The Unfair Thing, The Swear-Prayer, And When Mr. Big Evangelist Guy Shamed Me on TV.

I want to just pretend it’s been busy and I haven’t blogged because there hasn’t been time - cause it's kind of true. But what’s mostly true is that I haven’t blogged because I'm in an issue. A "life" issue. There’s an annoying, trying, uncontrollable thing happening. An UNFAIR, uncontrollable thing. And those are the very worst kinds because they make the ugliest parts of me come to the surface without warning. Then I feel like I don't have credibility to write anything - so it’s all for nothing - and lets just read about controversial Starbucks cups instead of blogging. Done.

<Sigh> But the next morning I start thinking right away about The Unfair Thing, again. I’ve concluded that the only way I can blog again is instead of waiting for The Unfair Thing to go away, I’m just going to write about it. You’re like, well, yeah, duh. And I would’ve thought of that before too, but The Unfair Thing involves lawyers and they don’t like you being Real on the internet. So instead, I’ll tell you a fake version of it all so we can move along:

A car ran a red light and hit you and your kids. The driver got out of his car, and apologized. But when the police got there, the guy told them his light was green. Only his light was never green, and you know he knows it wasn’t. And it’s been OVER A YEAR since that day, and because he said unfair, untrue things, you’re still driving to far away places to talk about red, and green, over and over. You have to get babysitters -and not for a night out or useful date-ish things- but to talk about red and green. RED, AND GREEN. Again, and again. Sometimes you have to repeat conversations, because it’s been so long the State of Minnesota has forgotten. Not to mention you’re still driving through that SAME intersection day after day - because it’s right by your house. Which makes you think about his green-story that wasn’t, all the time. And that makes you mad, again, even though you’re supposed to be a glad and happy Christian that doesn’t let the sun go down on your anger. And that anger is interrupting everything, like blogging, because you keep thinking about how RED his GREEN was. And you pray over and over that God will just MAKE HIM GO AWAY BECAUSE HE IS AN UNFAIR PERSON AND ISN'T EVEN TRYING TO THINK OF OTHER PEOPLE.

Ugh. Can I tell you the lifelong struggle I’ve had with UNFAIR THINGS? I mean, God is like our “Father”, right? So, I’d like to think God would mostly just want to take care of is all: “Annie. Here's a Gift: The Unfair thing? It's done - you'll never have to talk about red, OR GREEN, again.” That would be really Fatherly of him, wouldn’t it? I can’t think of ONE GOOD REASON why God would want us to deal with this for one more day. I mean, I could be working on all the problems I already have that ARE fair, or talking about things that MATTER. Doesn’t God want me to have time to talk about things that matter?

Okay. So if you’ve been a Christian for any amount of time - you might have heard things about how God carries our burdens and changes our circumstances. And He does sometimes, but one of the main reasons I struggled with God from the time I was, um, BORN, was that I always seemed to have a very un-charmed life as far as struggles went. God just didn’t make things smooth for me, at all. I had problems starting from the womb, okay? WHY? All my church friends seemingly had it down: financial problems? Just donate to missions, and secret money will come in. Wronged or betrayed? Just choose to forgive, and everything will be happy. SICK? Believe God will heal you soon, and God will heal you soon.

But you guys, since the beginning those formulas worked for me NEVER. Since most of the Shiny Christians at church never spoke of having problems, I concluded that it must be because they were more impressive. God loved them more, obviously. You’d think that would motivate me to try harder, but, no - I’d already been there; I tried to “work” for God my whole teenage life and it was a miserable existence. If me loving God to the best of my ability wasn’t enough for him to apply his formulas to me... blah. Forget it. I’d find another program - which ended up being ME. I’d control my own stuff, thank you very much. I was still a "Christian" per se, but I didn’t rely on God for The Big Problems. I handled those better than He did.

But then...

Josh was born. That’s a whole huge story in itself, and not this post. But longest story, short, I suddenly had more than enough motivation to want the security of the God Program. Josh deserved a Mom that wasn’t burdened and defeated, and a future with less bumps than mine had. The pain and despair I had experienced up until that point was not something I ever wanted Josh going through. I decided I was finally up to the challenge to try to be spiritually impressive - enough where God couldn’t help but want to fix my EVERYTHING. So, GO...

I finished college, I got a good job, I went to church all week long, I BECAME A MEMBER, I tithed no matter what, I donated to missions, I *witnessed*, I took parenting classes at church, I did Bible studies at church (I took classes on HOW to Bible-study at church), I read lots of books that successful Christians wrote about God fixing all your problems, I enrolled Josh in private Christian preschool, I never drank, I never even SWORE (if there’s one thing God would choose to talk to you about RIGHT NOW, it would be that time you said bull****, and didn't say you were sorry). And that was just the basics of my Shininess. I even decided to get baptized: the climax of all my God-Program-doing, and the formulas were about to come true, but...

My body shut down. About thirty days after I got baptized I was hospitalized for a heart-rate that was only 30 beats per minute (60-100 is average) and an extremely low white blood-cell count. Over the next couple months I lost thirty pounds, unable to eat much because of food allergies that appeared out of nowhere - at 5’9” I got down to 113 pounds. Doctors put me on powdered “medical food”, which made me not like life AT ALL (every, single, EVERYTHING is celebrated with food. And you get tired of saying, “does it have gluten, dairy, sugar, fruit, nuts, or blah-blah-blah, in it?"). I couldn’t use a curling iron because it would burn my hair off, which was thinning anyway. I had thrush (THE GROSSEST EVIL) continuously, and chewing on whole garlic cloves was the only thing powerful enough to ease it. Going up the seventeen stairs to my bedroom was a long event, and my three-year-old Josh felt like a million pounds to lift.

As the months passed, I started wondering if I would ever get better. Doctors couldn’t figure it out - and I saw ALL OF THEM. It was an immune system disorder of some kind, but that was all they knew. Biopsies were taken. CT Scans. Ultrasounds. But when there was nothing left to test for, I gave up on the medical field and turned to Google. My Mom would research for me when I tired of the hopelessness. Her and my Dad would buy expensive weirdish-food (like YUCCA you guys. Bread made from vegetables, yum!) and newly-researched cures (probiotics were barely a thing back then and were like a million dollars. I can’t tell you how validating it is that buying and eating bacteria is a whole industry now).

And where was God? I had no idea. I remember breaking down once, crying after another medical specialist had nothing, and just pleading, “WHERE ARE YOU??? I’m trying God, I really am. Why does it feel like your back is turned to me ALL THE TIME??”

So about a year into this whole thing, I found out that a nationally-known Christian evangelist was coming to a church in Minnesota. He was known for writing lots of books on healing. It was at a far away church, a Friday night, and it was snowing probably. But, whatever it takes God, WHATEVER. I got there early, dropped Josh off in their nursery, and sat my skinny self down right in the front of the big huge mega-church auditorium. I was ready. God couldn’t miss my effort and faith-in-action this time... right?

I ate up the speaker’s every word, because God obviously liked him a lot better than me: he was rich enough to have his own plane, his own show, books at Barnes & Noble, and his very, own, healthy body. In fact, he was so impressive that the night was being televised on one of our big Minneapolis news stations. He knew things. KNEW. He knew so much that he kept talking and talking well beyond plan. When the first end-time passed, he laughed and said, “...know what? You guys are the ones that are going to GET IT. You’re here on a Friday night. You’re dedicated to finding God’s best... this is the kind of dedication God rewards...” Yes, yes, thank you! SEE ME BEING DEDICATED. SEE IT? Front and center, here I am! **spiritual chest bump here**

Fifteen minutes over... thirty minutes over... forty-five minutes....

It was well past Josh’s bedtime at this point, and the Momma Bear in me began battling against the need to be impressive. I still had a forty-five minute drive home in the Minnesota winter, besides. I’d stayed almost an hour over the scheduled time already - surely that was dedicated and impressive enough for me to get God’s attention, right?

I very stealthily and quietly gathered my things and headed towards the aisle, ducking low. There were a couple TV cameras to navigate around, but then it was just a long, wide aisle that slowly climbed up to the back of the auditorium. A LONG AISLE, you guys - Mega-Church Long. I just kept my eyes down mostly, listening still to get as much wisdom as I could before I left...

“...See that lady there? She’s going to miss it. She’s going to miss what God has for her...”

I looked over my shoulder, confused. I mean... surely he’s not talking about...

NO. NO NO NO NO NO. NOOOOO.

He was pointing at ME. Shaming me on public television. (I wonder to this day if the camera's cut to me for a millisecond for dramatic effect.)

I turned back to my long aisle again and continued my shameful exit, (I thought about just dying first, but, you know...), noticing the faces of the people turning towards me as I passed. I'm sure they were grateful they were still in the running to get God's rewards - seated as they were. I don’t know how many people were there that day, but it was a lot. I stared at my feet, feeling the pain and anger of never being good enough wash over my hot face.

Once I made it through the doors into the lobby, the anger took over: WHAT IN THE WORLD IS THE POINT OF ALL THIS?!? I will never, ever, be good enough. I will never be Shiny, and now? I DON'T EVEN WANT TO BE. Shiny people ARE MEAN.

I cried silently the whole way home, wholly defeated. There was no parts of being impressive I had missed this time. Here I was again, doing everything I could to be a “Good Christian” and where had it gotten me? A sick body with no answers. My life was a black hole of hopelessness and God didn't even notice. What kind of God, Father, WHOEVER, would ignore pleas for help? How could He just not want to make all of my hard stuff GO AWAY, if He loves me? If I'm his "daughter"? After I put Josh to bed, I crashed into my own, and held up my hands in surrender:

“God. I give, UP. I’m DONE.

I can’t do this Christian thing ANYMORE.

It’s all BULL****.”

Yep. I swore. And totally didn’t say I was sorry.

Oh the sobs that came after that. I was waving that white flag, finally. After 25 years of cycling between trying to be enough, and then living like I wasn’t worth a thing, I stopped. I stopped, you guys. STOPPED. I still cry, now, writing that. Oh the exhaustion of TRYING TO BE GOOD ENOUGH. In that moment all my truth started coming out - I mean, why not? I was at the bottom of God's list already, how would He make me pay? I started telling Him all the things I thought were wrong with church, and how I’d rather just be unshiny than try so hard to cover up my struggling, empty heart. I told Him I thought that people at the bar were better than Mr. Big Evangelist Guy (every time I said his name, I'd say it all second-grader-on-the-playground -like.) because they cared more about my story than if I left a stupid service "early". For days and days this continued - me telling God how I really felt. I had so much anger stacked up against him from years of pretending "poised Christian", that it came out like a firehose. And I most certainly, absolutely, didn’t apologize for any of it.

And guess what? A week after my swear-prayer, I was introduced to a Dr. that changed everything. I learned about him through my boss, who happened to be going to a Spaghetti Dinner Fundrasier for a woman who had the exact same thing I did. After seeing this Dr. I gained back my 30 pounds in a little more than a month. I had a diagnosis and a plan. It was a long road still - and I have permanent side effects that still make me feel defeated sometimes. But I could hold Josh again. I could even RUN, again. I could curl my hair, again. And it all came right after the prayer where I told God I was DONE trying to be good enough. And I even said a SWEAR WORD at Him. It made no sense at all.

Or... did it?

What if, right in the middle of my Shiny Program, my body had suddenly miraculously recovered? What if God had answered that prayer when I prayed it over and over? When I stood in prayer lines over and over? You guys - I would’ve believed it was my Shininess that saved me. I would've handled every trauma from that moment on with the same pattern that sucked the life out of me. I would've been a prisoner of having to be impressive - with an exhausted, empty heart - for the rest of my life.

And, what if, Mr. Big Evangelist Guy hadn’t shamed me on public television in front of thousands of people? Well, years later, I became friends with a pastor from that very church that hosted him. I told him I thought the guy was dumb and why - and he said to me, “oh my gosh that was you?!? I remember that day! We all remember it. It was so awful, we were horrified...” Funny how God didn’t send me that message immediately. But if He had, I wouldn’t have been defeated enough, and MAD ENOUGH, to truly give up. I would've dragged myself to every other evangelist that came my way. My version of that night now? God couldn’t stand me going through one more day of exhaustion, and let Mr. Big Evangelist Guy look really stupid and horrible to a whole bunch of people, just because He wanted me free. He loves me, THAT MUCH. I smile thinking about it.

So. The Unfair Thing. I still pray that God will make it go away. I still whine that it would be really helpful and spiritual if He did. I still wonder sometimes why IT CAN’T JUST BE EASY, God. I mean, COME ON.

But I know:

If we invite God in, He’s going to use every horrible, SUPER ANNOYING, or, more importantly you guys - every super desperately painful circumstance, to refine us and set us free to know Him more. He doesn’t cause the bad events - don't listen to that junk. He doesn't like the hurt, either. But He's not after making His children look Shiny, He's after making them free. He so badly wants to rescue us - not always from circumstances, but from the things that keep us from the joy of life close to Him. Real Life. If you have to go through something, might as well turn it over to God and ask Him to recycle that stuff.

So, UNFAIR GUY: God's going to use it, dude. He's gonna. Wait for it.

And, I have yet to look back, after all was said and done and think, "He could’ve done a better job at being a Good Dad that one time".

#FreedomIsWaiting

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GUJmey303Y