My Current Perspective

January 3, 2017

I started a book on the first that I am hoping is going to help me gain a new perspective on God and my relationship with Him/Her.  That HER is actually difficult for me to type and leave there.  I have always had the image of God as the Father not Mother, but a friend of mine suggested I try that.  We have been trained to believe that God is male, but it makes sense that God would not have a specific gender.  Even my brother Todd believes that we will not be labeled by sex/gender in Heaven. Her/Mother is much more comforting in a way.  I had a rather stern biological father in my early life, so I tend to have a vision of God as a stern male handing out judgement and discipline for each infraction.  It's a difficult vision to shake, especially since much of what I learned when I was a member of the Phoenix Valley Church of Christ corroborated such a view.  My disciplers/spiritual guides, preachers, bible talk leaders, family group leaders, women's day retreat leaders, and the leaders of Sarah's Daughters (a group of women whose husbands do not believe/follow God) all aided in producing my image of the heavenly father and what it means to live a godly life.   They did not mean to cause harm or twist who God was to me, but it happened.  My goal now?  Change my perspective.

My current perspective is rather bleak and hard to admit.  Here are just a few things that I have thought/felt for quite awhile but have just recently put to words:

*  Being a child of God is painful and never easy. It's a constant battle.  If I get involved in a church again and start reading God's word, I will lose myself—which honestly is scripturally based
Matt 10:39, Matt 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24, and John 12:25.  The scriptures speak of losing your life in order to gain it, especially if you lose your life for the sake of God/Jesus.  Those scriptures and how they were taught to me turned me into someone who actually pushed people away including myself.  I did not know myself. I ceased to exist really.  There has to be a balance.  I have to be able to serve God without giving up what makes me, me.  We are called to be submissive, but my spirit was beaten into such submission that I no longer had spirit.  My husband wrote me a letter while I was attending the Church of Christ and I have saved it to remind myself of what I must never allow to have happen again.  In it he says, "I fell in love with a beautiful, well-rounded, independent woman with a deep desire to help and please others, as well as a strong perfectionist streak.  She used to put family first, rarely (if ever) issue public judgements of others, and roll around on the floor when she laughed.  I married her, promising that she would always be first in my heart.  A year or so after we got married, a cult got hold of her and used her heart and perfectionism to their advantage—she now wants to be a perfect disciple and please God.  Those are admirable goals, but suppressing a vibrant personality will not please God. ....because you can't be perfect (as the Church urges) I  see you stressed out all the time—even in summer when you're supposed to be chillin'.  ....when we were dating and before you joined ICC (International Church of Christ), you laughed all the time. Life was generally beautiful.  Since that time (1998, when you joined the church) I noticed that you cry, huff, get irritated easily and laugh maybe a quarter as much as you used to."  He ends the letter with "Please, babe. Come back to me.  You've been gone for such a long time."  I cannot read those words without crying uncontrollably.  I cannot go back to that.  It is heartbreaking and clearly not loving.  I made my husband feel so unworthy, so alone, so hurt.

*  I fear God more than I love him.  I feel that He toys with us for His own ends and means.  I try to think, that's not what He does and if He does it's because He loves us and is trying make us more Christlike.  I have actually thought, I wish I didn't know of God.  I wish I could just live free of that burden.  Yes, it feels like a burden and I know that is horrible to say.

* Instead of viewing all of the wonderful things in my life (where we live, our financial security, the luxuries, pleasantries and comforts we have in our lives) as blessings, they become a piece of God's test. He is giving us over to the pleasures of this world and what it leads to, which is death—eternal.  Will we see past the smoke screen and realize these things are hindering us from truly following God? Why can't they simply be blessings from God?  Why— Because I have been taught that to truly follow God and love Him and to be Christlike you have to lead a poor existence and you have to be persecuted.  If you're not being persecuted for your beliefs, then you're not making your convictions and love of God known.  You are lukewarm and God will spit you out.  "I know your deeds, you are neither cold nor hot.  How I wish you were one or the other.  So because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of My mouth!  You say, 'I am rich; I have grown wealthy and need nothing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked..." (Rev. 3-15-17).  So how is one to view that?  How do we avoid being lukewarm and yet still maintain a comfortable life that is not riddled with guilt and shame.  Does it come down to our perspective on money and creature comforts, our genuine attitude?  If we are not consumed by the desire for those comforts, then is it okay to see them as blessings?  Why does it have to be a burden to live this life in this world that God has created for us? Then I think, He didn't create it for us; He created it for Himself.  All of this ridiculous life is for His pleasure and HE can do as he pleases and HE will.  Do you feel the love?  Can you see why I need a new perspective?

When I started this post I was planning to share the book's scriptures and my thoughts on what I have read so far, but now I feel so overcome with emotion that I think I will save those thoughts for another day.  I am emotionally spent.