Where is God?

As I wrote the title to this post, it reminded me of a little outing I had a chance to take with just the Monkey last week. It is very rare that I get time alone with him, and I am always amazed at how sweet and funny he is. As we drove down the road he said, "Mommy, God is everywhere."

"Yes, Honey, you're right," I answered.

"So He's here? Right now?"

"Yep," I said. "He's right here with us now."

Pause.

"Do you think I could put on my dinosaur mask and scare Him?"

I love that boy.

God is right here, right now. I know this is true. I'll be honest, friends… I don't feel this to be true right now. But I still know it.

Part of the reason I've found the time to post every day is because I want to get you all caught up on Roo and his story, so that I can start to share what's happening now. It's been a tough couple of weeks. I know God is in them. But I don't feel Him.

I haven't opened my Bible in over two weeks. That was when we first went to the specialist's office and found out the latest news with Roo. Shortly before this appointment, our pastor had shared during a sermon that he had been struggling with journaling and praying about a tough health situation his wife was having. A counselor friend of his encouraged him, "You don't train for a marathon when you're running a marathon. You rely on the training you've already had to get you through." I think of those words often, and I have leaned heavily on them in the past two weeks.

Here's the problem: What's another word for something on which you lean heavily? Um, I believe that's called a crutch. That's what those words have become. A crutch. An excuse. Bottom line: I'm avoiding God. I sit down with my Bible and I don't know what to read. I don't necessarily want to read something that will make me feel better, because… well… to be honest, I don't want to feel better right now. I just want to lay here and let it hurt. (That's sort of an inside joke between my hubby & me. I'll tell you that story another time. Hopefully you get the gist, though.) I don't want to read Psalms of David's despair, because I have finally become numb and don't know if I want to reopen the wounds and read something that will make me cry. Sometimes I have an idea of what I want to read but don't know exactly where to find it, so I give up because I just don't have the energy to search.

Excuses. They are all excuses.

So I've been trying to figure it out tonight, why I'm really avoiding God. Is it because I'm angry with Him? I am definitely angry with the situation. Is it because I can't find Him in all this? Not exactly. I can see His purposes in our situation, but… aha. Here's the problem: I don't want to see Him in this. I don't want to run to Him for comfort because accepting His grace to get through this means accepting that He has allowed this situation to be part of our lives. And I can't accept that yet. I'm avoiding God because I can't take the comfort without accepting that it came from the same hand that is bringing the pain.

Sooooooo… why am I writing this? I don't know. I don't have any great conclusion right now, any pick-me-up revelation that occurred to me. I just have hurt. Transparency. This is where I am. I'll get past it, I know I will. But maybe just not tonight.

By the way, one day when I was in a bad mood my hubby put Monkey's dinosaur mask on me and threatened to make me wear it whenever I was grumpy. Maybe he was onto something. Do you think I can put it on and scare God?