.  This needs to change.  I need to submit.
_______________________


My heart is heavy & sore.  My niece who married last summer is pregnant.  Also a friend who already has 3 children.  My foster brother's stepdaughter is pregnant at 16 - she's going to keep the baby.  Another friend mentioned someone she knows who is giving up her baby, but doesn't want it placed in CA.  


This is all around me & will continue to be all around me for the rest of my days.  I want to believe that if i submit to God - finally do whatever it is that i'm "suppose" to do - that he will take away the emptiness & grant my heart's desire.  Once again, that is stepping into prosperity gospel.  I know that i don't really trust God very much.  I told my husband, even if we got pregnant, i'm sure that we would have a special needs child that neither of us feel able to handle. 

    9  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

  10 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.

  11 If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?

  12 Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?                                            

13 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?  Luke chapter 11

 I don't think i trust God to be a good father to me.  I do expect the stone, the serpent, the scorpion.  I've a long way to go to really be able to trust.

Dear Lord, please help me to do so.

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The heart of the matter

I think i missed the reading yesterday.  I thought i did it, but now i'm not sure.

I am feeling deeply lonely & disconnected.  This is not a reflection on my marriage.  I'm married to the most wonderful guy in the world.  

I think the problem is within me, the emptiness that is almost always there.  I feel "needy" so often.  I spend so much time alone without many connections.  I struggle with these feelings, however.  I was told as a child that becoming a Christian takes care of the lonely feelings & the emptiness.  I have never found it to be so.  As a child i questioned my Christianity because the emptiness didn't leave, i didn't feel more like i "belong," & the lonely days echo.  I have often had trouble "witnessing" or "sharing my faith" because of this. 


Facebook is a big hit with lots of folks.  Twitter as well.  I don't do the latter.  I do FB, but i find it a disappointment.  In one sense it is not.  I get to see/hear about things from people with whom i otherwise have little contact (like my nieces & nephews).  I have "reconnected" with a couple of people i'd "lost" over the years.  


The reconnect hasn't really led anywhere, tho.  We've not had any conversation; i can now see what is happening in their lives as they post.  This is not "their" fault.  I've not written either & now that some time has gone by, i'm not sure even what to say.  


I find FB the ultimate in superficial connection.  Some folks have made more of it.  Donna asks for prayer for folks she knows.  Some people post scripture.  But, over all, i find it a casual, trivial, frivolous, contrived, artificial, meaningless, hollow.  I don't feel closer to any of the folks.  I just know more about them. 

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