A different spiritual place

Dear D,

I called my friend, J., today just to check up on her. It had been about month since we last talked. During the course of our conversation, she revealed that she and our friend, P. had a talk about my lack of church attendance. J. suggested that I needed to put God first and attend church more often. She and P. discussed that if my multiple jobs are what's making me too tired to go to church then maybe I should trust God to take care of me financially and quit one of my jobs.

I listened patiently. When she was finished I said that I would rather my motivation to go to church be a result of my desire to be with God. (I said that because regardless of the words she used what I heard was "You're not being a very good Christian", "You're not living up to God's nor our expectations of you") I told her that what I have missed about church over the past couple of years is experiencing God's presence in a group setting. I said that I was even planning on going to a Presbyterian church near my house this coming Sunday because I missed being with God in church not because I felt I needed to earn God's approval or give the impression that I'm in a good (read: socially acceptable) spiritual place.

After I hung up with her, I spent the rest of the afternoon thinking about where I am spiritually. I decided that I needed to sit J. and P. down and just have a dialogue about the spiritual place I've been in for the past 3 or so years. I haven't talked to them before now because it's been only recently that I have been able to make at least some sense of it all. Only now have I been able to semi-intelligently explain where I'm at.

I'll admit, it's kind of a funky place. I realize that some may think it's a bad place. I think it's just a place. A place that will eventually lead to another place. I refuse to beat myself up for being in this place or feel compelled to make it appear as if I'm not in this place.

Remember when I told you about the time in my life when I didn't always give to Caesar's what was Caesar's? We'll about 5 years ago, I started to feel guilty about those transgressions and wondered if God would have me to go back and make amends. I knew that this would probably mean financial ruin for me. I was scared to trust God in that way and decided against it. This has had a profound effect on me spiritually. I felt that I had failed God for not trusting him enough and that I was a poor excuse for a Christian. Every time I went to church I was reminded of how I couldn't meet what I felt were God's expectations of me. Eventually I stopped going. (P. said she felt bad for me (read: pity) because it was like I had given up.)

I now realize that those feelings were not beneficial to me at all. I feel like God has brought me back to square one, the foundation of my faith -- God's love and acceptance of me is not dependant upon my performance, my salvation is made secure not by how many rules and regulations I can meet but by what Christ did for me on the cross. I buck now any time I feel the pressure of requirements (like going to church every Sunday) being placed on me.

That's not to say I don't think there is a benefit to making the sacrifice to be at church on Sunday mornings. The idea that God blesses us for the sacrifices we make for him is not lost on me. But I want to make those sacrifices out of a love for God and not because I feel it's the way to gain His acceptance.

Besides, I can't do requirements right now. If my relationship with God is dependant upon me meeting a set of requirements (and in my heart, I know it isn't) then I'm in big trouble. I must admit that I still struggle under the burden of unmet expectations. But that's just an indication that I need an even deeper understanding of God's love for me. I am a work in progress. It's a slow work but a progressing one.

Am I rambling?

Here's the bottom line: I am in a funky spiritual place. A place where I am trying to get a stronger handle on God's unconditional love for me. It's a place where I refuse to be motivated by what I think a good Christian should do or by what other's expect of me. All spiritual activities will come from a place of love and from a desire to be close to God. I refuse to apologize for being where I am nor do I care to make it appear that I am somewhere else. I am not in a bad place. I have not turned my back on God. And I am acutely aware that God has not left me for a minute. I am (and always have been) safe in His hands. One day, I will be in another spiritual place. I will rise from the ashes, so to speak. But when I do, I don't want to be the same person that I was 5 years ago. That person tried way too hard to please others and earn God's acceptance. The person that I will become will not be recognizable. Oh, there may be parts of me that are familiar to others but there will also be significant parts of me that will be completely different. I will have the same basic beliefs but the way I exercise them will not be the same as in the past.

I'm not sure my friends are ready for that.

Angel

Confessions

• Sometimes, when we end our phone calls "early" (and by early I mean before I'm ready to get off the phone, even if it's 1 a.m.), I feel -- let's see, what's the right word? -- irrational disappointment. Maybe sometimes a little anger too. Irrational anger. I call these feelings irrational because 1.) The world does not revolve around me 2.) Who wants to stay on the phone all night? 3.) You are allowed (no, encouraged) to have other interests besides me. Since I realize these feelings are irrational, I do my darnedest to hide them from you because I don't want you to ever feel bad for wanting to end our conversation because you are tired, hungry or simply want to go do something else. Besides, any woman who would be seriously upset at her man for wanting to get off the phone for any of the aforementioned reasons is a psycho bitch.

• I recently realized that my fears that you will find someone else have nothing to do with you and your past and has everything to do with me and my fear of being abandoned. I never thought that my biological father divorcing my mom and hightailing it back to Jamaica ever had much of an effect on me. Whenever I thought of him, I always experienced an absence of feeling, a nothingness. I took this as a sign that I really had no emotional issues concerning my biological father. I now see that his leaving instilled in me an expectation and a fear that I will be abandoned. Forgive me, sweetie, for projecting my fears onto you.

• Approximately 99.9% of my friends think that my relationship with you is a sin. Let me repeat that statistic again. 99.9%. This has been a tremendous emotional burden for me, much more so than I have let on, mainly because I have been inclined to agree with them. I've searched the Internet for various religious perspectives on the issue of marrying someone who has not had a salvation experience and there are a few clergy out there who would side with what we're doing but the vast majority think we are headed down the wrong path. The vast majority. Sometimes I think I might buckle under the pressure of that knowledge. But deep down inside I know that we are really good together and possess something that could last a lifetime. I also know that God loves me (and you) no matter what and that my salvation is secure in Him. Those are the things that keep me going.

• From the first day that we starting talking, I have wanted to change you - change the way you see yourself and the pessimistic way in which you see the world around you. Whenever I have dispensed advice, it has always been with the expectation and hope that you would metamorphose into this confident, self-assured person. It has been only recently that I have started to come to terms with the fact that the desire to change you is highly detrimental to our relationship. What I want to learn to do is to offer encouragement when needed but more than anything to love and accept you in all of your imperfections, just as you do me.