It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything that wasn’t fiction, and almost as long since I’ve posted anything on this blog. I would have put this into a story I think, but I don’t have the time or the spark to write what would amount to a broken dialogue.
For the first time in my life, I’ve found a church that believes that God still moves as he did in the early church. Or, I’ve found a church that acts upon this belief, welcoming the broken with open arms and fully offering the love of God and the renewal of the Holy Spirit, believing that God can and will heal both body and spirit, making his children anew. Less than ten hours before this writing, God used a Pastor I had never met, never spoken to, as a mouthpiece, laying bare my fears, doubts and pain and binding them with prayer as a physician binds a wound. His hands on my shoulders, this man of God’s prayers touched scars that I’ve never told anyone about… and what’s more, told me for the first time that God truly loves me and that his love holds no requirements. He told me that, in spite of the flawed followers of Christ that so bitterly wounded me in the past, the church would be a part of the restoration of my soul. Not the same people in the sames buildings, but this little piece of the Body here in New England. The wounds are still here, the pain and the loss of trust. Yet for the first time, the guilt is gone, replaced by the realization that a thousand small scars can be just as damaging as one great one. Where the wounds come from doesn’t matter, the God of healing love wants to restore each and every one of his children.
Such a different face than the God I had always seen in the eyes and actions of the people around me before. So much like the God of the pharisees, the God of Law and Wrath. I’m sure this wasn’t the intention, at least not always, but love and acceptance became something to be earned. They became something that I could never quite seem to attain.
Maybe to understand this, you should know a little bit more about me. First off, I’m a writer, and writers are notoriously odd creatures, often seeing the world in a different light than those around them. Pain is remarkably easy for me to see and the moment I see it, it becomes a part of me as well. This powerful sense of empathy is hard to describe and harder to understand if you’ve never felt it. I’m sure there’s a great many that would scoff at this notion, but I assure you that it’s real. This empathy alone can be isolating, for no matter how easy it is for me to relate to others, those that can relate to me just as well are few and far between. I don’t mean a casual rapport, but a true friend that understands the depths and breadth of my dreams and passions.
Add a voracious thirst for stories, books and, gasp, video games, as well as a love for, double gasp, heavy metal music and magic tricks, to my innate empathy and you’ve got quite a character. According to several churches, employers, coworkers, classmates and professors, quite a dubious character. In the rare times I’ve opened up fully in the past few years, I can’t help but remember the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, a sonic masterpiece filled with sorrow and fury. I’ll only subject you to two lines:
Every time I try to open up my heart, I’m ridiculed and torn apart
And
There’s something inside me that I know is good, I’m not evil, just misunderstood
There’s at least one church that would have kicked me out, irony and all, if I dared to play that song openly. Oddly enough the singer professes her own faith, though the band itself may not.
On a similar but different note, I was once handed a test designed to, ahem, gauge the quality of your faith. I only remember one question, the question that failed me. Do you hear God in a thunderstorm or in a gentle drizzle. Both wasn’t a choice, I asked.
None of the attitudes I saw seemed to match the Christ I read about in my Bible. From the young woman excommunicated for a pregnancy, to the girl ridiculed and shamed for depression and doubt, to the young man ostracized for having tattoos, two different congregations, I began to lose my faith in the love and goodness of the God we claimed to serve. College and work were little better and I quickly fell into a depression that still hides in the darkest corners of my mind today. I came within one argument of leaving my faith behind. If this was the church and the face of God, I wanted no part of either.
My faith shaken and my trust and self esteem shattered, I found myself in New England. There’s a joke, it’s not funny, that New England is cold and dark and it’s not because of the weather. I guess God likes irony as much as I do, because it took moving to New England for this particular writer to find a warm, safe, caring home. It’s taken nearly three years, but it seems my scars are finally beginning to close.
This has been rambling and disjointed I’m sure, but it may well be the closest thing to a testimony that I’ll ever write. That hasn’t been hidden in a fictional character at least.
Within the Endless Skies 