It's like having a lifetime of pain trapped inside...with no way to get it out. There have been times when I have started to cry, but then I am so aware that I am crying that I stop and lose the ability. It has been a very strange psychological defense mechanism of some kind. . . and the only time I have really been able to cry has been in my dreams. I wake up and my pillow is soaked.

Today, however, I cried like I haven't cried in ages. I've never really cried in therapy before (and I've been going for over two and a half years.) But today we were talking about something that I have wrestled with for my whole life. I've always wanted to believe that God is real, and I've lived much of my life like I do believe this. But I have never been able to grasp any kind of constancy or permanence about God. Any time there has been some kind of a peace inside that "yes, there truly is a God..." it quickly fades away, like a mist.

And then I am left feeling worse than before the little glimpse of peace came to me. Because I am left to everything within me that says, that was just your imagination...you wish there was a God...so you imagine that he is trying to communicate with you...

Yes, I do wish with all of my heart that there is a God. Although, I wish with all of my heart that he is not the God that I have heard about so often....a God who hates those who aren't Christians, a God who created some people to suffer eternal damnation...a God who gives us exactly what we are afraid of to make us better people... an angry God, a God of judgement and wrath....this god, well....he is a fucking asshole. And I hate him.

Of course as I write this, I battle the voices inside of so many who have instructed me over the years...I can't just make up the kind of God I want to worship. I must worship the God of the Bible, I must accept the Truth about God, and all of that Truth is to be found only in the Bible.

Unfortunately, at this point, I hate the Bible. Ashamed to admit it, but it's true. I read it, and all I see is condemnation. All I see is death, not life. All I see is a dictator who created me against my will, abandoned me in this evil world, and commands me to deal with it and worship him.

The thing I want most of all is a relationship with God, if he is there. I want that so badly, I wish so hard for it, just like I wished I had a magic wand when I was a little girl...to make everything better. It seems to good to be true that there is a God who is kind and gentle and merciful, someone who understands and loves me, someone who really wants me to be his daughter, just because. It seems too good to be true that there is a God who loves all people, a God who cares about people's suffering more than I do, a God who somehow balances Sovereignty and the gift he gave mankind to make up our own minds. It's hard to believe that there is someone good who has everything under control. That even when things look completely hopeless, there is someone actively working to turn what looks like an impossible situation into something better than what I thought was "supposed" to happen.

If there is a God, why can't I find him? Why can't I find him in a way that I can hold onto him? I'm crushed that I have been looking for this God for three decades...doesn't he want me? I've been searching for him for years and years and years, only to catch those fleeting glimpses here and there that vanish as quickly as they came. I cannot survive on that. I am left with only doubt. Zero percent faith. I want to believe, but I can't. How do people know for sure? Is everyone just wishing? Just hoping? Just imagining something they need to imagine...to ease the bitter pill of living in this terrifying world? Conjuring up their own faith, like a child makes up an imaginary friend?

And if God is just imaginary, well...I'm devastated. I want it to be true more than anything. I am desperate. I am so lonely inside. i am so hopeless. I am in such despair. Such torment. I am exhausted from searching with all of my heart for the One who is supposed to fill the emptiness. I'm supposed to have him in my heart....and yet, I am empty. There is no life. Only fear. Terror, really.

Well, I'm running on reserve battery power and I can't find the power cord. So i will soon be gone. But just so you know, the reason I cried like someone was wringing me out like a sponge....my therapist suggested something that we've never done before...(we usually work on the psychological and don't bring the spiritual into it at this point.) We were both to remain silent after she said "I'm going to ask God where he is in all of this...in all of this pain of wishing there was a God but never knowing, and see if he has anything to say."

So we were silent. And thus the tears began. I felt like someone was squeezing the air out of my lungs, and wringing my heart, and crushing my head with pain. I was overwhelmed with sorrow over the God that I have looked for all my life, but cannot find.