I tend to write letters to God - often. I was rereading my most recent letter and decided I’d blog an excerpt of it.
I guess I’m still a little mad at you, but I’m trying though. You broke my family, you broke my spirit, you broke my heart, and you broke my life. Oh, and don’t try to blame this all on the devil, either. I’m sure that if you really wanted to, you could have stopped a lot of breakage from happening. And I think I would be well within my rights to demand you fix me, however, I’m not going to do that. I know you have other, more pressing, matters to attend to.
I’ve tried to glue myself back together again each time that you broke me, and I’ve come to the realization that whatever glue I’m using may not be all that strong because I can still see a lot of cracks and chips. I’m afraid that in time, these cracks and chips will turn into full breaks again.
So instead of asking you to fix me, because as I already mentioned, you have more pressing matters, all I’m asking is that you give me some of that super industrial strength stuff that you have up there in heaven.
I promise that whatever amount you give me, I’ll use it sparingly and make it last. You owe me at least that much, and don’t try to give me the whole spiel on “you gave me life, yada yada” - we are so not going to debate that again. We agreed to disagree.
Well, anyhoo, I figure, with your super industrial strength glue, a little ingenuity on my part, and if you don’t break me again, I should be fine…
March 5th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
God and I have never gotten along much. I always figured if there were a God, he/she certainly wouldn’t have all the horrible things happen to me that did once upon a time. But when I look back now I can see that those things, well most of them, happened for a reason and I wouldn’t be the person I am today without all of those things. I was able to take certain things from certain situations and actually learn and grow from it.
Was it hard? Hell yeah! Am I still bitter to this day, you betcha, but if you can find that one piece of silver lining, then you’ve actually outsmarted God and in my book, that’s a damn good thing.
March 5th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Thanks. It’s nice to know I’m not the only one God has shafted over the years.
He and I are actually on a first name basis now and our relationship is getting a little better - however, like you, I am still a little bitter.
I have to do a trace route of all the things in my life which seem negative to keep myself from going insane. I plot out - if A (bad thing) didn’t happen, then B (seemingly neutral thing) wouldn’t have happened, then C (good thing) definitely wouldn’t have happened.
It’s still no justification though - he should have just skipped steps A and B, I wouldn’t have minded. Sometimes it’s scary how my mind works some days
March 7th, 2005 at 8:14 pm
Teli — Your letter is very real, open and honest. I don’t presume to know what you’ve gone through, but your letter speaks of brokenness. A book that really helped me deal with issues of brokenness is The Cup of Life by Joyce Rupp. It includes poetry, her reflections and inspirations for the reader’s journaling.
Secondly, Marcus Borg is a progressive Christian thinker who offers an alternative viewpoint of who God is. I don’t know if this will connect with you but the ideas have revolutionalized my own understandings. “The God We Never Knew” is a good one to start with, but all of his books are very good.
March 7th, 2005 at 8:23 pm
Well I goofed up the previous comment but the links go to “The Cup of Our Life” by Joyce Rupp and a list of books by Marcus Borg. I like reading for its own sake, but for me it offers time to work through issues and develop a better understanding of myself and my life. That’s a reason I like journaling too.
March 9th, 2005 at 2:43 am
No worries, your comment has been fixed up :).
And yes, sometimes I do feel very broken. In my day to day life, people tend to forget that I’m human too and assume that, somehow, I can manage to carry the entire world on my shoulders (or at least, that’s what it feels like) without so much as a flinch or a gripe.
At one point in my life, I stopped believing in God altogether - it literally hurt too much to, then it started to hurt too much not to. Thus, began my letters, I mostly just ask for strength though. Maybe one day I’ll be able to talk about “what I’ve been through” - but I don’t know when that day will come.
I’ll definitely check out the books you’ve linked to as I’m always trying to learn “the meaning of life” beyond what I already know it to be.