Stumbling Toward God?

(Read Part I)

As I have mentioned, I started going to a new church service in October. The music was good. Really good. It made me cry. But what does that mean? These were not tears of joy, or relief, or anything like that. I picture a poor orphan boy, a street urchin if you will, standing outside a toy store window on Christmas Eve, looking in at all of the decorations and lights and there are stuffed animals and a colorful Ferris wheel and a model train going around and around… but he’s standing out in the cold, and despite all of the wonder and the hope… deep down he knows that none of that is ever going to be for him. And like that little boy, I cry.

In November, I was reading some of my blog posts from LAST November, and from the past year, and I was shocked to realize that they might easily have been written in the last week. I had been hurting for a long, long time. I had spent so much time just waiting for something to happen; something to happen with God, something to happen with school, something to happen with a certain someone from my past… just waiting. For something. Anything.

After years of waiting…
Nothing came.
As your life flashed before your eyes,
You realize…

I’m a reasonable man
Get off
Get off
Get off my case get off my case
—Radiohead

The first Sunday of every month, my church group gathers in its entirety (supposedly) and studies Ephesians. I do not remember the specific passage that night (somewhere around the end of chapter 4, beginning of chapter 5, I think), but I vividly remember feeling that I had a very heavy weight upon me, such that I could barely keep my head up. I wanted to lie down on the floor right then and there. I didn’t though. What I did do was unscrew the lid of my water bottle, stare into it for a moment and then replace the lid without taking a drink – three times in rapid succession. Which I suppose must have tipped someone off that something was on my mind because at that point I was invited to step outside.

There have been two points in my life when I have looked into the sky and told God to “Bring it.” The first time, I had no idea what I was in for. This time… maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. At that point, someone else came outside and, um, exploded… and my friend and I ran for it and spent a good hour in hiding. That’s right, hiding. At church. The absurdity of the situation was just plain comical. I needed that.

Anyway, that situation was “resolved” somehow (I don’t know… I wasn’t there). For the first time in a long time, I was cheerful. I had hope. I was almost giddy. Things seemed to be aligning just right, the way I had been hoping for so very long… But in the end, it was not right enough. From higher hopes comes a greater fall. I went home, and never even made it from the garage into the house. After another mild, yet increasingly-too-common violent episode, I collapsed against the door that leads into the house. I could no longer pretend that I did not understand what was really going on here… that I did not see the writing on the wall. I could not do this to myself anymore. I did not want to ever feel that way again. Ever.

I had been debating leaving my church group for some time. But these were my friends, my community, and I had come to realize that it was very important for me to be around other people. I knew that walking away would mean stepping into a very dark pit. I really wasn’t looking forward to that, because I felt that I had just come out of a very dark pit. Yet I had begun to accept that maybe it was necessary to go through that darkness just to emerge on the other side.

The next Sunday, I woke up convinced that that evening would be my last time at 20 Somethings. I did, however, consult with one last person , who ultimately talked me out of it. As chance would have it, I could not be there the next Sunday anyway, because of a school field trip. (Which also marked the first time that I missed church for a completely non-Christianity related reason. And… TIME! Three and a half years… 182 Sundays.) To my recollection, I only told one person that I wasn’t going to be there that week. The next week, no one asked where I had been, if indeed anyone even noticed that I was missing. So this is what I’m fighting so hard to hold on to.

I’m confused now as to the order of things. I know all of this was going on in November. At some point, I was in Pomona, lying on the floor again, as was my habit. I had no more strength. My simply head could not take anymore theology. I could wait no longer. I had no more strength. I could not go on, not just in my walk with God, but with life in general. I had nothing left. But the words of the new worship leader kept echoing in my head. “Cry out to Jesus.” “You don’t have to clean yourself up first.” “Jesus will meet you where you are.” “Cry out to Jesus.” “Cry out to Jesus.” Well, I had never actually done that before. So what if I just put aside the endless debate of theology vs. skepticism in my head? What if I just see what Jesus can do? What happens when you reach the end, the absolute bitter end, and then you just close your eyes and keep walking? I rolled over onto my hands and knees (or perhaps more accurately, my face), and I cried out. Maybe audibly, I don’t remember.

So what does happen? Well, nothing at first. But I spent an awful lot of time on my knees in the following days. Over and over I prayed that my eyes would be opened. By this point it was almost Thanksgiving, and starting with that business about my mother, my eyes were opened to a great many things. I was telling someone about a month later that ever since trusting Jesus, I had been getting my ass kicked. He told me that would be “The Adversary.” Really? I had just assumed that it was God himself. I have stated before that around Thanksgiving, God kicked my butt for four days straight, and just to keep it interesting, on the third day he punched me full in the face. Starting that Wednesday evening, every conversation and interaction that I had with people revealed my place, my significance; with my family, my “friends”, my church group in general. Most of these seemed to indicate that I was completely expendable. I was also (unintentionally?) mocked with an impromptu song set to the tune of (of all things) a Radiohead song. God certainly knows how to make it personal.

The “punch” came while watching Batman Begins. I had seen this movie before, but somehow this particular line failed to capture my attention:
Patients suffering delusional episodes often focus their paranoia on an external tormentor, usually one conforming to Jungian archetypes.
In this case, a scarecrow.
Well, that certainly made me sit up straight. Come now, that was simply uncalled for.

Four days of this kind of stuff. On the fifth day, I decided that, hey, as long as I’m getting my butt kicked anyway, I might as well just go straight to the source: The Epistle of James. Have I ever mentioned how fond I am of that book? I came to God in the first place while reading it. Now only two verses in:
Count it all joy my brethren when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Wait, steadfastness is a good thing? Here all this time I thought I was just being an idiot. Well then, in that case, “Bring it! Bring it, bring it, BRING IT!” This was Sunday again, and after church I went for a walk. Finally, I felt that something was different. I felt alive for the first time in a long time. I felt free. I also felt that somewhere I had lost an enti
re year of my life. No more waiting. I decided to pounce on every opportunity that came along and trust that God would lead me through.

Later that day, I wanted to communicate this change to the only person that I thought would understand. Unfortunately, circumstances between us had long been such that I was only ever permitted an extremely narrow window of private conversation in which to get my point across. I prepared myself: You get one sentence. Maybe two. GO. “I’m not really sure where I’ve been for the last year, but I think I’m back now.”
“Back where?”
“Back… here…”
Bugger, focusing on the wrong word. And that was that. The point I was trying to convey was that I, timoth, (for that is my true name) was back, and that whoever had been running things (if anyone) for the last year or so had been relieved of command.