Thinking

Red wine and Blarney cheese are probably not a recipe for health, especially late at night, but I am having some anyway. I am in a pensive sort of mood; I meant to go to bed early, but I couldn't, because I started thinking.

And what am I thinking about? Oh, the little things: God, life, me. Why I (and several of my close friends) feel hostile toward church lately. Why I haven't felt like reading my Bible in months, when there was a time that I couldn't get enough of it. Why I don't feel like praying--and yet can't help myself here and there, throughout the day, when I am thinking of certain things or people.

I think it was in June when I decided I wanted God out of my life for awhile. I don't know why. I was tired, I suppose. I'd been doing the "Christian thing" so long, it had all become meaningless. I was (and am) bored by church; bored and hostile toward the unending, apparently meaningless repeitions of songs, sermons, and programs. I began to hate the routine. And I was hurt, too, by a relationship that ended before it even began, when I had had hopes. That wouldn't have been so bad, except that it was just the last one in a long line of unrequited loves, and I just had had enough. Somehow I felt like it was God's fault, all of it, and I didn't want to deal with it, or Him, anymore.

So I tried to be someone else for awhile. I tried very hard. I thought it might be nice to be just like everyone, because then maybe I wouldn't have to think about everything so much. And I didn't want to feel guilty about anything, because I have always felt guilty about everything, and I was so tired of that most of all.

But I couldn't seem to manage the transformation, for some reason. Not really. I did my best to fake it, but I couldn't believe in myself as really being that other person I was trying to be. And besides, I started to see I was doing what I hated most: living two lives, and being hypocritical to both of them. It was a strange game that I had made, where I was the only player, and I was still losing!

I suppose I shouldn't talk about it like it's all in the distant past, because it isn't. I'm still caught in it, tangled. But I hope I'm finally starting to snap out of it.

I don't want to be like everyone else.

As I've thought about all this, it occurs to me that the problem with God is that He really does get inside you--under your skin, in a way that no one else does. I can't stop thinking about Him. I catch myself praying, and I make myself stop because it seems wrong when I have been so against Him lately, but at the same time I want to pray. I want to talk to HIm, very much. I miss that most of all.

Lately I hear myself when I talk to others about God, and it's like listening to an echo of myself. The sound is there, but the sense...something is lacking. There is a vague hollowness that haunts my words, and hurts my heart.

Do I mean what I say, anymore? Do I believe it?

I do. God help me, I do.

Set up signposts,
Make landmarks;
Set your heart toward the highway,
The way in which you went...
--Jeremiah 31:21

I have chosen the way of truth...
--Psalm 119: 30

And I am resolved to love you
With whatever means are mine.
--five o' clock people