Five Minute Friday: RED

 

Loving him was red.

Taylor Swift, who still feels 22.

And, I’m angry.

 

 

Kitchen appliances. Books neglected on the counter.

So much to do. So much left undone.

 

 

Red, like the flashing lights on so many machines. 

Machines pumping fluids. Machines removing fluids.

 

And on her cheeks, while hooked up to all those monstrocities.  

They’re doing the things a body should.

Things her body was able to do, just hours before.

 

But now she lies there, paralyzed not by circumstance but by fear of the pain. 

With flushed cheeks, and strained movements, and a fear in her eyes I’ve never seen before.

 

Red.

 

Why God? She loves you.

 

Never has a woman loved you more.

 

She talks about you, with the nurses, with her guests.

She talks about you, and your will being done, and how you have the power to heal, but that she’ll accept whatever lot in life you give her.

 

Right now her lot is a mechanized bed, one filled with scratchy sheets, and so many tubes, and she doesn’t have to say it.

I can see in her face she’s angry.

Still, she praises you.

 

That one little fall could land her here…

 

I'm frustrated for her.

She says she went short on her quiet time the morning it happened.

She blames herself.

 

But I blame you.

 

 

Why God? 

Are you as angry as you seem?

 

So spiteful you would pick on someone already small, and frail?

 

I don’t want to believe it.

I don’t want to feel it.

But I look out the window at a sea of cityscape and back in, to nurses scuttling, and people struggling, and my heart aches.

 

The world is not as it should be.

 

Why, why God, don’t you intervene?

 

 

Please tell me you’re not a vengeful God, that strikes old women down because they prayed for 30 minutes instead of an hour.

 

Tell me you’re not a tyrant, doing as you will, with no regards for all the lives you’ve created, seeming pawns in a cruel cosmic game.

 

Tell me you see her, and hear her faint prayers as she drifts into a medicated sleep.

Tell me you hear me, and the words unspoken, behind my own tears and worries.

 

I am pleading for justice. And mercy.

But most of all for grace.

 

 

And I’m begging you to tell me you’re not at all the God the televangelists have painted you to be.

Nor the meek shepherd hanging on so many wood-planked church walls.

 

Tell me you’re more than the light we’ve seen you in before.

Tell me you’re greater, and gentler, than the Old Testament stories used to bash gays and push political ideologies.

 

Tell me anything, God.

 

Say anything, God.

 

That I might not walk away from another hospital room, so angry with you.

 

- 30 - 

 

I haven't been able to write much lately. And what I have scratched out I've lacked the confidence to post.

I've had a hard time articulating to friends and family how I feel too, so these weekly free-writing exercises have been something of a life-saver, forcing me to examine my thoughts, instead of running from them.

 

I'm thankful they've forced me to ask the questions ever tiptoeing on my tongue, instead of keeping my mouth shut, silently choking on all that is unsaid.

 

This, apparently, is a raw season for me. A season of painfully slow growing and struggling to move forward, out of the stagnant waters I've been wading in.

For my praying friends, I hope you'll keep me in yours, and more importantly my family as my grandmother - ever a fighter! - begins rehabilitation after a hip replacement surgery. 

 

It's gonna be a strange, winding road. But I hope to share it with you.

Not all of it, mind you, but just enough that those of you on the same dark path might know you're not alone.

 

My dad, very subtly, left a book for me this morning. 

The chapter titles weren't appealing, but one did catch my eye.

 

Chapter Twelve: The Wisdom of God.

 

I'm still digesting what it said, but I'll leave you with the words that jumped out at me as I had my daily cup this morning.

 

"Wisdom, among other things, is the ability to devise perfect ends and to achieve those ends by the most perfect means. It sees the end from the beginning, so there can be no need to guess or conjecture. Wisdom sees everything in focus, each in proper relation to all, and is thus able to work toward predestined goals with flawless precision.

All God's acts are done in perfect wisdom, first for His own glory, and then for the highest good of the greatest number for the longest time. And all his acts are as pure as they are wise, and as good as they are wise and pure. Not only could His acts not be better done: a better way to do them could not be imagined. An infinitely wise God must work in a manner not to be improved upon by finite creatures."

- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (italics mine)

 

 

 

Comments

[Bethany Grace Martin]

Hi Jen,
Thank you for sharing the raw and the unedited. I hope you will keep writing through your pain and anger, finding ways to say what should not be left unsaid. May you find your voice and your God in the middle of a world not as it was meant to be.

[Joy Lenton]

Hi, I'm visiting your blog for the first time from FMF today. On reading this heartfelt lament and plea, I am so touched by the pain and anguish of your soul and the poignant way you have written about it. To pour our pain all out onto God is the best way to find release, help and healing of wounded emotions, hurt and distress. He is big enough to bear it and to equip and enable us to bear up under it too. My thoughts and prayers are with you as you rest in His love and provision for your every need. Blessings.