Floored by a Favoring Non-Thief

I think I need a couple of disclaimers for this post. Firstly, I am writing this in response to the church service that I attended this evening; so if you won't attend my church until tomorrow morning/afternoon, I apologize in advance for any spoilers. Secondly, this will be one of my emo therapy posts; if I feel like cussing, I will censor myself. This blog has become like my journal, so I share some very personal things here, but you are welcome to read them. Thank you in advance for reading, and thank you always for your kindness.

"Your mercy, O Lord, is in the heavens; Your faithfulness reaches to the clouds. Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast. How precious is Your lovingkindness, O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Your wings. They are abundantly satisfied with the fullness of Your house, and You give them drink from the river of Your pleasures. For with You is the fountain of life; in Your light we see light." (Psalm 36:5-9)

Tonight at church, a worship pastor shared part of Psalm 36 with us (I think these were the verses, in a different version). That part about being under the shadow of God's wings particularly stuck out at me today.

Actually, all of Psalm 36 holds a special place in my heart. Speaking of being under somebody's wing, several years ago, for a very brief period of time, I was being mentored by a lady while I was beginning my crazy-explosive, extensive season of healing. One thing she instructed me to do was to meditate on scripture. The truth of the scripture is supposed to replace whatever lie you've been believing. So, for some reason, I decided to "meditate" on Psalm 36 while I was driving my car on a holiday road trip. I had one of those little Gideon New Testaments/Psalms/Proverbs with me, and I held it open on my steering wheel while I was reading and highway-driving simultaneously.

That was a very unwise thing to do. Yes, I was safe, and yes, I was very happy, and yes, I was having a great time, but anytime I read anything, I need to do so while I'm NOT driving, ya know? But that was a special road trip for me nevertheless.

Unfortunately, I found out later that the lady who was mentoring me was a first-class [bleep]. She ended our mentor relationship quite abruptly, and she rejected me quite overtly and quite mean-spiritedly, even though I couldn't see at the time that she was treating me badly.

Now I understand why. But at the time, she was basically puking junk into my soul, and God had to spend some time scraping it out later.

Please pardon my graphicness, but I'm not sure how else to explain this. Also several years ago, I had what seemed to be a really crazy-long episode of vertigo. (Yes, of course I blogged about it.) When that dizzy spell hit, I was at work, so I had to leave early that day because I was suddenly incapacitated. Miraculously (and with a ton of emergency prayer), I drove myself home. I was about to turn into the parking lot of my apartment complex when I puked all over myself. Also miraculously, I cleaned up after myself -- my clothes and my car. Sometime after that incident, I was still cleaning bits of dried-up puke out of my car (in the steering wheel, etc.). Honestly, I can still see a tiny flick of dried-up puke in my car today, but it's waaaaay up the dashboard on the windshield near the wiper blades, and I'm short, and I keep procrastinating cleaning it up. Or maybe I've just left it there for really weird sentimental reasons. Hmm. I might have to think about that for a while...

Yes, I actually might have to think about whether or not I want to clean a tiny little piece of dried-up puke out of my car. That's just the way I am. I mull over things in my mind quite repeatedly and quite constantly. I'm always thinking about something. That's how I thrive. I'm a meditator. God made me that way. I have to be careful about what I focus on, because I could truly damage myself if I meditate on the wrong thing. He wants me to meditate on Him and His truth. When I do that, it changes my life.

When people puke junk into my soul, sometimes God takes a while to scrape it all out.

I'm a deep person. (The more God heals me up, the deeper I become.) Sometimes when I get hit with major revelations, they have to permeate through multiple layers inside me; they have to soak through multiple layers; they have to echo through multiple inner caverns; they have to brand themselves in multiple places; are you getting the idea? Well, I had one such revelation tonight.

The sermon tonight was about giving -- money, yes, but also about being generous with your time, etc. My pastor talked about God changing our hearts regarding money and regarding generosity, and I had heard that sermon several years before. This year, he said that we would be starting a churchwide giving initiative, and they had printed out ideas -- on fliers that we could pick up after the sermon -- about how to give to your community. So, I thought about my bank account, and I braced myself for God to tell me to give away a whole lot of my money. Instead, God gently reminded me, "I don't want to rob you."

I walked out of the sanctuary and picked up a flier, and I expected it to have a whole lot of money-giving ideas like give $20 to your neighbor just for the heck of it, give $100 to your coworker or something like that. I glanced over the flier, and I was floored. What? No money-giving ideas? Just simple ideas like volunteering at church? I already do that. While I walked to my car, I thought about how humongously gracious God really is compared to what I had thought He was like for many years.

So, I got inside my car -- the one that still has that tiny flick of dried-up puke waaaaay up the dashboard -- and I closed the door and asked God, "You're not a thief?" And I just sat there for several minutes and repeated the question. "You're not a thief?" I think I had believed for many years that He was a thief. The truth, of course, is that He isn't. But I still sat there, in shock, asking, "You're not a thief?"

I drove out of the parking lot, and I played Queen, and I happened to play my favorite Queen song to sing to God during a quiet time, the one that goes, "My money / That's all You want to talk about," and I began to cry. And I was still blubbering, "You're not a thief?"

I think it was a good thing I was alone during this meditative layer-permeating truth episode, because being around other people while this type of thing is happening isn't conducive to a normal conversation. I sound like a 2-year-old during these episodes. But God -- being the Perfect Father that He is -- listened to my obsessive, tear-filled 2-year-old chanting while the truth soaked down into all the layers that it needed to soak into.

Heck, it's still soaking. God is not a thief? Wow.

"The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly." (Jesus talking in John 10:10)

Of course, the thief/killer/destroyer that scripture refers to is the devil. God is not only the complete opposite of the devil. God is also a neverending Source of truth, grace, and love that I won't be able to duplicate anywhere else. And He's my Friend. And He's my Helper. And He's my Father.

Tonight, I was thinking about how abusers are basically thieves. An abuser will steal something -- like dignity, innocence, or peace -- that he or she doesn't have any right to take from you.

One way that my birth father abused me was spiritually. He would corner me and puke all kinds of junk into my soul for very extended amounts of time. Of course, God has spent a very extended amount of time scraping it out. Or maybe He's just been healing me by flooring me and pouring His truth into my soul for very extended amounts of time.

Seriously, God is not a thief? Wow.

Another way that my birth father abused me was emotionally. He overtly favored my younger sister instead of me. What really messed me up was when I tried to tell my parents (technically, my birth mother) that they loved her more than they loved me, but this claim was denied. What happens when you see something happening right in front of your eyes, but somebody denies that it's actually happening, even though you actually saw it happen? You wonder if something is wrong with you, and then you go crazy.

Perhaps I was too young to remember this, but I was told that when my younger sister was a baby, my birth father's schedule was so busy that as soon as he would come home from work, my birth mother would put the baby in his arms so that he could bond with her. (Um, hello, what about me?)

Well, he bonded with her, all right. What I do remember, a few years after that, was him tucking her into bed at night on a regular basis. I think he would read the Bible and pray with her. But I don't remember him doing that with me. My birth mother would tell me that these nightly scenes were wrong, but I don't remember my birth father doing anything to make them right. I don't blame my younger sister. She wasn't doing anything wrong. My birth father was just a major [bleep]hole.

Something bad clicked inside me during those nights when my father would spend sweet intimate time with my sister instead of me. He was enjoying time with her in her room, but I was in my room in the dark by myself. This was around the time when I was hitting puberty. I think my soul got the message that if I want deep intimacy with a man, I'm going to have to generate it myself. I believe this was when a certain sin first began to trip me up. (Yes, of course I've blogged about it since then.) Still keeping it vague on purpose, I will say that I'm still fighting it.

Today at church, I was thinking that maybe one way I could fight this sin would be to simply run to my Father, Psalm 36:7-style, and let Him hold me until the temptation goes away. That sounds like such a simple solution. Why hadn't I thought of that before?

Perhaps because I thought God was a [bleep]hole thief who loved on His other children in the other room while I was left alone to deal with life my own way, in the dark.

Seriously, He's not a thief? Wow.

When I think about all that time I spent with all those [bleep]hole people, I feel robbed. There was no reason for me to stick around those first-class jerks. Now I know that I can hang around people who actually love me instead. The One who loves me more than anyone, of course, is God.

I think one reason why He actually allowed me to sin in the first place was so that I could see what He was really like. He's never cornered me to lecture me, and He's never pushed me away. He is not a thief. He is not an abuser. He is not a tyrant.

He is firm, yes. He disciplines, yes. He has extremely high standards, yes. But He is so full of grace that I possibly may never comprehend all of it. Even in our sin, He loves us, He wants us, and He favors us. The Bible says that even while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8). If anyone has the right to overtly, mean-spiritedly reject us, it's God. But when He adopts us as His children, He's stuck with us for life, and we're stuck with Him for life, and He's our Source of life. He's been showing me that the sins that trip me up are really just symptoms of the wounds that He's in the process of healing anyway. When I sin, yes, I hurt God. But when I repent, we can work on fixing me together. It amazes me how He still wants relationship with me even after I sin. He doesn't want to punish me for falling short. He wants to help me. He just wants me.

Well, He can have me. For life.

Seriously, He's not a thief.