Unfriending God

Dear God,

At times we are unfriended and don’t even realize it until we miss seeing someone’s posts in our feed. As we have been in a relationship for a lifetime, I thought it proper to write to you that I am “unfriending you.”

I read a meditation that encouraged the reader to “befriend your God,” those words haunted me. I thought all these years we were close, but definitely not friends. Our relationship was one of fearful child, constantly trying to win the affection of a God whom could not be pleased. Nothing was ever enough. My humanity was not pure enough, my worth was based on how meticulously I kept a multitude of laws. You quickly became the God of shame, fear, anger, wrath, perfectionism, details, knowledge, an intellectual pursuit, a voracious consuming being who looked with little but disappointment at my life.

The God who body slammed me into a brick wall when Justin drowned.  The God who disappeared. Completely. Even the presence of your stern disapproval was better than the eerie silence that fell. I screamed at you, swore at you, looked at other people’s lives and then looked at my shattered mess and thought, “what did I do so terribly wrong, I tried to please you.”

“Pray harder, try this prayer, try fasting, do more, be more, have more faith, you just have to have hope, Christians don’t despair.” Judgement, some subtle, some blatant, confusion, abandonment, a lifetime of a carefully structured belief system gone. Damnation most likely my fate, no hope of reconciliation or reunion. How can you be the God of love?

Eyes closed, I imagine standing in your presence, both of you – the God of my former life and the God of my new life. There is only room for one, I must chose. Today I relinquish all that I once clung to and embrace ignorance and daring.

This is the God whom I am sensing, the God who slides down on the floor with me when I can’t breathe for the pain in my heart. The One when I scream “I screwed up, badly,” and you draw my head to your chest and tell me you can fix it, that you can make all things new. You send me notes through my dead son that say “It’s okay, nothing is ruined.” You are the God who takes no offense when death seems a better option, and I say over and over “not today f*cker” to the darkness that has crept into my soul. You are the God, who tells me, “that’s right, you fight, you are my warrior princess in my court and I love you.”

You are the fatherly God who cares not whether I have kept the fast, you are just glad I am eating. You don’t care what I eat, meat, fish, fowl, eggs, or chocolate. For lent I release the God who has nothing better to do than keep track of my meals and sacrifices. I am letting go of the God who uses guilt and shame to control, who sees my humanity as punitive and unworthy.

I have wanted to write to you for months, but I was fearful. Even an angry and harsh father is better than no father at all.  What if the One I searched for did not exist? What if my sensus fidei is off?

My heart tells me different.

In my heart, I can hear Justin say, “Mom, we had him wrong, He is not like we thought at all. He is a good friend.”