Anyways, that is in the past and not really important. After Leadership Training ended, I went home for a few weeks, hurting and angry with God. I had prayed for a long time that God would send a spiritually fulfilling relationship where we could both grow together, and before I started dating A. I feel like I prayed about it A TON and God gave the green light. So I was wondering why God had given me this relationship that was just overall not beneficial to either of us. Although I was angry with God, I still turned to him for comfort and waited to feel his presence, but I never did. Maybe I wasn't hearing him because he wasn't saying what I wanted, maybe I was pretending to be open and vulnerable but I was really being selfish, wanting to hurt on my own instead of really offering myself up and letting go of my anger. I don't really know...
After about a month of waiting and feeling neglected I returned to school and felt more bombarded spiritually then ever before. I felt that after finishing LT everyone expected me to take up leadership roles in the church, but I didn't feel like I was in a good place to be leading or directing anyone. I wasn't even sure if God was there anymore. I tried desperately to be ok with seeing A. everywhere and even tried to hang out with him and be "friends". All of that changed though when my grandfather passed away in October. He tried to be supportive but it just made me want him to be there for me in ways he couldn't be anymore, and so I told him I needed my space for awhile.
I remember the night my grandpa died sitting in bed with my grandmother, reading her Psalms and wanting to believe in all the promises of comfort and redemption but wondering to myself what the words really meant and if I could trust them. I remember sitting in the funeral home while people came up and said, "Don't worry, he's in a better place now" and not knowing if that was true. I knew he was a believer, but I couldn't even believe a place like heaven existed, and even if it did if I wanted my grandfather to be with a callous, unresponsive God like the one I was experiencing. I remember standing in the prayer annex off the church while his ashes sat in the sanctuary, the pastor praying that God would give our family comfort, the words sounding hollow in my ears.
After that I just cut myself off spiritually. I was angry, I felt alone, and when I talked to some people about it they told me I was being childish and selfish, which just made me more angry. So I quit going to church, small group, everything that reminded me of A., my grandfather, the pain, and mostly the rejection I was feeling from God. I convinced myself God is what people turn to when they can't rely on themselves, and from now on I was going to rely on myself and if I failed then that was that. No need praying to an invisible deity who may or may not be there.
I was getting really good at ignoring my emotions. Occasionally though they would come out, while having dinner with my friend Jack or talking with some of the women who were on staff with New Life. But I would remind myself later that there was no point being a baby about it. I was on my own now, and I couldn't waste time feeling sorry for myself.
Thursday night I went to church for the first time since my grandfather's funeral. It was the same church we had the funeral service at, and so it was already hard for me to be there. I felt the emotions coming so I just shut down. I closed my eyes and started to breathe and I regained composure. We sang some Christmas songs and then the Deacon started to deliver the message. I zoned out and started to look around the old church. I've always been mesmerized by the ceiling, because it's a weird square-ish shaped building but the cross-beams are uneven so it looks like a cross. I remember going to this church as a kid and spending the whole time looking at the ceiling, counting the wooden panels and trying to figure out why the room was shaped so oddly. I've had many life-changing experiences in this church, many I remember and many I don't. I was here when my parents were married (I wasn't yet born though..) and for my baptism (and my sister's, and my brother's.) It was in the fellowship room that we had a 70th birthday party for my grandfather. I was here the previous summer when my parents renewed their vows after a 9 month separation. So many memories tied to this church, it seemed inevitable that I would keep returning here again and again.
I stopped staring at the ceiling and closed my eyes again, out of tiredness but also because my mind was working too fast for me to keep up. I kept replaying this semester in my head, trying to figure out how I had become the girl who was sitting here now, emotionally detached and angry with God and my life. It would take to long to write out everything I was attempting to process but essentially I realized this:
My inability to trust the people in my life has prevented me from trusting God. Not just because I don't believe he will do what is right, but also because I am afraid he will disappoint me, because I have felt disappointed by him. Yet my perspective on life is so short-sighted, that I can not know if these disappointments are really blessing in disguise. Or if I can even be sure in what it is that I want, because I am even changing my own mind every second of every day.
I'm not saying I've figured out how to trust God. I don't know if any of us really ever do. But at least I'm one step closer to figuring it all out, or at least inasmuch as the human mind can ever attempt to understand God and the purpose of our lives.
