Jesus is in the building. Not in this building, my lowly bungalow, but the building next door, the highly Reformed Church, where a Jesus Revival is going on all weekend.
These Christians reach out to Jesus with a lot of music and joyful voices. The neighborhood birds don’t care for it. Between the rifle and pistol shots from the gun range a mile from the house, and all those resounding voices from next door, it’s a little too much ‘praise the Lord and pass the ammunition’ hullabaloo for them, as they play it safe and stay home in the treetops.
My cat is enjoying it, though, she’s running from room to room like a jackrabbit as though she has become imbued with the holy spirit. I’m okay with putting religion into my cat, Lord, but how about me? You’ve got her spinning around like a whirling dervish and me sitting here in my godforsaken void.
I thought a weekend of all that singing would annoy me but I find the joyful voices, if not getting through to my elusive ‘soul’ — wherever my soul lurks only the shadow knows — they are joy to my ears that don’t hear that well anymore anyway. I call out in jest, Heal me Jesus from my half-deaf, half-blind godless solitude.
After a whole day listening to Christians sing their praise and worship to the holy spirit, I have turned to my own spirits, the 80-proof kind, as darkness descends upon this lonely house and the voices still rise to the heavens.
I liked this post—it was punny but also forlorn. Why is life so hard and why does God seem so far away?
I’ve been cycling through my own emotions with God, and a lot of them range from bitterness to outright fury. They’re all holdovers from the deeply religious way in which I was raised, being the daughter of a pastor.
Through all of it, however, He still hasn’t struck me down for feeling so horribly towards Him or anything religious, and strangely, He grows ever more real to me through all of these wrestlings. I think I’m scared to accept how deeply good He is because I know how deeply bad I am.
I pray that God will hear and answer your prayer even if you don’t really mean it.
I’ve missed you on these pages, Larisa, have you been away? I strongly doubt that you are “deeply bad.”
Thank you, Clyde Herrin, and I do mean it, despite my flippant tone.
Thanks Mich! I guess being deeply bad is subjective, but from the point of eternity and the holiness of God, there is no escaping it—I am not a good person.
I always tell people (mostly when they try to shame me for something due to my beliefs) that I’m not Christian because I am good, I am Christian because I need a Savior.
I’ve been busy!! Busy with work, with life in general, with all of the personal growth I’ve had to do. I’m looking forward to a rest, whenever that may be.
How are you?
That’s a good reason for being a Christian.