3 posts tagged “god”
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In all discussions of Hell we should keep steadily before our eyes the possible damnation, not of our enemies nor our friends (since both these disturb the reason) but of ourselves. This chapter is not about your wife or son, nor about Nero or Judas Iscariot; it is about you and me."
I'm at home and things are...different. my niece has gotten older and talks even better than when I last saw her. she'll be four in November, and I found myself telling her earlier that I was there when she was born. and not to give off too much information, but today I heard this chant coming out of the bathroom: "Bec Bec, wipe my butt, wipe my butt." potty training. she's not a baby any more, and she's getting older and I'm getting older and it's all progressing towards death. it doesn't help that I've been watching Grey's Anatomy (where people die every day) and just finished reading that Nora Ephron book (with a depressing chapter about getting older and dying). what are the big goals to look forward to after I hit marriage? after bearing children? (those are pretty far off, but what comes next? I never could daydream that far when I daydreamed about that.)
my father has gotten worse, and I don't know what to do but pray. get down on my knees and pray that surely things can't get any worse than this. all he does is exercise all day (and he looks anorexic) and then do his various other activities (which I can't say without password-protecting this). it's beyond upsetting. he'll be 50 in December--30 years of these same activities, and they haven't gotten old for him. they've become even more important to him. I found myself taking a video of him swinging Sabrena, thinking that he may not be around to swing her for much longer, and it's not because of cancer or a heart condition. he needs prayer more than anyone I know of right now.
I'm ashamed to say that I've pushed my father out of my head. I almost had a breakdown while I was in England, worrying about him, but then I pushed him out of my head. I stopped talking to his girlfriend via email and I stopped discussing him with my mom and my friends in favor of anything else, even the homeless. because as much as I cried over the homeless and their plight, and wanting to help, none of them were my father. it was almost somehow easier to think about them, to not worry about my father. and oh, did I feel alive, talking to God about those other things.
but now I've gotten back, and I've tried to ignore some of those lessons God taught me, but I can't. I never escape Him for too long, and I never want to escape Him anymore, but sometimes it's easier to take the easier road in faith. the most frustrating thing about faith, about caring, is hearing the phrase, "well, you can't really do anything." I hear it all the time, from everyone, even believers, even best friends. and I don't believe it's true. I don't believe that is my purpose, to go on about things and not worry. I know God has to do the worrying, but I was not made to be apathetic. I disbelieve that with every ounce of my body.
but this all means that I have to stop making time to search for $18 Chanel nail polish and make time instead to ask those questions and have those relationships, and get down on my hands and knees and pray. or at least read my bible and then pray.
sometimes this worrying I have just seems too much.
"Now it is quite true that there will probably be no occasion for just or courageous acts in the next world, but there will be every occasion for being the sort of people that we can only become only as the result of doing such acts here. The point is not that God will refuse you admission to His eternal world if you have not got certain qualities of character: the point is that if people have not got at least the beginnings of those qualities inside them, then no possible external conditions could make a 'Heaven' for them--that is, could make them happy with the deep, strong, unshakable kind of happiness God intends for us." -C.S. Lewis. Mere Christianity.
I think God started preparing me a long time ago for the woman I am to be. He knew me before I was born. but it seems that this has finally been impressed upon me: that it's time to grow up, that it's time to be with God in everything. and I fail every day. I'm sure God knows what He's doing, though.
I think I'm starting to have Hemingway's existential "the story of the exile's return" dilemna. is everything changed and I'm the same, or have I changed and everything has stayed the same? I don't think I thought enough when I came back. I jumped back in, hoping for certain things to be the same. and they aren't. I have three options for thinking: isolating myself, praying, and writing about it.
I can already forsee three a.m. nights spent by the light of my Powerbook, writing because I can't sleep.
