Off The Lenten Path: God is Tired Of Me. I am Tired Of God.

For the better part of my life I have enjoyed and struggled with a strong God consciousness. I have never felt alone or away from God. In my life I have endured and come through some dark moments with my faith still intact. I could feel God's presence. Always.

Today, I am quitting God. This aloneness and desolation is more than I can stand. I believe God has grown tired of me. My prayers are mumblings of things no longer believed. There is a tiredness in my spirit and in my soul that plagues me. I am unrecognizable in my prayers. My voice is unrecognizable in my prayers. I have been standing on sinking ground for a very long time... For years. Grasping and grappling with God's grace. Trying to move forward in the face of loss and heartbreak. No, I do not wish that others ought to suffer in my stead. I accept my suffering... I have brought the bulk of it on myself. I do not ask why me? I do not ask why not me? I have come to accept the suffering as a part of the joy.

I have been lost before and have found my way. I have been sad many times before and have put my feet upon the path leading back to God. Not this time. This time I just want to be left alone.

I am quitting God for so many reasons that I wouldn't live long enough to say. I am quitting God mostly because, God is tired of me. I know this. I feel this.

My life is full of things I need to do to sustain my commitment of raising children and maintain employment. That is all there is. There is work and work.  Everything feels like a chore. Even the places of joy and happiness feel like chores. My breath feels like a chore. Even as I am sitting here grasping for the words to not feel so ungrateful for the life and the blessings I have enjoyed feels like a chore. Burdens that seem unending and relentless are suffocating my life.

I am screaming in my prayers. I am screaming in my conversations with people. I am screaming when I have to deal with one more avalanche of troubles. I am always screaming even when I am sitting and singing in church. I am screaming everytime I get on the scale. I am screaming every time I have to figure out what to do next. I am screaming nonstop and it is killing me.

I know I do not have the right to this kind of ungrateful purging. I feel ashamed with each letter I type. This is the truth I am standing in... Drowning in. I still marvel at the bigness of God. I am in awe of God in the big and small spaces everywhere I go. And I know my quitting God does not affect the sunrise or sunset anywhere in the world.

God is tired of me. I am tired of God.

My Lenten Journey: I am the Big Space of God

I was struggling with whether or not I should even "do Lent" this year. My mood was such that I just didn't feel holy, or sacred or divine. The world just seems crazy and I seem crazy in it. My attitude was piss poor and I was feeling quite desolate. More than just tired and annoyed and grumpy. Truly desolate. Wondering if this was indeed my dark night of my soul. My minister read my last blog post and invited me to not miss last Sunday's sermon. So I didn't miss it. My mind got back "stayed on Jesus" But in the days after that I begin to feel my whole self in all spaces I was in.

I have been struggling with weight for a while now. Hate. Acceptance. Hate. Acceptance. Hate. Diet. New Diet. Yet another diet. I know better. But I got to thinking about my bigness. Not just in size, but in the scope of how I am in the world. I take up a lot of space...Physically and energetically. My presence is known whenever and wherever I show up anywhere. I am seen and heard.

So when I talk about weight and losing weight, maybe I am saying that I wish I wasn't so big in the world... My world. I wish I could go unnoticed. Quietly move about this life. And then it hit me. God did not design me for smallness. And he certainly hasn't called me to do small things. And that the space I take up, is the big space of God. So the madness about losing weight shifts into something other than wanting to be small. It becomes about being the best vessel to hold God and God's message.

This is the tone for my lenten journey. Explore the big space of God that I am. For the next 40 days I will look where I am big in spaces and celebrate that. To see where I am my most brightest and shine brighter, not dim down.  To notice where my laugh is the biggest and loudest and add more of that to my everyday practical life. To spend time with people who are big in their lives, in their thinking and in their positive contributions to each other and to the earth

I've played small. I've tried being small. I have been small. I have sought God in the smallest of smallest places for refuge and solace. Now I am seeking God in the big spaces. I am going to see where my big spaces are and stand in them and be with God. Be with God in the big spaces. I am indeed, the big space of God.

Amen.