The
car still isn’t fixed. It broke down on
Monday on the way to work and I had to get towed. Last week it was the engine housing; this week it’s the computer.
I
got stressed when it broke down. I think
my blood pressure went way up – my heart pounded and I had a sort of pain in my
chest. It’s a throwback to breakdowns
passed, especially the one when I broke down 3 times in the one journey, with
the same problem, on lonely roads, with the kids, night descending, and costing
hundreds and hundreds of dollars, which I didn’t really have. It was a time in my life, year after year,
when everything, big and small, went wrong.
Any
wonder that when I break down, the anguish of it comes back a bit. I still
carry a sort of resentment towards God for all those dark years, when nobody
helped; nobody understood, nobody helped me fight my corner. All God seemed to do was allow more bad
things.
I
know His purpose was to make me rely on Him. He let the devil trick and savage
me all through those years. It was like
a trek off into the wilds; so much
darkness; so much despair; so much
conflict in every arena of my life. All to a backdrop of grinding hard work
frugal living.
Now,
here I am still holding the banner of the risen Christ; still living by the precepts of the Suffering One. I’m still on the treadmill of low income and
frugal living, with loneliness as my companion.
It’s just how it is.
I
guess I know the nature of Christ and what it means to be a Christian, which is
a little more founded in reality than those cardboard cut-outs who cry into my
puzzled face “I’m off to Paris! Isn’t
God wonderful!”. (pukeness-making I
reckon).
I
know what it is to live in the Spirit and soar with the Eagle (spiritually),
with the light of God on my back. I
understand that the light and the soaring are perhaps as tangible and real,
when I’m trudging through mud, as it is when I’m in a sunny meadow. The Spirit and the light are the same
whatever my circumstances.
The
only thing that stops me soaring is that I’m still a frail human being and have
become used to the easier path, when I’m not struggling with the pain of
divorce or the loss of a son, or even the car breaking down. I’m like everyone else – I don’t want to have
my faith tested with suffering and loss.
It’s easy-peasy being a banner-bearer when nothing much goes wrong. The
fact that it has been tested with these things, only makes me more susceptible
to little things going wrong.
To
be honest, I don’t know why I’m still on the treadmill of working when I’d
rather give up, and the alone-ness gets to me at times. So when the car broke down the second time,
it triggers the puzzled bewilderment which is still a part of me, and I wonder
again, just what on earth was the purpose of all the designed and designated
suffering?
But
I don’t have the energy to rail against it anymore. I’ve resigned myself that
this is God’s lot for me now until I reach “Aslan’s country”; heaven;
the real Life for which this life has been a preparation.
I
just hope God hasn’t got any more bloody awful surprised in store. If He can’t allow good things (and when I’m
in my right mind, I know I have many of those), I wish He’d keep the bad to
himself. I do SO get sick of being
changed from glory to bloody glory!
I
do get angry with God sometimes. But I SO don’t want to “do” anger either, and
being thankful is a way to counter anger.
Anger is exhausting, futile, defeating of joy, hard going, depressing
and affects no-one except me.
Sometimes
too, God seems silent. He never answers
prayers I ask for myself – even when I was at my wit’s end (many times). It’s the cost of being an Intercessor for
others.
Sometimes
He seems silent; the great Silence from
Him who supposedly craves our fellowship. Sometimes, I feel like I’m slowly falling
out of love with God. I am tired of making the effort, when I so obviously, so
fully misunderstand His ways and purposes.
Or, rather, I keep reverting back, like a blueprint I can’t erase, of a
Providential, caring Father-figure God.
I expect Him to look out for me;
to be on my side, stick up for me, provide a little help when life robs
me of the good crop I’ve sowed. But that
never seems to happen (or when I’m …. Admitting it now…. Depressed…. That’s how
it seems)
Instead,
when I am thankful to Him for all the positives of some loss He’s allowed, He
allows more loss; just to be sure I have been tested enough. And really, even though I have this idea in
my head of a Providential God, what’s actually in my emotional, spiritual self
is this silent, testing, hard-hearted God who looks away at my distress, who
looked away at the struggle and suffering of Christ on the cross.
So
I’m left with this suffering Jesus who must understand what it’s like to be
rejected and un-helped by Father God. I
know too, that if I turn away and leave God out of my life, I am unhappy and
left exposed, without shields or protection, to the demons of depression, self-pity,
anger and despair. (shudder).
So,
up I go again, to turn to the light of the “looking-away God” and the unearthly,
unfathomable, joyous song of the Sprit, and to the suffering, bewildered,
anguished figure on the cross, who said “why have you forsaken me God?”.
And
I understand that. And I think “this is the narrow door”
And
I go through it again.
After
all, God doesn't really promise that nothing bad will happen.
He
just promises an unending supply of hope, strength, courage and even joy, to
cope with it all.
He
will never leave us, or forsake us, actually
The forsaking is not an earthly, tangible, riches, comfort arena.
It’s
a spiritual arena; He will never leave
us to battle our demons; our
struggles; our doubts, alone. He will
never throw us into a spiritual arena which we cannot win over and emerge
triumphant and whole.
I
just wish I could get that bit through my head.
