Hey there, thanks for being patient. Oh and happy birthday, Katie!! For your patience I give you a super long blog! I was at a church conference and I had no internet connection last night except via phone, and trust me, typing out my blog via phone would not have been possible. Plus I was in a difficult spot last night, so it probably wouldn't have been good anyway. At least good in a positive, uplifting way. I had a rough night, honestly, and after last night I was just spent.
I try not to be preachy on here. I know that people of various beliefs read my blog, and I know that even in Christianity there are some serious divides and some serious emotions/objections when those divides are crossed. So I mainly try to stay in the "God is good" realm... because pretty much all faith systems think that and it's not super offensive to those who operate outside a faith system. But I have some things I feel like I need to share, so you are forewarned. They are my experiences, so you might find them interesting enough, just because you care about me enough to read my blog, or you might not like them. I can't really help it either way. I just have to get out what is buzzing around in my head.
Last night was so hard because I was waiting for something. You know the church camp experience? Where you go to church camp and feel so close to God?... I was looking for that last night at the grown-ups version of church camp. But all I ran into was hurt. I just kept running into my sorrow, seems like everywhere I went to look for God I just found more and more of the pain that I'd bottled up.
So I went up to the front for ministry time... which basically means that I went up to the front to have people pray for me. And that was hard, because I didn't know the people who were praying for me and it just felt like there was so much to explain... and honestly I have a lot of baggage to just set down in front of someone... people don't know how to deal with grief unleashed. It's scary. The first girl to pray for me was my age or maybe a little younger. She was totally sweet and heartbroken for me, and I think also terrified of praying for me. She called her husband over almost immediately. His name was Nathan. And when I told him that was my husband's name I saw that hit him... I don't like to look at people with my broken eyes... feels like they can see too far in. Feels like I'm pushing my grief out at someone else.... like I'm forcing my unhappiness on them, but this couple took that. They just met me in the heartbreak. They didn't try to make it better, they just asked God to help and hugged me, which I needed. And then as Nathan was ending the prayer he said in a strange tone, "It's going to be ok." Which of course just wrecked me, because how often have I mentioned on here how much I want to hear Nathan tell me it's going to be ok? How much more often have I wished for it in my head? This Nathan didn't know he was echoing my Nathan.
Then another woman came up to pray for me. And she was also very nice. I told her less.... just that I was in a lot of emotional pain. I couldn't explain anymore. I didn't have it in me. She prayed for me and gave me some good mental images of God wanting to take my pain and soak it up. She also prayed a great deal for hope for me, which is something that I need... When Nathan died I had a great deal of hope. But over the course of these seven and a half months I've lost a good deal of it. Not faith or knowledge that Nathan is in heaven, but finding the hope left in my life here without him.
Still at the end of that I was drained and frustrated because I didn't feel any closer to God at all... if anything I felt numb. Then one lady who I didn't know came up to me and asked me if I'd heard from God... and I nearly scowled at her.. I'm pretty sure I grimaced. I think I said something to the effect of, "I don't really know." I wanted to say, "Only if God was trying to tell me to be miserable." Five minutes later a friend came up and asked me if prayer was good. I sighed... and said, "Yes....... sorta....." and then I threw up my hands in frustration, "No." (I'm terrible at lying to my friends.)
I felt awful. The church camp experience is supposed to help and I just felt terrible. I felt grumpy and upset and lonely and kinda irritated at God for not showing up like I expected Him to, and for bringing up all these tears but not bringing me a great deal of comfort. Plus I was just emotionally exhausted in a way I've not been since the days following the funeral... I'd cried until I couldn't cry any more. I probably should have stayed up front until I felt better... but I'm kinda a chicken when it comes to being in the front of the church, and I got self-conscious and went back to my seat. So it's probably my fault that I left feeling so drained.... but who knows...
Anyway this morning we had more conference and it was good, but I was still feeling kinda out of it. And when ministry time came I didn't feel any special call and no one supernaturally knew to call my name or someone in my very particular situation, so I stayed where I was. I wasn't emotional at all, I just figured I'd done what I'd done and I needed to change my expectations... and then a friend came up to me with something she'd felt/thought last night and it was so spot on with everything I'd been thinking and feeling last night... and then she said something else that addressed another part of my sadness from the last night... and then in the midst of a prayer for me she practically echoed the words I'd said silently to God in my head last night-The Vineyard calls the sucky parts of this world the "not yet," meaning the kingdom of God is not here in it's fullness, yet. (The parts where the world is going right, where people are mended, their relationships are restored, and life is just *right* is the "already"- meaning the kingdom is already here. If you want a slightly more fleshed out version you can find it here. Yes, there is a Wikipedia article about it! If you want more information, like scripture references, I can give them to ya, but we can have that discussion more personally.) Last night I was complaining to God basically about how very much of the "not yet" I'd seen. These past two years it feels like it's all I've seen, and I said in my head, "God, I've just seen so much of the "not yet." I'm so tired of the "not yet." Can't I see some of your kingdom in my life? Can't I see something going not just alright, but well?"
And this afternoon the my friend prayed, "God, Renée has just seen so much of the "not yet." For years it's been almost all she's seen, and God we just ask that you would give her some of the "already." So much of the "already" to counteract how much "not yet" she has experienced."
All this week I've been feeling like Job... granted Job had it rougher than I do... but... nonetheless I've been upset and having a pity party and saying, "No matter what, I'm not going to turn away from you God... but this sucks and I don't understand why it's happening and I don't like it." In fact, last week when I talked about Job's daughters it was because I'd been reading Job... I didn't read the whole thing... just to chapter 20 or so and then I skimmed to the end. And I fixated on one word in this sentence: "After Job had prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes and gave him twice as much as he had before." (Job 42:10). If I tell you my friend prayed that God would "restore my life, dreams, and hopes for the future" would you guess what word it was?
After that another woman came up to me to share something with me that she felt God wanted to tell me last night as well. And she told me that God thinks I'm beautiful. On the outside, but on the inside, too... that God thinks everything about me is beautiful. That's one of the things I miss so much about Nathan... how often he told me I was beautiful.
I had a fresh slew of tears between these two women this morning.... but it felt a lot happier... it felt more cleansing.
Something that the speaker said last night almost as an aside really resonated with me. "Whatever you do with people you do with God. You can't be split down the middle and be different for God and for people." In other words if you are distrustful of people, you will be distrustful of God. If you have father issues with people then you will have them with God. If you are reserved and distant with people, you will be with God, too. (Not that this can't all be changed.) This resonated with me because I recognized it as really true at least with me... I have a fear of abandonment with people. I try to make them need me, so that I will trust they won't leave me. I also have a great deal of pride and don't want to be a burden to other and don't trust them to not resent me if I am a burden somehow. And I want to be exactly what they need, so they will depend on me. I want to be perfect.
Guess what? I do that to God, too. I wouldn't say that I fear God's abandonment... but I don't want to be a burden on God either... I try to be a perfect example of grief. I want to be a good Godly example of how to handle things. I want to bring attention back to God if someone thinks I'm handling it well. In my mind I know that God doesn't need me to be perfect. That he doesn't see me as a burden at all and that he actually doesn't need or want me to be independent because that means I'm not relying on Him. And yet this is my default. And then I get so worn down and tired because choosing joy in the midst of suffering is hella hard, and if you do it right then most people don't know that there is something wrong at all.
I need to change this... just because Nathan is gone, doesn't mean I don't need to lean on anyone at all... and it certainly doesn't mean I should stop leaning on God. I don't have to be perfect in any way. I can come to Him just as I am.. broken, longing for restoration, tired, and lonely. And He'll be there for me... He'll hug me in my heartbreak and give me hope. He'll restore my life and tell me that I'm beautiful. He's proven that over and over and over- not just this weekend. One doesn't need a conference to be reminded that God is good, all the time, but sometimes it helps.
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