words

Saturday I went to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting. I ended up walking out. I was too proud. I'm not really sure I'm addicted anyway. But then I realized as a Christian it doesn't really matter if I am addicted to gambling or not.

As a Christian I should be able to admit I am powerless to save myself and need God anyway, screw the weird casino element I have recently allowed into my life!

Things go so much easier for me when I just try to give in to God actively and ask God what I should be doing.

I just sort of got pissed off over my break up.

And for me its always about preventing snowballs from turning into avalanches. What I mean is that I start to get focused on the incredible pain of my ended relationship. I start to think about my mistakes and I start thinking I can fix it, I can fix it, that there has to be some way I can fix, when every day it becomes more clear that No, I can't fix it. It hurts so much.

And then I think about my other hurts. Old wounds reopen. And then instead of letting God heal me, I get angry with God instead and decide to take up blackjack? What the fuck?

Anyway, I don't know how much Christian lingo is already in this post, but it is what it is. I just have to write it, I can decode it later.

The last few days I have just felt God so closely. What does that mean? Sometimes it means a kind of heaviness. I don't know how to explain it. I know that's not good enough, that kind of answer from people was never good enough for me either.

Today I went for a drive after church and was sitting in front of the open water looking and the trees and suddenly I saw them. I mean I saw the trees, I saw where I was. And then I thought about everything God has given me, all the wonderful people around me right now and in the past and how lucky I am to have the job that I do. When I really think about it I am just floored to be alive, but never in my wildest dreams could I have predicted this outcome.

How can I still be so stubborn and angry with God? And why the hell am I wasting my time and money? Its so stupid of me. Its so unlike who I should be right now-- but then, its exactly who I would be without faith. If that makes me weak thats okay, I am weak. God is so merciful and I am so blind to even that 99 percent of the time. Even in the midst of pain I still feel God's love so strongly. I can't even explain it so I just don't bother!

It makes me know there is hope, God's love makes me believe that there is something else happening that I can't see, even in suffering, even with very very strong awareness of suffering all around me and in my community and in the world. My belief in God's love makes it okay for me to be pissed off, I think God can handle that. It makes it okay for me to ask God where the hell God is, it makes it okay for me to say what I think to God, or not talk to God for days. But in the end I realize that is foolishness.