And So I Prayed.

 I need to talk about God for a minute.  If you don't want to hear about it, or read it, stop here and move on.  

I have been drawn to people with a strong, solid faith in God lately. Let me explain.  I'm not inviting door knockers in for tea.  I am reading things that people have written in their most raw, vulnerable places and are still reaching for God.  I am reading their anger and their emotions and their “how could you do this to me", and all of the screams of “what am I supposed to be learning!?" and still, call on God.  I am reading of quiet whispers and tear filled pain.  I am hearing pleading and praising... and prayer.  My soul aches for that connection.  

And so, I started praying.  A lot.  I pray, I chat with God, and the Universe and all of the people I hope are standing behind me or in front of me, or walking beside me.  When I feel lost, or alone, or wonder what in the hell I am supposed to be learning  - I pray.  I have been praying every single day.  I have returned to an internal gratitude practice, thanking, in my prayers, God, for the things at my feet and for the doors that become opened to me when I questioned my path and it's direction.  I am daily dumbfounded with the moments of realization of why this or that thing did or didn't happen.  

I want to clarify (if only for myself?).  I still don't believe in the Jesus story.  I just can't get behind it.  I don't believe in the single solitary Son of God sent to save us from sin.  I believe in creation and science and evolution and more than ever, I believe in God given purpose, a greater plan, and lessons.  Also, in a side theory - if I am wrong at the end of my days and I am standing in the glory of my maker and he smirks (as I know would happen) and says - “you were wrong - meet Jesus", that I will be forgiven and loved regardless of my existence in an ever curious and questioning soul.  I believe in God, and that he is the sole soul creator. 

Once upon a time, on Tuesday, I walked with my husband down the hall of the General Hospital, and when we reached the cariology unit, I had to kiss him goodbye and let some random nurse take him away from me, behind doors where I couldn't go.  I had to trust, essentially, that she, and a cardiologist and a team of other very brilliant God-like people wouldn't break him and leave me in pieces.  I walked away from that unit, and down the hall in tears... and I prayed. Every single time my foot hit a square on the floor, I prayed. Hard.  It sounded like this: “don't you dare take him from me.  Don't you dare. I can't even breathe right now... don't you dare." 

Lesson: You cannot just come to God when you need something and not sound like a petulant child (thank you Erin Napier for these words).  And here I was, sitting at God's door step, tears in my hands, stomping my feet in fury, but begging for mercy.  I have been reading things like God Is On The Bathroom Floor, Nightbirde, but I do not want to find him there.  Not right now.  

A cardiologist stopped my husband's heart.  And then, he restarted it.  Normal rhythm.  For now. 

That night, I laid in bed with my hand on the print that was left by electricty entering his body.  Breathing deep and barely steady, I said thank you a million times for the warmth beside me.  I served up all the gratitude for the lonlienss that evaded me.  I laid there and prayed for a million more nights and gave gratitude for even this one. 

That's what a prayer to God sounds like... Please, please, please... why, why, why... thank you, thank you, thank you.   Every. Single. Day. 

“...one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me.

I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself. 

I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset. 

Call me bitter if you want to—that’s fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.””

This is the connection I am working on.  It's a work in progress.  I am praying.  The more I ask why and listen to the small voices, the more I hear answers and know there is a plan.  Gratitude has tamped my path to a greater purpose.  I see hints of it in the people around me, in the experinces I am having, in the decisions being made, in the lessons being learned.  I am praying in the quiet spaces and the loud places, I am whispering and yelling and laughing and crying, and I am finding God.  

I started praying again.  It seems though, that he never stopped listening.