![]() The Israelites called it manna, which means “what is it?” I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didn’t pray. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven. For forty years, their shoes didn’t wear out. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn’t pray. I remind myself that I’m praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between us-and I don’t want to argue with God. If an explanation would help, He would write me one-I know it. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.” But count me also among the friends of God. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. These are the prayers I repeat night and day sunrise, sunset.Ĭall me bitter if you want to-that’s fair. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. Tears have become the only prayer I know. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. ![]() But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me. Maybe He’ll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn’t grateful enough. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. ![]() There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I spent three months propped against the wall. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far.Īfter the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |