Writing to no one in particular

One good aspect of this blogging thing is that I haven't told anyone about it (at least not yet). So I feel totally uninhibited and can write whatever I want.

I'm having some God problems. I'm not "doubting" his existence, but I guess I'm becoming more aware that God isn't what I thought He was. He's not working the way I think He should and that bugs me. It's ok to write that, I'm pretty sure He's aware of my feelings at this point.

This whole situation with living with Rusty's mom's house for the past nine months has taken it's toll. I didn't sign on for this. Our house in Fairfield was supposed to sell, we'd find something here and have our own home again. I'm starting to feel like that's never going to happen. Like we will never have space to call our own. I haven't been alone in the house since last October when we got here. It's really starting to irritate me.

The first few times I felt this way, I pushed it back inside because we really believe that God provided the opportunity to move after some really specific prayers about Rusty's job. I felt like I was being selfish and ungrateful for the chance to stay here instead of having to rent somewhere until our house sold. Then I'd start to resent the situation because I felt guilty about something that was truly bothering me. It's a big ugly cycle.

I thought things were getting better because we had a closing date set for this house on July 30th. When that had to be pushed back, I lost it. I was crying at least every other day last week and the week before. I felt like my personality and desires don't matter to God. I feel like I lost a part of myself because I have little chance to be creative right now, there are few really creative places to get supplies around here and the one opportunity to teach has yet to happen even though everyone at the store "can't wait" for me to start. Hearing that makes it worse -- if you "can't wait", then why are you waiting?! Get yourself organized already and hire me! If God gave me the desire to create in the first place, why doesn't he give me an outlet so I can feel like my life has some kind of purpose again? (please, my husband and kids are definitely worth my time. I'm talking about a personal feeling here - aside from being a mom and wife). Even if I finally did get a teaching job, it'd be a joke because there is just total chaos going on in the rest of my life right now and I'd have to say no even though I desperately want to say yes!

So as I'm working through all of this, another "What the crap is God thinking" occurrence takes place. My mom tells me about Rachel Litton, a family friend from school. She's 27, has a heart problem and finds out she's pregnant. Her doctor wants her to abort and she and her husband don't. Assuming from what I've heard about Rachel, there was no question. So God should bless her and her husband for that decision, right? Rachel died, four months pregnant. How does that work? Where is the blessing for doing the right thing? Where is the miracle? Please, before anyone worries that I'm going to get struck by lightening, I am sorting through the big picture. Which I guess is what this whole post is about. This post isn't really about me and my pity party, or even Rachel. It's about God and what I thought I understood about Him.

I'm thinking about this whole situation again. My piddly little "needs" and the bigger picture. And I realize I've got God all wrong. I've always thought "God is awesome". But my understanding of the word awesome is probably something along the lines of "really cool" or "He just cares so much". Rarely have I experience anything that's truly "awesome". We're always hearing "God is good". Do I still believe He is? I do. I just believe that my idea of "good" isn't on track. I've come to believe that what makes God so awesome in the real sense of the word is that His version of "good" isn't the same as ours. What's ultimately good isn't necessarily what we would consider "good" in the moment. If God is good, and only capable of doing good and Rachel died anyway... what does that mean?

I remember when I was in high school, we had a speaker at church. His son had been killed in a horrible car accident. The guy stood there and said he could believe God was good because only God knew what his son would have faced later in life. Maybe he would have faced a situation far worse than dying in a car accident and going to heaven. Maybe he would have had to go to war. Maybe he would have lost his faith for some reason. Maybe somehow God knew that he had to take him at the age of 16 to prevent something later on down the road. I never really understood what he was talking about. I think I'm starting to get it now.

I can't even begin to speculate on the Rachel's family and what they're going through. Thankfully, I haven't lost anyone that close to me in such a tragic way. But in my own little world, I know that there are probably reasons why God is putting me through all this (ok, "allowing me to be put through this" -- I know someone will read this and say "God doesn't do bad things", blah, blah, blah). Actually, to be brutally honest with myself, I know that this entire house situation really has nothing to do with me and I'm just taking it personally. I just want to be able to say that it doesn't feel good right now and please don't judge me because I'm not happy about going through it.

The one comfort I've drawn from all of this deep thinking is that God cannot be understood. That's a comfort to me because if someone as lame as myself could understand God, then He must not be all that great. But I can't, so He is. I'm working on my being able to see "awesome" as the powerful word it really is, even when it doesn't seem particularly "good" in an isolated situation. I'm also working on my feeling toward church at the moment. We have a great church full of great people. I don't feel like I want to be a part of that right now, and I'm not sure why or what to do about it. I hope you'll pray about some sort of resolution to that as I know it's a vital part of growing my faith and understanding deep thinking like this.