Me and Monet - A Confession

I have often compared my life to a Monet painting. Grand, impressive, surprising, and innovative – as long as you don’t get too close, because up close me and the Water Lilies are one massive mess.

When you do what I do for living, people have all sorts of crazy expectations. They think that you have it all together, that you have this puzzle called life figured out, and that matters of faith have stopped being a struggle – after all, how could anyone possibly be brazen enough to speak about these things if their own life isn’t in perfect order?

The funny thing is I have never claimed to have all the answers. I just share the ones I stumbled across in my attempts to survive, and I never cease to be amused from those who think I am flying when I know that I am falling. Maybe it’s the self-deprecating smile that confuses people, but when you have fallen as much as I have you learn to laugh or else you will have to cry – and I hate crying, especially in front of people.

The truth is I haven’t arrived. I haven’t found that place of zen like peace, I haven’t figured out how to solve life’s problems, and I still haven’t learned to walk in all things with grace.

I suppose today’s writing is a bit of a confession, a time to come clean, and just be real for a moment. Not because I want sympathy or pity, just because I think it is important for all of us to remember that no one has it all together. No one ever truly masters this thing called faith. Life is one big pop quiz after another, forcing us to live up to or betray those things we have professed to believe.

Do you trust God with your finances? Great! Here is a $1500 dental bill! Do you trust God with your kids? Good! Here is some rebellion and defiance. Do believe God has great plans for you marriage? Wonderful! Your spouse is going to do something incredibly stupid and hurtful, and he is going to have a stroke. How about your health? Let’s give you a terrifying lump in your breast.  How about your stuff? You know your house, your car, your phone, your computer? The air conditioner is going to die, the transmission is going to go out, let’s see if the fish want to make a call from the bottom of the lake, and here is a blue screen of death.

And I am not making any of that stuff up. It’s all happened, and it has all happened to me in the past year. The closer I get to doing those things that I really believe that God is calling me to the faster the hits keep coming. Sure, I do all the right things, I pray, I worship, I seek wise counsel, and I ask my friends to remember me in their prayers, but sometimes you just get worn out. The frustration leaves you too tired to fight, and life just keeps beating you bloody.

To make matters worse, I do know some right answers and that is the problem. I know them, in my head I know them, but I haven’t figured out how to move that knowledge to my heart. So a lot of the time, I just feel like I am faking it. Like I am spouting off all the write words without feeling it, and then adding condemnation to my frustration because I needed more to deal with.

To be terribly honest, the biggest issue in my spiritual walk that I am wrestling with is the fact I feel like asking God for anything is the surest way to be told no. I can make you a list of unanswered prayers, some selfish and some truly noble requests, and I am wrestle with the tendency to be bitter at what I try not to think of as His neglect. My knowledge of the Bible tells me there is some greater purpose and point to God saying no, but it doesn’t stop my heart from hurting.

Pride wells up, and I demand to know why I have been forgotten despite the fact I am working so hard to do what He has called me to do. I fight the urge to fancy myself a martyr when the clouds of despair roll in, thundering with self-righteous indignation and punctuated with the lightening of rage. All the while that still voice that retains some modicum of sanity inside me is protesting the storms I have allowed to boil inside me, flooding me, overwhelming me with doubt and fear.

But beneath it all is truth, like the rock submerged beneath the flood waters, obscured for a moment but never moving. I am often washed from it and most days I am fighting to find my place upon it again so that I can life my head above the waves. For I know that is the only place where I can truly breathe, the only place where I feel alive, and it is the only place that offers the hope of perspective to understand the chaos of my life.

What is that truth? He will never leave me or forsake me. He is there in the midst of the storm. Nothing in my life escapes His notice or care, my sorrows are His, and my disappointments pave the way for revelations of His grace. My anger does not intimidate Him, my pride does not fool Him, and my sadness does not scare Him. He is big enough to cope with all of me, including my doubts and fears as I learn that denial is not rejection and His silence is not neglect. For a while, I may have to simply hold that knowledge in my head, but I pray that with time I will learn to embrace it with my heart.

For only God is can draw close enough to see the chaos and mess of me while still knowing the beauty seen from a distance.