Believe

I believe in God.  I believe in what the Bible says.  I believe in supernatural healing. I believe in the power of Love. If God felt it necessary as part of the plan for you to physically move a mountain, I believe it would happen. I believe all of it.  I just didn't believe it worked for me. 

I was (and still am) always amazed and awed by the people who truly love and believe in God.  They seem so accepting of everything. They seem so strong. They radiate that 'peace that surpasses all understanding.'  It's inspiring to witness.  I always felt that if there was a table to feast at with God, I was sitting underneath it frantically picking up crumbs that fell.  It's as though I could hear everyone laughing and talking and enjoying the presence of God all the time, but my experience was hit or miss, and crumbs at that. 

Every day, I would put on the 'Armor of God', but I'd begin battling God.  When something happened that I didn't think was right, I'd argue with God. When I was feeling hurt, or upset, I would argue with God.  It got to the point that if I was in a hurry and I didn't get a good parking spot, I'd send a small grumbled complaint to God for that, too. I was beginning to wrestle with God as I was praying.  I was becoming the champion of the WWF technique of communicating with God. Each time I started a prayer, in the back of my mind was that voice yelling, "Are you ready to rumble!"  I stopped going to church.  On Sunday mornings it progressed from finding someone on T.V. to listen to (and there are some very good pastors there) to deciding I'd just go walking, to reading something to just sleeping in a few extra hours.  My taking to God--my prayers--continued to slowly deteriorate.  A lot of this happened because of what my daughter was going through.  My son, too, was having some issues, and there were other things like my mom dying suddenly.  All of it was getting to be too much, and who else to blame but God? 

Then something happened, I can't say exactly when, or how or what I was doing, but one Sunday, I was so tired, I just decided to go back to church.  It is a good church. It took me awhile to find it. The pastor is an excellent teacher. He explains, unravels and applies the teachings. I take notes.  So, I would get up each Sunday and force myself to go to church.  When my daughter was sober, she would go with me.  When she was passed out, I went alone.  I honestly don't know why I did go other than, I had reached that point I'd heard about where I was totally empty.  So, I would go and just sit there and listen.  Pretty soon, I started feeling the stirrings of a calmness, and I started feeling stronger.  Not all at once, and I'm still not completely there (and by there I think I mean that peace that surpasses all understanding), but I'm getting there. 

I was plodding in one Sunday, and a women who greets people, asked if everything was okay. I started tearing up.  (I was doing that a lot there.  People I didn't know, even the pastor at one point, would say hi, and ask me how I was and I would just start to cry, so I had people praying for me almost every Sunday. I was starting to get embarrassed because I didn't know how to stop that). Anyway, she asked me, I told her about not feeling that it all worked for me, and she told me it was because I was believing my feelings and not the truth.  I had to believe the Truth of God.  So, I had to not only recover from being an enabler, I had to recover from believing in feelings. (Which, as I think of it the two are kind of intertwined).

It is getting better.  I am loyal to my meetings and church.  I am learning a lot.  Before my daughter came home, I was praying all over the house. In her room, especially.  I wanted a supernatural healing in this home so that the same memories wouldn't entice her to fall back.  I was cleaning a few days before she came back, and I found a stencil that said, "Believe."  I had bought it about a  year ago at this colonial festival I went to.  The thought came to me to stencil it on her wall.  So, I did.  I continued to pray, and the Monday she was to come home, when I was at work, I was starting to feel those twinges of worry.  I was beginning to crawl into my mind's attic and unpack that suitcase of old feelings I had packed away when she had left.  I was walking around the room, and happened to look over at one of my students, and on the back of his shirt was with word, "believe."  I couldn't help but smile (and yes, got a little chill).  So, I started to relax, again.  I had to believe that God was in this and my prayers were in the process of being answered.  Fast forward to my daughter getting home.  We had talked, and she told me that she had made a plan for staying recovered here (thank you), and, oh yeah, she had made a mug while she was there.  So, she went and got it and showed me.  On the mug, she had written the word, 'Believe.'  I laughed.  I told her to go up to her room.  She did and when she saw the 'Belive' stencil, she looked at her mug, and we both smiled at each other.  I told her about my student's shirt.  God communicates in many ways. 

So, I am believing.  I am still weak, relying on feelings at times, but I am forcing myself to believe the Truth of God.  I am believing that God does love me (even though I still feel awkward saying that). I am believing that whatever may occur, God is working in all of this.  This time, I am truly believing it all.