I expected that having time with God after having taken considerable time off would have been different.
For a number of reasons, I fell out of the habit of having quiet times in the last few months. It was somewhat intentional at first, after getting over the hurts of having miscarried and then once my anxiety-inducing pregnancy was over, I didn't know where to start or where I was at with God. I was also afraid of "hearing" something from God again, and having to decide whether it was from Him or not.
And of course there are all the other liberal reasons I always get hung up on -- the suffering and inequality in the world, and what I feel is the failure of His people (the ones in the U.S. anyway) to get up and help those in need. I start feeling isolated in the church sometimes, because although my theology is conservative, my politics are not, and this is sometimes unpopular among believers.
What's funny is that I believe now, as I have always believed, that God is apolitical. And yet, because I disagree with many other believers in some aspects of politics, I feel like it is HE who is judging me, He who is isolating me, He who doesn't understand me.
But that's just an excuse. The truth is, I know what my relationship with God is like -- I know that He is not a Republican or Democrat, and I know that He knows my heart even if others don't. I know that there is no "fitting in" with God. He belongs to no clubs, no cliques, no classes. He is who He is, and He knows who I am better than I do.
So why, when approaching God for the first time in a long time, did I expect Him to say, "Sorry, your membership is no longer valid?" Why did I expect rejection, or to be issued some sort of probationary challenge? -- "If you want back in, you have to do XYZ."
Because, as always, I'm looking at God as though He is a human being, and perhaps even as though He is a man. Contrary to what some believe about feminists, I don't hate men. I have been happily in love with my husband for almost ten years now. But I don't relate to men either, at least not the way I relate to other women. Because I'm not a man. Our culture is different and so are our chromosomes, hormones, and a variety of other things. But God is not a man either. We refer to him as "He" because Hebrew does, and because "she" is gender-specific when "he" is sometimes gender-neutral. But He really doesn't belong to the "boys' club" either. Though when I miscarried, I wondered...
But today, I prayed. Really prayed. Pretty sure I got out everything that was on my heart, even some tough questions. And despite what I expected, it was relatively undramatic. I didn't cry. I wasn't angry. I was just...home. Like when you get home from a long vacation and the house smells a little funny, but it's nice to have the familiarity of kitchen drawers with things arranged the way you know how to find them, and the ability to throw your clothes on the bathroom floor without inconveniencing anyone else. It takes some getting used to, like reverse culture shock. But it's home. It's where you belong.
Fitting in is something I often long for, even though having labeled myself as a "nerd" growing up, I always said that I prided myself in not fitting in. But the truth is, it's lonely. I want to fit in with all the other Christians I know, since the very core of our hearts and intentions is the same, but my "crazy" ideas and political views sometimes get in the way. (I try not to cause dissension, so I often just don't talk politics, but when you care so much about something, it comes up from time to time.) On the other hand, I want to fit in with bleeding heart liberals because we really agree on so many social justice issues and I really am a feminist...but my pesky belief in only one true religion often gets in the way of membership in that club.
The desire to fit in is something I will just have to get over, if I want to actually change the world. God has not called us to conform to the expectations of this world, although it seems to be the nature of human culture to try make each other conform. He hasn't called us to isolate ourselves either -- culture can be difficult because it can be constraining, but it exists because it is unifying and makes the human experience meaningful. My identity, however, is not in this world, and if I am running around changing myself for this person or that person so that I can feel like I fit in, then that's wrong.
And this time, I'm ashamed to say that the desire to fit in is something I am really struggling with. Doesn't every (late!) twenty-something go through that when they finish their degree and find themselves in playgroups and church leadership and all other sorts of situations when the spotlight's on them, and their values, and who they are? But being respectable middle-class people is a far cry from what we are really called to be, and culture is trying to pull us in, make us conform, and tell us that we really just need to fit in.
And that's why we need time alone with our God, who is acultural, apolitical, nonsexual, nongendered, unsocialized, nonhuman, and yet is everything -- He is the point at which time, space, and experience begin and end, the origin of everything yet the only One who has no origin. He is everything we want to be -- generous, kind, just, understanding, mature, and unconcerned about what others think of Him. He is everything good about being human without the hang-ups of sin and insecurity. And even though the world would not exist without Him, it had no place for Him except a cross. He didn't fit in when He came to the earth He created. But He is the only One who can give us the familiarity we long for, the only One who can place us where we fit, and the only friend who makes me feel right at home the second I get back from a very long absence.
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