Writing is my therapy.

Lately I have been giving deep thought to my faith as a Christian. There are so many external voices in the ever changing world, condemning, changing, dizzying. I consider myself young, naive and easily gullible and susceptible to being molded by people with stronger personalities. I realized this with a close friend several years ago, when she twisted and manipulated our friendship to get attention to herself and condemned me when I acted like her. I promised myself that I would never allow myself to be molded again. I would never be influenced by stronger personalities. I would by myself. But what was myself like? What was there to me?

I liked animals. But it was my like of unusual animals that made me a target of mockery, and although I tried not to show it, it hurt. But I brushed it aside, hid it, and didn't let anything show. Just shuffled on day after day. I didn't realize that by not addressing these problems I was creating and feeding a bigger problem. For one I didn't know how to stand up for myself. I often felt stupid or strange by not having the same likes as my peers. I never said anything. I often sat in the corner and kept my thoughts and words to myself. I didn't want to stick out and say anything that could prove my stupidity or weirdness. I've said this several times before, but each time I do, I feel like I'm whining and giving a pathetic sob story. I don't want pity. I'm just angry. I know that no one would ever care if they read this. And why should they? This isn't their life. This doesn't have anything to do with them. This is the only way I can get these angry thoughts and feelings out of my head.

Just scrape it under the rug. Under the rug. Don't say anything. They won't listen to you. They won't care. No one cares. Nope. No cares. It's ok. I wouldn't care about them either, most likely. Well maybe. If they needed help and couldn't help themselves I would help. Just like working at the nursing home. I will do anything and have an endless well of patience for people who genuinely needed help and could n't help themselves. But for those who were lazy and just plain wanted pity when they didn't deserve it, you were just part of the job and my compassion was short for you.

I know I've been angry. I just didn't realize how angry I was until my anger finally hit an internal peak for me.

I was very angry with God for the past two days. It was extremely out of character for me. I think I just pent up too much anger and let it boil over with an internal imaginary fight with God. Does God know our thoughts because they come from our hearts? If so, I hope he understands better than I what was going on. Lately I finally put my finger on what my relationship thus far has been like with God. I picture it like this:

First of all, I don't walk with God. I sit with him. It's early morning, dawn is just starting to peak. We sit on a dock on the edge of a lake. This lake is tranquil. A thick forest surrounds the lake. There isn't a drop to disturb it. Plenty of steam from the warmth and coolness of the water and air mixing, but no disturbances. It's quiet. I never look over to God, but I'm sure he looks over to me. I'm sure he talks to me all the time, but my ears are full of water, so I can't hear him, and he has a quiet voice.

I rarely, if ever, talk to him. I mostly stare ahead at the lake and wait. What am I waiting for? Maybe the boat that will take me to an afterlife of some sort. I try to talk to him once in a while, but what do I say? What do I say? What do you say? I want to say something original. I want to feel like my words are reaching him when I speak. Is it really what I want? It seems like a poor excuse not to talk to someone who always makes such an effort to talk to me. Well I never was the chatty type. Perhaps it's a habit formed over years of keeping to myself. My excuse I've always used in church, though I don't even truly believe it is: I don't need to pray. I don't want to bother God with menial little things when he's already got plenty on his plate. He doesn't need to hear what I have to say. I have nothing to say, after all. Besides, would he even want to hear what I have to say? But what do I have to say? I have nothing to say. So occasionally I make myself say, "Thank you. Thank you for being good. Thank you for being you. Thank you for what you've given me. Thank you for the roof over my head and the food in my stomach. Thank you for giving me a good family. Thank you for today."And I do mean it. I'm grateful for what I've been given.

Once in a while I forget that he's sitting beside me on the dock and I feel alone and have a pity fest and bawl my eyes out. But after a while, when I've stopped lamenting and making so much noise and hullaballoo, I realize that I was never alone because I feel a very, very soft hand on my shoulder or sometimes even a lifting feeling on my heart.

You would think I would learn how to talk to the guy, but I don't. I stare ahead and ask questions. I never look at him. I fancy that sometimes I start to glance over in his direction, but my neck is stuck and I can't or won't turn all the way to look at him. So how can you have a relationship with someone when you can't even look them in the eye? I wouldn't call that a relationship. I would call it an acquaintance.

I forgot that he was sitting beside me. And I suddenly thought to myself, "Why am I here? Why am I sitting on this dock? What am I waiting for? For some person called 'God'. But why should I follow him? Hey, wait a second, wasn't this guy the one that cursed my very race in the first place?" And then I heard the soft voice say, "But I created you. And I sent down my son to save you. And I gave you choice. Your people chose to be prideful and disobey me. I even gave your ancestors a chance to repent when I asked where they were and what they had done."


There's a much louder voice at the end of the dock, near the bank. It has a broad mouth of grinning teeth and a hiss. So easy to twist. So easy to push over. Sssooo easy to manipulate.
I think I built my house on sand.


At that point I became intensely angry and had an inner screaming monologue of anger and hatred and overall bad mojo. I screamed at my inner imagination of God, "Why should I follow you? Why would you curse us for making a mistake? If you're so loving, why didn't you forgive us for one mistake? Why did you give us the opportunity to sin? YOU KNEW we were going to sin! SO why did you PUNISH us for something YOU KNEW we were going to do?! You yourself said, "Men are born with the desire to sin from childhood, so WHY would you PUNISH us for something that was in our nature?!" Then I even remembered the pitch with Noah and how only his family survived the flooding of the earth, and another question came, "Why the hell even bother letting them live? Why not just completely start over with an entirely different generation of creation rather than letting the old ones with the ill nature continue on? Yea, it was because God found favor with Noah, but still--why let them live? Was this all part of the grand design later on when he would send his son down to save mankind? But why sacrifice the son in the first place? Are you cursing yourself as well God, by sacrificing your beloved son to the creatures you supposedly loved and created as well?"



My rant went on and on and I even somehow jumped to the conclusion that God hates mankind. I think I jumped to that part by coming up with the thinking of, he knew it was in our nature to sin, cursed us anyways for sinning, sent us away so easily, therefore never wanted us in the first place, therefore didn't love us, and therefore didn't really care about us. But then the little detail of him sending his son down to save mankind and reestablish the bridge between us and him fell in place and I was like, "Oh. Yea. That was the whole point of Christianity right there." But in the meantime, now that I think about it, there was an amazing amount of anger that just let loose in me. At one point I even started to say, "F*** it. I don't want to be a Christian anymore. Why should I follow someone who cursed me and still has a curse upon me because of something that a first generation of ancestors did?" 
"-but I need God. I can't do this by myself. You know I can't!"
"-Yes I can! I've done everything myself! He's never been there! He hates me! He doesn't want me!"
"You know that's not true!"
"Is so! He hates mankind! Why else would he let us live in this shitty, stupid, meaningless, petty existence?"
"To prepare us for the afterlife."
"Well shit! If the afterlife is going to be like this-I don't want it! I'll go to hell and rot there instead!"
"You don't mean that."
"I do mean it. I hate God. I hate what he's done to us."
Dang that hurts to say.
"Because you know it's not true."
"Well it's what I feel."

And then, the quiet voice calmly slipped a whisper in my ear. "I sent my son to save you."
And then I thought, "Well you wouldn't have had to send your son if you hadn't been a little bitch and thrown a hissy fit tantrum and just forgiven us the first time around."
Then I read an interesting tidbit where someone said, "God doesn't punish. He disciplines those he loves."
Sigh...
"Then why go so overboard?" I asked.
Calmness and reasoning and little voice say, "Because you were the creation. When Eve was tempted with the apple, it was her pride and will to be like God that most likely made her take it. A creation is not supposed to have the ability or power to be like its creator. Now, how could she have wanted to be like her creator? In creating life? Well that would make a little sense as to why he punished her with intense pain in creating life such as childbirth."
Sigh...fine. Whatever.
"That's also the old testament you're thinking of. In the new testament, you're still forgetting, I sent my son to break the curse. He didn't just die for sin. He broke the curse. You're not cursed. So relax. Chill. And go online and google 'northland'."

Ok little voice. I will chill and go on the computer.

I do feel a little better at this point, and I know I don't hate God. (Told you so)

Amazingly, when I googled my hometown church, the first thing that pops up is 'curses and blessings'. Well. Alright then. I will read on and calm my temper. What is the segment about? Exactly what I needed to hear. Curses, blessings, and anger. And this is how I realized that I have anger addiction.

"Wow," I think, "this actually...makes a lot of sense and is exactly what I wanted and needed to hear."
A rush of patience washes over me and I know for certain that the guy sitting on the dock next to me was responsible for pointing me in this direction.
"So...you don't hate us? You actually did lift the curse you put on us by sending your son to us?"
"Yes."
"Oh. Well...sorry. And thanks. Although I still don't understand why you let us have the will and desire to sin when we're supposed to be in your image."

I've known that I've been angry for a long, long time. I manage to keep it in check, and push nasty thoughts and shortcomings back in the deep abyss of my heart, but like any little Gollum, it knows how to work the caverns of deep dark places and work its way to the surface, and lately it's been getting closer and closer.

It's so easy to get angry, but there has always been a restraint holding the verbal nastiness inside. And even though it's better to keep it to myself rather than spewing my anger and hatred out on other people, I can feel that it's not good for me to keep this bubbling brew inside my heart and mind. And no matter if a person does or doesn't deserve a sharp verbal snap, I don't want bitter words to boil over out of my mouth.

So what do I do with this anger and frustration? Can I vent it out? No. That's not healthy. Think pure and kind thoughts? Practice and not preach and turn my neck to the dude sitting next to me? Do more than think kind thoughts and actually do them and therefore change the anger in my heart to peace?

I'll try.

Writing is great. I feel much better now.