A blog always seems like a great way to impart your sordid truths on the world. But as always, however eager I am to navigate to this website, I find myself staring at the empty screen and blinking as if everything I'd wanted to share seems so vapid compared to the bustling world around me.
I was not involved in any type of organized religion growing up, unless you include the vacation bible school I joined that one summer because the flyers around town indicated it was going to be one big underground rave with glow sticks and circus animals during the day time. I thought God was such a cool guy for wanting me to enjoy cotton candy with my friends. I never scoffed at organized religion but I felt that true believers had a much bigger existence than my feeble little self was worthy of. Not only did I feel humbled by God, I felt unduly humbled by all things Christian. Meaningful prayers were able to fluidly roll off my friends’ tongues like a second language and I stood there truly wondering what the difference was between God and Jesus. One time a friend invited me to pray at their family dinner and although I successfully stumbled through it, it was not unlike Whoopi Goldberg’s first prayer in Sister Act. I was a timid, chubby, 6th grader with acne and a predisposition to blend quietly into the background while my fellow co-beings existed in front of me. I couldn’t comprehend how someone could love me as His child when I had a cowlick, dirty fingernails and cussed like a sailor.
I am circling around a point here. When I moved to Florida, my heart began aching for God to fill it. I tried filling it with things of man which only increased the gaping hole in my heart. I sought out a church where I could fade comfortably into the background while I stumbled through the basics of the bible and the standard verbiage. Because of my debilitating feelings of inadequacy and anxiety, I needed a church where I could slip in without someone bringing me to the alter to introduce me, or grabbing onto my hand and playing “gather around the heathen” in silent prayer. I found a church with nearly 5,000 members. I hesitantly stepped inside the double doors one hot, August Sunday and gaped. Rows upon rows of stadium seating with lights and cameras bustled to enormous steel beams hovering above me. With a racing heart, I scampered up the steps to the very last row, clenched my brand new Bible in my hand and waited for God to speak to me. When my pastor approached the alter early that morning, God moved him out of the way and spoke to me in a voice more clear than anything I had heard before. You are ok. While I continue to fumble through my prayers each night in short choppy sentences, I know He hears me. At times, when I don’t know how or what to pray, He listens to my heart and my burden becomes His. I am a student of the Most high and I am continuously learning. What a blessing!
