Quote of the Day

Our own personal weaknesses are the determinate to our ability to step forward in our own personal legends. It is stifling and reminding, yet with God’s perfect gift of free will, we are all set free before and after we choose to chain ourselves. For paralysis of this sort is a decided hand, made only by ourselves…

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oh what a great thing to know! but how to grasp that knowledge before the perfectionism pitches in :o)

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No Paul! My eyes saw it without I had to seek…
But thank you! Are you perfectionnist? ;)

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Gove? Who’s that? :))

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‘Fear not! He is with us and in us.
LOVE,
Thelma

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This is nice to be reminded of, because sometimes I forget. Sometimes I feel certain that the situation will go sour, even before it does, or that I am destined for doom, even before I begin, destined to “suffer” or to “endure torment,” especially in matters of love. I don’t feel this way in the rest of my life. Otherwise, I feel like I am the most blessed person alive, almost with a sort of Midas touch, like whatever I can dream up, and often even better, just pops up, manifests itself magically before my very eyes. I feel like God is holding me, cradling me, protecting me all the time.

For example, once I had an old SUV that had been given to me, used. Finally, after many miles on the road, one day it just fell apart. I took it to a mechanic that I knew and trusted. He said, “Oh no! Time for a new car, or at least a new engine. This one is completely blown up.” His shop was about fifteen miles across town from my apartment, so I asked him if it would be safe to drive it home and just park it in the lot. I didn’t have any other place to put it – he couldn’t store it there – and I certainly didn’t have money for a new engine just then. He was very hesitant. He didn’t think the vehicle could make it that far. “You’re going to get stuck on the freeway, and I’ll have to come and tow you back,” he said. I had no other alternative, so I got in cranked it up, and said a little prayer. The thing smoked and rattled and sputtered all the way, but somehow – by the grace of God – it made it home. The next day, I had to go to the grocery store, and I had no other way to get there, and I thought, “Well, maybe the car will make it,” so I said my little prayer, cranked up the engine and headed out. Not only did that vehicle make it to the grocery store and back – I drove it for another full year after that! Every mechanic that I encountered during that period said the same, “Oh, that engine’s blown up – you gotta replace it, right now, right away!” But the car just kept going, just kept chugging along, in defiance of what all the mechanics said. None could believe that I had driven it as far and as much as I did in the condition it was in. “That’s impossible!” they would say, “That engine should have locked up long ago!” And it finally did, but not while I was driving it. When I moved from Miami, I gave the car to a friend, who had no car. We both thought, “Better this car than no car at all.” A week after I left, she called to tell me that, on the way home from a trip to the grocery store, the engine had locked up. The car would not budge another inch!

That is indicative of the kinds of experiences I generally have in my life – miracles seem to follow me, almost chase after me, and I have no other explanation for them but the grace of God. But, in matters of love, it is a whole other scenario: I always feel doomed. I feel certain that when I pray, my prayers will not be heard, or at least not answered. I feel that God has his own plans for me, and that those always and inevitably involve great suffering. Even if I try to stay out of relationships altogether, somehow I get pulled in, only to find torment waiting around the very next bend.

Sometimes I will suddenly remember: God is not out to get me. God is here to help and protect me, to love me and do good to me: God is, as you say, “loving and generous and forgiving.” But that realization quickly, almost instantly, fades into thin air, and then I am back to feeling like God is standing over me with some great whip in his hands. I wince, even before the sting, because I know the blow is coming. And it does. And it does again.

I know the problem is not with God – it is with me. And yet I know not how to fix it. It isn’t that I don’t have faith. I know that God is there – always. I feel God’s presence, intensely, even in the worst of calamities, but, in matters of love and relationships, I feel his presence only as one who is there to punish or otherwise inflict pain. My prayers, like those of Job, fall upon deaf ears when I ask, “Isn’t this enough already? How much do you want me to endure? What do you expect of me?”

I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t even cry. I’ve gotten to where I expect the worst, and when it comes, I just stand there and stare, maybe let out a small, silent sigh. I don’t even try to resist, just accept. Just surrender to it as normal, inevitable.

I know that what you say is true – God is a god of love, generosity and forgiveness – but in some aspects of my life, when it comes to love and romance, I have a very hard time remembering this. The God I know seems more like a god of punishment and torment, more like some maniacal torture doctor of the Josef Mengele variety. ( I say this unapologetically, because God already knows that I am mad, demanding an explanation for his cruelty, or at least his lack of mercy.)

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