A Good Day

 Today is one of the good ones. (May 12, 2021)

Can I even write on this kind of day?

So many times I don’t.

Mostly because I’m superstitious and don’t want to jinx anything.

What if I say I’m doing great and then something tragic happens?

God wouldn’t want me to get to comfortable here.

Even when I’m happy, I have a sense of impending doom.

All part of the anxiety.

I’m standing behind my desk in school, listening to fun music while I eat my lunch, all the while looking over my shoulder, wondering what is coming for me.

Look, I just turned a fun post into a not so fun one.

I am learning that my questions about life, my grief, and my general sense of uneasiness is warranted.

You see, those of us with anxiety?

Maybe we  aren’t so crazy.

Maybe, just maybe, we have our eyes open.

We see the World as it is.

We ask questions about God because we care.

I’ve been asking questions about how the World turns since I was a small child.

I’ve always had a sense of the nearness of this God we cannot see.

Somehow, I’ve know in my heart there is more to this life.

Looking for the miraculous.

Asking to see the unseen.

Believing. 

Wondering.

Some of my first memories are of me daydreaming in school.

Staring out the window.

Looking at the clouds.

Dreaming of the possibilities.

When they say “faith like a child”?

I get it.

The innocence of it all.

Until it is stripped away.

Little by little.

Man comes with his “knowledge”.

Books show up on theology.

Life happens.

Creating more questions.

And I’m told to stop it.

Stop asking questions.

Stop trying to understand it.

Those questions are dangerous.

Your thoughts are dangerous.

Stop it.

Just put blinders on and follow.

Authority is God-given.

Listen to whatever they tell you.

Don’t rock the boat.

And I look around.

And I see that this boat?

It’s already rocking.

It’s been rocking.

The sea is churning.

And there is not a human on this planet that has all the answers.

Not one.

Not a pastor.

Not a book by a pastor.

Not a famous pastor.

I’m actually watching them  all fall out of the boat.

Whatever that means.

But, can I tell you something?

When I ask the questions?

When I humble myself before God.

The boat keeps rocking.

But something deep in my soul settles.

I become like the “little Karen” who could ask the big questions.

What can mere man do to me?

What do I care if I’m called extreme?

If people say I’m lost?

Or if the question my questioning?

God knows my heart.

And when I’m honest about it all?

It frees me up to dance.

Stand at my desk in the middle of a school day and dance.

Just a little.

Not too much.

Just a subtle swaying back in forth.

Knowing God is still near.