Down & Dirty With God

Dear God,

It's no great secret now that I've spent the better part of the last couple of weeks and months desperately trying not to be angry. I can't figure out if I'm angrier at You, at M, at myself, or whom. Or what. I've tried intellectualizing and rationalizing my way out of this place, but in vain. It's not working. Right or wrong, this anger/frustration/doubt is what it is, and I cannot convince myself otherwise.

I went looking for love, God. That's no great secret either. I'm fast approaching the age of thirty -- not that it's some kind of dead end or drop-off or anything -- and I'm still single. I don't want to be; that's why I went looking. I've spent the overwhelming majority of my adult life as unattached and have had few complaints in that regard. I've worked hard, traveled, spent quality time with my friends, and pursued those things that interest me. I've been able to do many things that would be difficult to do were I married or otherwise attached. That's not lost on me and I think You know that. I've enjoyed doing them on my own, but I really do want to find someone to share this life with, to build a home and a family with.

I guess I always thought that if I was meant to find it, it would have happened by now. And here I am, alone again in that single-woman way. And again, not that my preconception of when it "should" have happened limits You in any way, but the further along I get in life, the more I wonder if it will ever happen at all. I'll be honest; right now, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. Sometimes I feel so close to it, but then the hope of it is yanked away again. I feel taunted sometimes. Part of what makes me angry is that You used that desire to bring me to this place I was not looking for -- and now here I am, leaving behind what's familiar, feeling like I'm wandering in a foreign land. You've given me no map and I've been fumbling as I try to find my way toward You. I've tried to refrain from asking why, knowing that even if I had an answer, it would not make this any easier, would not make this any less painful than it is. I guess I've learned by now that understanding the why of any kind of suffering or unpleasantness doesn't make it any easier to bear; it still must be lived through. I can have faith that You can see and know things that I cannot -- You can see the whole spectrum of time, of which my life is only the tiniest sliver. I can have faith that You know better than I what is best for me. I can even have faith that this is all moved by Your love for me. What I lack, I think, is trust. If I read the Scriptures, if I hear Your words, I'm not getting anything I haven't bargained for. That is a hard pill to swallow.

But is it so wrong that I should want to be happy? I'm not talking about happiness in a selfish or hedonistic kind of way, but the kind of happiness that most people desire in their innermost beings: to love and to be loved, to feel connected to another human being on this planet. I know this is a good thing because You created it to be this way; but sometimes in my darkest moments I question why You'd plant a good desire and then deny me the means of fulfilling it. I'm more than willing to assent to the fact that this feeling has more to do with my limited perspective; I just wish I could get my heart to see it that way. I can't help but notice the many friends for whom You've made this dream a reality and here I am: an outsider looking in, feeling as though I'm completely remedial, denied a spot at the grown-up's table. I know I shouldn't (and it hurts me desperately even to acknowledge this), but in my darker moments I feel like the butt of a great cosmic joke: look at her, the woman who just doesn't get it! I feel so eminently unwantable as a woman and often wonder if it really is as entirely preposterous as it feels that there would be someone "out there" (how I loathe those words!) that should find me a desirable girlfriend, let alone partner in marriage.

I look at these words as I write them and I want to say that it's a matter of my limited perspective (and at the end of the day, maybe it really is just that). But here comes the temptation again to try and suppress my heart with my intellect, but I can't do it anymore. I can't suffocate this feeling anymore than I can will my heart to stop beating. I believe I have to move through these feelings to get beyond them, and I can't do that unless I acknowledge that they are there. Ugh. Here are my feelings, messy as they may be, as uncomfortable as it makes me to bring them out of hiding.

God, I just don't know what to do with any of this. Many times in the last several months I have thrown up my hands and said, You take it. I so clearly don't know what I'm doing! Never has that been more true. I've been so busy intellectualizing my way through this that I've entirely neglected my heart in the process. I don't want to leave my heart behind, God. If I am going to commit to this big of a life change, I want my heart to come with me. That's why I'm here now, acknowledging these ugly truths. I wish it could be different, I wish I could convince myself of the merits of following my intellect, and I wish my heart would be as eager to follow. But it's not. I'm still as human as You made me, I still have those desires You've implanted in me. And now it seems less and less likely that it will ever be a reality. It seems so cruel sometimes!! I know my perception of things doesn't limit You, nor should it limit what I know You can do ... but still my heart doesn't follow. I'm still licking my wounds in a way and maybe I should be gracious enough with myself to allow for that. Maybe that's what a lot of this anger boils down to: not having had time to allow my heart to recover from falling from a height. Maybe the wound was deep enough that it is unfair to expect my heart to have recovered this quickly. I don't know; even as I write this I want to say it is a bunch of fluff: my tendency is to be stoic and move forward in spite of pain or unpleasantness. The life of someone following Christ isn't supposed to be a primrose-lined path, but at the same time, something in my heart is preventing me from moving forward in the way my intellect knows I should move. I just don't know. That's the only thing of which I am completely certain right now: the not-knowing, and the inconvenient reality that this part of me is looming about, a question with no apparent answer except WAIT.

I know this is nothing new; I know I'm not the only unattached woman out there who has been faced with heartache, who has trusted and been disappointed, who has cried out to You, who has been bouncing off the walls of faith, knowledge, hope, and the unpleasant present reality. But I can only bring my heart to You, point out that gaping emptiness, and hope and wait. And wait and wait.

I'm accustomed to my writing help me come to some conclusion, to tying things up all neatly at the end. I'm definitely not there now. There are no answers today; just some raw and painful honesty, some tears I'd rather not cry. But I think that's okay; this is big enough (as far as I'm concerned) that I cannot expect to find resolution so easily. I hate saying these things out loud to You; it seems so contrary to how I should be, so opposite of the righteousness You desire from me. But I know You saw this reality before I did, that You knew it well long before I acknowledged it. And I know that the end of all this will be to conform myself to Your will and not the other way around. But I need time to get there, and I think You are more willing to give me that time than I am to give it to myself.

Sometimes I wish I could shut off that part of my heart that desires what it does; it is a thorn in my side to walk through my days with it, to drag this deferred hope around with me like a dead weight wondering if and how it will ever find its fulfillment. Wondering if the hope is ultimately a vain one. Others try and encourage me, but they can no more see the future than I can (can they??). Some days are far easier to bear than others and sometimes it doesn't take much to trigger me in such a way that I am in the throes of heartache again.

Last night, it was that dream I had that triggered my angry prayer this morning. You know the dream I had, God. I didn't want to wake up; I wanted to stay embedded in that dream with the apparition: the one who took me as I was, who loved me, who made those feelings of being eminently unwantable evaporate. How much I wanted to go back to sleep! I can see why You'd desire my holiness more than my happiness, but in that dream state, I was so happy. Because it was right, because it was good. Because I was not feeing this awful, chest-sucking feeling. Because I didn't feel so alone anymore. And maybe You have a means of fulfilling that or satisfying this that is entirely other than I can conceive. It's not as though I expect my desire for this love to solve all my problems or fulfill all my needs. But it's there all the same, feeling like a gaping hole, proclaiming its emptiness to me emphatically.

So for now I pause in this journey, needing this time to be still and to heal. I'll probably never understand the why behind any of this; maybe I am meant only to move through it.

No answers today. Only this ugly prayer, this pitiful cry from me to You. I know You're no genie, God; it's not as if I look to You as the Fulfiller of my wishlist. I don't know what I ask of You, really; I can only acknowledge my present state to You, tell you the truth from my heart and my mind, to have faith that You'll do with it what You will, and that it will be good. To know that despite my feeling an utter mess, that You know, that You love and You hear, even when it feels as though my words bounce off the ceiling only to fall again in my lap with a heavy thud.

So take it. Take it all. Take my tears and store them up. Take my words and gather them in. Here they are in all my not-knowing. Please make this something good.