For many years, I believed that God was the reason for everything. Meaning that God either allowed or willed into being everything that is, everything that happens, and everything that does not happen. This way of thinking worked okay for me, for a while.
Until it didn’t.
But even after it stopped working for me, I kept working myself – exhausting myself, abusing myself and allowing myself to be bullied – into continuing to believe in God in this way. And eventually, somehow, somewhere along the way I found the freedom to stop. I reached a breaking point that broke me off from this insane cycle, and I finally stopped trying to do something that wasn’t working. I realized that I was allowed to change my mind. To believe something new. To give up old beliefs and not necessarily replace them with new ones, but to leave some empty space instead.
And, yes: many days on the other side of this transformation have felt feel hazy, daunting, and confusing because there isn’t this point of certainty – that stoic belief about God – that I always used to have. And still, I’ve seen countless times that there is so much light to be found. When I see myself as an active participant in my journey, it inspires me to reach further; to continue pushing on hard days; to be motivated by my passions and to know that I have the power to build a whole and meaningful life.
Seeing these fruits of open space in my belief system gives me hope.
And I know that God is along this journey with me. While God may not be picking every single step, opportunity, and outcome for me – which I don’t believe that God is – I do believe that God keeps me in good company as I seek out and ever-turn myself towards Light.
The LORD is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? – Psalm 27:1 –
When I turned my Bible open to this Psalm, I took a brief pause. It called out to me. This idea of God being my light…means something to me. God is my light and my resurrection; my resurrector. Who could it make sense to be afraid of? God is my refuge -the place where I can find shelter and confidence; why would I give my energy to unproductive anxiety?
I like to visualize God’s light in me, in my life and in my heart. Even as this light sits alongside my anger – which, I have plenty of anger to boot – still, the light of God and the light that is God resides in and with me. This light helps embolden me with the courage to turn up stones in my own heart and discover depths of my soul which have yet to be transformed by compassion.
I cannot imagine any other reason that I am still alive, other than God. This God-light; my resurrector. So many times, people were out for my life…seeking to cause death to a part or parts of me, and therefore…death to all of me.
My mom recently asked me if, even after such dramatic shifts in my theology, I am still “saved”. I told her, that is a complicated question. It is a complicated question for me. And, after pondering it more, here is my response:
I don’t always know if I believe in God…but whatever it was within me that reached out when I was at my lowest; that had the capacity to imagine a different way of doing and being; and whatever it was that eventually moved my life out of the wrong, death-giving spaces, onto the right, life-giving path…that must have been God. That must be God.
I stand by that. When I think about salvation…the act of “being saved”…my response is: certainly, God saved me from death. God resurrected me from the graves I had dug for myself, and from the graves that other people dug for me and consequently tried to push me into.
I am so happy to be alive, now, though the road has been far from easy. I am grateful for the Love-Light of God, my resurrector, saving me from death and giving me a life worth living.
In reflecting on all of this, I am thankful for those who walk with me and speak promises to me that there is light to be found…especially when those reminders come in those moments we sit together in what can sometimes feel like endless darkness.
God is proximally present to me in these precious people. God is not mandating my beliefs, or dictating my steps, or preconceiving my decisions…but God is with me in the present moments of life. By reminding me: I am alive, and there are even brighter days ahead.
august laperche 