I love to write. But I haven't written much about God lately, particularly after several life-altering experiences left me deflated and spiraling. The realities of my life, as a person, as a Christian, were no longer melodramatic teenage dramas that could be played out lavishly in a stack of journals or joked about with a healthy dose of sarcasm in a tongue-in-cheek blog. They were real. Raw. Painful. They made it hard to breathe. And they certainly didn't mesh with the ideal God of my youth, the one who aptly rewarded good people with happy lives and left the bad apples to rot.
I won't go into specific details of my heartbreak. Some wounds need years of healing before they can be discussed openly. Who hasn't had the wind knocked out of them at least once in 30-some years? I was keenly aware of my own pain. I had been sent to my room. And, in return, I had slammed the door...hard. I didn't care what else God had to say to me. If he was going to let these things happen, I was going to shut him out.
Sometimes I could fake happiness. Sometimes I couldn't. But hope and, especially, joy were a distant memory. My spirit resembled a lifeless balloon, a once bright and airy vision of happiness floating effortlessly with the throng, now a piece of saggy garbage. A choking hazard. My writing hand, figuratively speaking, shriveled up, too. Sure, the skill was there, but the passion and electricity was gone.
What could I write about with any authority? What did I know about life when I had been so wrong about Him? The big Guy. The one who said he loved me, then left me vulnerable to one crushing blow after another. Maybe I'd been missing out on the REAL party all along. Maybe I was better off giving him the silent treatment. If crap happens to good people and bad people, then what was the point of trying to be good?
The thing about balloons: I haven't known one to be used more than once. And what is their life expectancy? A few days, maybe a week for the expensive, helium-filled foil monstrosities. With each day, those balloons droop closer to the floor, a sorry reminder that, "The party's over, people!"
I could live like that. Deflated and invisible. I wouldn't risk another encounter with a sharp experience. And it's not like I had the energy for more parties anyway. Besides, I didn't want to become another kind of balloon-the inflatable punching clown. Everyone knows he's just a smiling, lifeless idiot. (Though I have considered getting one of those, because what angry person doesn't want to punch a happy clown...over and over and over again?)
Well thank God I'm not a balloon. But as a person, I still run the risk of living a deflated life or a life that is, at best, droopy.
When I could finally lift myself up off the floor, reach for God's word and really listen to what he was saying to me, I found many examples of loss and authentic grief (hello, the entire book of Job!). I had never been able to relate, until now, to the intense sadness. Before, I merely glossed over the parts where people were tearing their clothes and covering themselves in sackcloth and ashes--not exactly the picture of 21st century grief (but bearing a slight resemblance to my limp hair and baggy sweatpants). These people loved God AND knew tremendous loss.
Then...I saw the commas-the places in the story where they mustered the strength to express trust in a Sovereign God. The bible is sort of one BIG comma. In addition to the most basic comma of them all, salvation, God offers so many messages of faith, hope and joy through the pain and after the pain. We can't hear any of them when we stop short of the commas. I realize this is probably not an original idea, as I vaguely remember hearing a sermon about these commas. I just didn't get it until I felt the real, authentic pain of suffering and loss, made ever worse by my reaction to it, which was to shut God out of my heart...
, BUT HE STILL LOVED ME. This comma in my life, however small at first, offered a tiny sliver of light into the dark room of my own suffering. It made life tolerable, but it begged answers to more questions. Real answers. Truth. It's a lifelong process, but as I open the door more and more to God's truth, I realize it has the potential to make life much more than tolerable. God's hope can make prisoners sing songs of praise in the pitch dark of night and lift high hands weighed down by heavy chains.
There are plenty of commas in Romans 5:1-5:
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a]have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
I have been hurt, sad, angry, bitter, jaded, betrayed, bullied, deflated (and the list continues)...
, BUT HOPE FLOATS. I am living proof.
