Where the Catholic Sun Doth Shine

Love is all that I can give to you

Loving God is kind of a weird idea, isn't it? I mean, really loving him. There's no physical being, nothing to hug or hold, nothing to look at. He doesn't talk to you, you're not sure he hears you, he's just this big THING. This IDEA. Respect, fear, obey, bow down before - yes. But love? Can you love something you're not even really sure is OUT there? 

This is, at least, how I felt for a very long time. Even now, occasionally, if I'm honest. Although, honestly again, "loving God" was not really on my agenda. I just didn't think about it. God was always a given in my life, I was well aware that "Jesus loves me", I never questioned their existence, their presence in my life, the fact that they cared about me (and, more frighteningly, knew everything about me.) But my response to that... I guess I viewed my relationship to this unknowable higher being as one of acknowledgement. I believed he was there. I knew he was in charge. I would say so, out loud, to other people, without much in the way of fear or embarrassment. I attempted to live my life in accordance with what he would have me do. But I don't think this meant I loved him. 

When I was a kid I was entranced, and I really truly mean ENTHRALLED, with supernaturalness. An otherworldly power. I know this makes me kinda weird, and I'm not really sure where it came from, but I just was. I just had this FEELING that there was something else out there. Things I couldn't see or touch, but which were real and tangible and present and... like God himself. But not.

And this is how, even why, I sought God. I wanted to know more. I wanted to be around that kind of power. I'm embarrassed to say it now, but I cheerily and excitedly embraced all sorts of situations that have made my friends shiver. I will never forget one of my best high school friends getting totally weirded out by what was happening and simply leaving the room, while I was all "MORE PLEASE." And not because I loved God. Not because I wanted to be with God. No, I wanted to be AROUND God. I wanted to be IN that stuff. (And in it I was. IT WAS AWESOME.)

But... that's not... well, it's just this tiny little aspect of something else, and I really had no idea that it was the something else that I so desperately needed. That God and being a Christian wasn't this thrill ride, or my chance to be a prophet or an interpreter or any of the other things I found so compelling. 

I remember hitting up a streetside palm reader when I visited (that same, actually) high school friend at college in Berkeley. I remember being a little disturbed, but whatever, it's all in fun. Then a year later I had my Tarot cards read on spring break in Oregon. And THAT... that's when I knew I would never be doing that again. There was something wrong in that house, something sinister, I felt it with my entire body, and I just knew that this stuff existed and it wasn't for thrill rides or fun or being "special". 

How grateful I am that God took my attraction to fortune tellers, my curiosity about ghosts, my need to sneak out of bed and watch Unsolved Mysteries with the babysitter, and used it to bring me to HIM. I mean, how many times have I said this on this blog? There but for the grace of God go I! 

He sought me, he took me as I was, he met me in my self-centered power grab, he knew what I wanted, and he wanted me with him anyway. 

I've grown up since then. Not all the way. FAITH IS A JOURNEY, LA LA LA! I am still unreservedly interested and attracted to what I would now call The Charismatics. But God is so much more than that in my life now. And as I learned more about who he is and who I am, I realized - I don't think I love God! It wasn't that I DIDN'T love God... I just... I realized I never thought about him THAT way. 

And here I was, totally committed, totally in, praying in front of and with and for people, going to church, hell I even devoted four years to college ministry! I desired God, I wanted to be closer, I wanted him in my life. But I wasn't sure if I loved him. 

I wanted to. I knew that much. 

I'm still not sure how it happens. I think for me, perhaps, a real relationship evolved. I do hear him, I do know that he hears me. In my darkest moments he is what I clung to. When I look back I can see how he led me out of those places. How much I need him. How much others need him. How much I don't understand, which means I need him all the more. And through all of it, a belief that he will never leave me. 

Out of that, a stark and horrible realization of what the cross really means. Out of that, well, how can I not love? And cry with relief to be loved in return!

If the little seminar questionnaire 'inventory of gifts' thingy my church is so into right now is to be believed, and I think it's mostly right, "faith" is one of my "gifts". I've known that. I don't know how else to explain how I believe so easily in things other people find bizarre, if not downright unwise. (Well, I can think of other explanations, but none are as flattering as "it's a gift".) So for others the road must be different. I'm suspicious of those who say they've loved God from the start, that they always knew, that they were devoted little children. But perhaps that's just because I'm envious. And I don't like people who are holier than me. (OH SO MANY PEOPLE.)

I can only say that the fact that I do love God now, as a bride loves her bridegroom, is only because he was patient with me while I discovered how. 

What faithfulness brings. Here's to hoping it has four bedrooms and two baths?

I believe I am a Christian, or maybe I should say: the kind of Christian I am, because I spent an entire year of my life clinging to God by my fingernails. I did this with intention. I could not think of another way to survive that year. I wrote about it here. 

I sometimes wonder what life might have been like had my family stayed in one place while I was growing up. All of our moves were traumatic for me, each one worse than the last of course - it's hard enough to move when you are ten, it's much harder when you have just turned fifteen. And one move, I suppose, my move stateside to go to college, was traumatic but more joyful and hopeful. So there is that. 

I don't wish my family had stayed in one place. I can't imagine not having lived overseas. I can't imagine not knowing the people I know. Maybe the last place took a while to grow on me, but I love all the places I've lived. I sometimes get very sad that Jack and Molly will (most very likely) not be forced on a road trip to some godforsaken Greek ruin every weekend, that they won't fly to different countries for sports tournaments, even that they won't have a special knowledge of American military life like I do. 

Tomorrow morning a realtor is going to visit my house for a "walk through". I am only vaguely aware of what this means. I think it means something like, "Stand to the side in shame while a stranger takes notes about the dirty dishes and the spots on the floor." But whatever, life's rough for realtors right now, right? So maybe he will have mercy on my spotted floors and then sit me down for a nice discussion about My House, Possibility Of Selling. 

Tonight I was thinking about what I will say to the realtor re: what we want in a rental house, or even the house we hope to have after the rental house, which I am hoping against hope is our Forever House. I want a place to stay put. I want to know that the walls are my walls, that the holes I drill into them will not be judged by people walking through a few years down the road. That my paint colors will not be a negative factor in the house's ability to sell. BECAUSE I DO NOT WANT TO SELL. I want the house I will live in at LEAST until my kids are grown. I know you can't plan on that, can't just DECIDE that, but that is my hope against hope. I want to stay put. 

In college I had an Army brat roommate who'd moved twice as much as me. We didn't know anyone else like us, though, and we'd talk about the Three Year Itch. Can't stay in one place any longer than three years because it's time to go. The year we lived together was my third and her fourth year on campus, and it was a continual source of amazement to us that we felt fine. Sometimes we felt itchy, but mostly we were happy where we were. What was wrong with us? You know we both fancied ourselves the World Traveling types, so obviously we wouldn't be sticking around much longer, but it was kind of nice to have someone who knew what you felt. That you couldn't remember being anywhere that long. That it was almost unnatural. 

But I have now lived in Seattle for twelve years. I was ten when we moved overseas, so this is officially the longest I have lived anywhere. (And I know REAL military brats are rolling their eyes!) I am completely over my initial horror at the fact that my sprightly world travelly self is not at all inclined to live anywhere else. And tonight when my father-in-law was talking about how Phillip and I grew up in the same town and I had to say, "Well, ACTUALLY, I'm only TECHNICALLY from this area", I quickly caught and corrected myself: "I am from here now."

In the post I linked to earlier I talked mostly about praying for friends. This is still an amazing, no really, AMAZING testimony for me. I am now twice as old as I was when I first prayed that prayer, and I have been abundantly fantastically unbelievably blessed with friends. And I am still making them. I don't think this will ever cease to be something I don't immediately attribute to God. Those of you who have met me in real life know it's not because of my stellar conversation or warmth or friendliness. In fact, and this is very true, my closest friendships were all initiated by my friends - I had nothing to do with starting these relationships. 

But I also prayed for a place to be from. Not specifically, because I didn't know what that meant. I knew I couldn't go back, and I wasn't old enough to go forward, and my current spot was miserable and claustrophobic. I prayed to get out of that spot. I prayed for God to give me a new place. So at the time, God lifted me out of that place and set me down on the volleyball team, because that's what I needed then. But perhaps all along he knew I would come to this place, this city, and it would be my place to be from. That I wouldn't be one of those former military brats who can't stand staying in one place. That I wouldn't move to China and teach English. That I wouldn't leave my boyfriend to drink beer in Prague for months at a time. That, actually, I would stick around and marry him - the best friend God ever gave me - and realize that I never want to leave. 

Maybe in a few months I will be back here saying, "Oops! Guess I'm moving to Upper Siberia! Hee!" but if I do, it's because God is directing me that way and I want to be faithful. I was faithful then, and look what that brought me.