I met God
on a Wednesday night
With my face buried beneath the weight of a yellow duvet, crying like a child. He smiled at me and wiped my tears.
“What do you need?” He asked, holding my face between his hands.
“Ease.” I whispered, not knowing what else to say. “I need you to make it stop. I need to catch my breath. It’s one thing after the other, and I don’t know who I’ve become.”
I cried into his hands. Soft fingers wiping away everything.
“Would you choose the ease at the cost of all the love that you’ve received?”
What did that mean? Why must it be transactional? Why can’t I have everything? Are the hardships the price I paid for love?
“Would you choose someone else’s hardships over your own?” He asked as though he’d read my mind. I wouldn’t. I didn’t know what to say. I stared at him for what felt like hours before I began to speak.
“I know you’re the knower of all, but how about I tell you my side of things?” In an attempt to explain to him just how unfair he had been to me.
He smiled and nodded.
I began to speak, and I told him everything. From the time I lost my blue baby doll to the hours of the night that broke my heart. I told him all of life as I had lived it, placing the blame on him every now and then, questioning every inevitability, every act of God. Asked every single why that had hollowed me out, making gestures with my hands to convey the seriousness of my one life to someone who held a billion others.
Tonight, he was here, and mine was the only life that mattered. Tonight we would iron everything out.
“Why would I give you ease in something you were never meant to settle in?” He asked.
My ears began to ring, I began drowning in whatever feeling this was that I couldn’t name. Settle? I didn’t think I was settling for less than what I deserved. Was I? A montage of my life began to play. Every moment that I had picked silence over conflict flashed before me. How did I not see this? Why did I make myself so small?
“Do you want to know what my interventions prevented?”
I looked back at him. What did he mean? All of this… was mercy? I wanted to say no. I did not want to know what could’ve been. I had many of those of my own that it had taken a lifetime to get rid of. I did not want to know what great tragedy I had avoided by embracing this one. But maybe if I heard it from him?
“Yes, please tell me.”
He began telling my story with the sort of favor a mother has for a child. He walked me through every moment that broke me to pieces and left me scattered. Every moment that my heart was too much for my own self. Every moment that my breath was caught in my throat. Every moment that I thought I had spent alone. Unseen. Unheard.
I looked at God through glassy eyes, my vision blurred with tears that were too stubborn to fall. He showed me the flight I missed, the car that crashed, the fall that broke my hand but spared my face. Grace with my name written all over it.
I sat there, shrinking into myself. I couldn’t complain. I didn’t know how to. The biggest complaint I had in life was why I was made to go through everything alone. Why was there no one to hold my hand through it? Why did everyone have a battle of their own?
He told me he knew what this life needed to be for me.
“What do you mean by that?”
He explained how I always chased the wrong thing. The wrong people, the wrong ideas, the wrong places.
“You just never realized what’s yours didn’t need your exhausted chasing.”
He told me how a lesson keeps presenting itself until it is learned. I wanted to tell him that I thought I did. I thought I learned each one to the best of my ability. I wanted to ask him what mistake I had made, to have some explanation for all of this. So many lessons, I don’t even know which one I failed.
“Are you trying to teach me to love everyone less?”
“I’m trying to teach you to love me more. I will give you everyone and everything you love as a gift.”
How odd, I thought. Just a shift and the reward is that big? I was still thinking about the reward instead of God… Is this another lesson that I am going to fail? This is exhausting me.
“You know, I don’t have a lack of people who love me. It’s just that you’re my favorite.”
Huh? How could I possibly be God’s favorite? The thought was too big to hold. I had rarely ever been anyone’s favorite. I was always an acquired taste. Either too much or not enough. This made no sense.
“Why would I be your favorite?”
He laughed softly, the sound like a warm blanket on a winter night.
“Because you didn’t stop loving my creation despite its inconsistencies.”
Oh. How do I tell him I was helpless to it?
I sat there reevaluating everything I thought I knew about suffering. I had been loved through every single thing I called unfair. Held through every night I thought I was alone in. I was seen. I was heard. I had a witness.
I was just too focused on chasing the wrong things to notice. I was just too busy making my case against him.