Not My God

Continued from Stained Glass Windows
This is part 4 of 5.
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The way that Anthony had grown to respect, trust, and love me cultivated a sense of value in myself that is hard to describe. It wasn’t just that I felt he absolutely adored me (although it was first time I realized he did); it was that he loved the person I really was, even the parts I didn’t want to admit to. More than I could ever remember, I desperately wanted to work to improve myself. It wasn’t to gain anything or out of fear that I would lose him. It wasn’t out of obligation because of the work that he put in. It was just a natural result of being fully loved, and fully known. You can’t help but be affected by that kind of all-consuming and intentional love.
The “problem” was that once I’d experienced something so radically true, everything less than that began to lose its appeal. The honesty between us forced a sort of reckoning of all beliefs I’d ever had.

If coming into this healthy, fulfilling relationship with Anthony felt like lighting a flame in my soul, then attempting a relationship with God felt like repeatedly striking a damp match.

I didn’t really know what I thought about God.

I mean, most days I believed He existed. Sometimes it felt undeniable. Other times I really had to search and came back with nothing.

Most of the time I tried to do all the things I was supposed to do to be in God’s favor. I prayed constantly, and asked for forgiveness the moment I sinned. I only consumed the media or went places that met the standards. I dressed modestly. I served wherever I was asked. I did my daily quiet time (prayer/journaling/Bible reading). I submitted to my husband even when he was clearly wrong. I went to church Sunday morning, evening, Wednesday night, and to the gospel club meetings on Saturdays. I led people to the Lord and encouraged them to get baptized.
There are so many more things, but these felt like the biggest. I did them all. Except, I wasn’t good at doing all of them all the time. I made an effort, I really, truly did. But I failed a lot and it tore me up inside, almost continually.
I would get through several chapters a day and start to make progress on the yearly Bible reading plan, but then one day I would have my Bible out and realize I was just repeating the same phrase in my head, and get so discouraged I wouldn’t pick it up again for months.
Music was a huge struggle point for me, because it had always been a big part of my life in general. A lyric from something secular would randomly pop into my head, and I’d go on a “bad music” binge. I’d usually drive around at night because it felt more wrong to listen to it even in earphones around my family. I’d turn it off if someone pulled up next to me at a light, in case it was a church member. I always reset it before getting out so Anthony wouldn’t find out in the morning.
At whatever point though, I’d feel convicted and repent and feel good about myself every time I was tempted to listen and didn’t. But it was easy to keep falling back into. I’d ask God why it was so impossibly hard for me to stay away from.

Harder still, because it seemed like other people just didn’t struggle as much as I did. There weren’t very many that I had a connection with. Plenty of people were friendly and plenty I talked to weekly…but very few that I could share more than surface level stuff with. I don’t think anyone ever excluded me intentionally, but the friend groups were very tight-knit, and I wasn’t part of any of them.
Vulnerability and honesty are how people build community; but how can you do that if you constantly feel you’re being scrutinized? An emphasis on your outward living automatically creates an environment ripe for comparing yourself to others. It seemed like there was a Christian mold to fit into—a single correct way of doing things—and I could never get it right.

The more time passed, the heavier the sin guilt felt. I tried all of the things that were taught my whole life—all of the ways to get back on track or to overcome sin or to get closer to God. I only felt more alienated from Him each time I slipped up. It was like running towards a target that kept getting farther and farther away.

Prayer was never comfortable for me. I felt bad asking for something if I didn’t ask for repentance and thank Him for what He’d done first—and then I felt certain I wouldn’t remember to confess everything—then I’d feel ashamed and selfish to ask Him for whatever I was going to in the first place.
On the lighter days, I could just brush that feeling off and move on.
On the harder days, I couldn’t. I wanted to know why I should keep “approaching the throne” if He never answered the prayers that really mattered to me.
Two in particular I could never forget: when I was 11, on the floor of my bedroom sobbing, asking Him to save us from my dad’s mental illness; and when Abbott was 15 months old, his tiny body bending and seizing over and over again while I begged God to make it stop.

Then again, I was terrible at being a Christian. Why would I deserve anything from Him anyway?

What Anthony and I had—the love he now had for me—that was real. The fact that I could disappoint him but he’d still go to any length to meet my needs; I could get angry and say the most terrible things that hurt him so deeply…he’d still just hold me and return my fire with truly nothing in his tone or his eyes but love…that was something I could believe in.

Anthony no longer had any expectation of me, other then my being honest, and bringing every part of myself to the table. Our love was not based on doing, it was based on our identity: we belonged to each other.
Living that way made me feel like myself for the first time in my life. I could flourish. I stopped secretly hoping there would be some escape plan out of our marriage. I wanted a million forevers with him.

It was so wildly fulfilling—even if just by contrast of the previous few years—I didn’t need anything else. Like, God.

As I mentioned earlier, anything less than radically true was just no longer compatible with me. If I couldn’t be honest with God and couldn’t meet His expectations, then I would stop trying. I stopped trying to earn His love/favor/forgiveness, etc. It’s not that I stopped believing He existed…I just couldn’t make it make sense. I felt so much less burdened if I could just live my life and let sort everything out and answer my questions once I got to Heaven.

It didn’t feel like a huge, intentional lifestyle change—I just chose to stop trying to be something I’m not (a good Christian). I let go of God’s expectations and only kept what felt right for me. I tried to dig to the source of things, and began to realize that a lot of those expectations and guilt over “sins” were man made.

Anthony was growing, too. We didn’t agree on everything, but that’s what’s so great about a healthy relationship-you don’t have to!

A couple things to know about this time period, by now the Summer & Fall of 2019: First of all, as we grew, we both realized the region we live in will probably not be our forever hometown. Moving is what I assumed would be our church escape plan. I didn’t stop attending…I just tried to embrace who I am and accept that my beliefs differ. We had lots of conversations about figuring out exactly what God wanted from me.

The second thing about this season was that we both had a renewed desire for more children. We’d never stopped hoping. I’d never stopped taking tests at the slightest possibility—and am very accustomed to seeing a negative result. But it somehow felt like the right time.
I read a gigantic book about infertility and saw a specialist. She was optimistic about our chances and gave us some “homework” before our follow up in a few months. Despite the fact that I love a good chart, trying to get pregnant is just not as fun as it sounds. Still, we had some cautious hope. We let ourselves talk about the possibility of it all for the first time in years.

The first few months were still disappointing. But around Christmas time, all the numbers started aligning. The signs were there. We kept waiting for CD1, but I was 5 days late…then 10…then 17. I was almost scared to find out one way or another. It was January 2020 and we were planning Abbott’s 6th birthday when we found out, and it was so surreal. It was like walking on a cloud into work that day…in my head, I felt like everyone could tell just by looking at me!
I took a selfie in our tiny employee bathroom that morning, just because I was so happy. It was the same place all my hope disappeared 5 hours later.

I will never forget the way I felt, realizing it was over. My face felt hot. My chest felt like it was being kicked. And in that moment, my very first thought was long-before-ingrained and reflexive, just like with those pretty churches.

“This is my fault, because I didn’t pray for a baby hard enough, didn’t put enough into my quiet time, have too much sin somewhere in my life. I deserve this pain.”
I didn’t feel God at all then. I felt guilty, and abandoned, and alone.

I felt very alone, spiritually. It didn’t make sense to blame myself and also God, but I did. I felt so lost at that point. It wasn’t like that one hard thing changed the path I was on, it just shook my foundation enough to see some major flaws.

I had never known a life that didn’t revolve around faith in God or serving Him. In theory, I should have a pretty solid understanding by now of how this all worked. So why, in one of my all-time lowest moments, would our entire relationship be reduced to things I had or hadn’t done?

I felt both so strongly: the need to be worthy to earn closeness with God; and also that something about it doesn’t make sense. He is Creator, beginning and end of everything. What do I have of value to offer Him?

Shortly after this, the pandemic/initial shutdown began. In those early days, no one knew what to do and it felt like the world was ending. Around that same time, I injured my back and was forced to rely on Anthony for a lot of things. Everything about life was off-kilter.
I struggled significantly to understand what wasn’t adding up; there was so much distance between what I knew with my head to be true about God…and what I knew with my heart might be possible with Him.

My husband has been one of the biggest runway lights home for me. It was in quiet, every day life: that profound and honest and complete way he loved me…I cautiously opened up to the idea that God could love me the same way.

It was tiny, tiny moments where I encountered Him. Like the day I was brushing my teeth, with literally no other thoughts in my mind. “You could just believe that I am good.”
I always heard people say that God spoke to them, but this still and quiet message was not what I was expecting. It was less of a voice and more of a truth revealed from my soul. It was like something I’d been designed to know.

The more I let Him, the more it made sense. I thought of God comparing Himself to a parent. It is not my son’s responsibility to do the work in building a relationship with me, it’s mine. When he needs affection, I don’t withhold it because of his behavior. I don’t provide for his needs and wants based on his actions. Shaping his actions out of fear does nothing to guide him in the right direction. He “messes up” and I forgive him over and over and over because he’s learning; and when we’re struggling, the thing that helps is me showing him more attention and willingness to listen.
I fail at all of these things sometimes—a lot of times—but I could get behind the belief that a perfect God wouldn’t fail. That He could love me like that 100% of the time. I thought about the times I’ve messed up in situations and made Abbott feel like he let me down and needed to apologize repeatedly. It hurt! It broke my heart when everything was over and I’d taken care of it and he still felt he had to keep fixing it.
I pictured Abbott on his best day, working so hard to do what I asked. I pictured him at his lowest, like when he’s sick, and needs me even more. I thought of times in his medical journey when I had to work so hard to get him the best care and fight with people who weren’t seeing what I saw, and even how difficult his birth was…and how I wouldn’t even think of holding it against him so that he’d act a certain way.

Like probably all parents, I’ve run through the scenario of him being lost or missing. I can tell you without hesitation that even if he ran away from me on purpose, I’d walk to the ends of the earth and beat down every door and overcome any obstacle to find him. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to bring him back to me. There is nothing he could do to make me stop chasing after him. He is mine, and he will never not be a part of me or separate me from his DNA even if he wanted to. I could never give up on him.

What if I let a perfect, unfailing God love me the same way?

That truth hit me in waves, until I could no longer resist believing it. God did love me like that. He created the world and also me—everything about me. I don’t believe he turns a cold, uncaring shoulder when I do things I’m ashamed of. I believe He’ll never run out of chances while shaping me into the best version of myself. I don’t have answers for everything…I don’t understand why He allows things to happen or not. I don’t understand or agree with everything in the Bible. None of those things changes His love because He already knows me fully, and I believe He’s made everything about who I am on purpose.

Over and over in the Bible are stories: God came down to us.

When He died on the cross, He finished redeeming me. It was done. To continue to try to earn His favor or blessings or attention or love means that that act wasn’t enough. I can’t imagine what it’s like to watch us willingly put back on the chains that He has set us free from.

It’s not my righteousness that has earned eternal life, it’s the gift of taking on His. He doesn’t require anything more of me than myself—my true self—honestly, and completely.

If accepting the gift of being fully known and fully loved imperfectly by a very flawed human can dramatically change you from the inside out…

imagine what letting God love you like that can do.
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I know from the outside of my old life, it appears to be going from a life of high standards to a life without them. But looking deeper, it’s trading man-made lists for actual Christ-like values. The worldliness we’re to abstain from means things like pride, greed, dishonesty, self-gain, considering one person better than another, using Scripture to hold power over others, and taking the Lord’s name in vain by insisting that your own message is His, etc.
It doesn’t mean women wearing pants or rock music.

The fruit of the Spirit is what He cultivates within us. I’m terribly sorry to quote a sermon here, but we are not the makers of the fruit; He is. We have nothing to do with producing it, God produces it in us. We just get to hold it. (Not one of those holy fruits would be the doctrine of pantyhose.)

At the end of the day, I had to ask myself if a God who created the universe…
set microsystems upon microsystems into motion…
allowed us to fall then made a plan for redemption…
became an actual human only to suffer a demoralizing death,
spent three days in Hell,
and was doubted by friends even in resurrection…

would a God do all that and still value specific doctrines anywhere near as much as he values me?

I’m fully persuaded the answer is no.
That’s not my God.

Part 5: Epilogue: Leaving
coming soon