Another Sunday Morning




I should be leaving for church.  Actually, we should have left.  We should be at breakfast.  Finishing up.  On our way to church.  But I am sitting here typing and my husband snores peacefully upstairs.  I wonder about breakfast.  I wonder if I can shoot my gun today.  Do they let you do that on Sundays?  And I wonder about the irrelevance of gathering on Sunday mornings.

Granted, I have been in a "mood" for a couple weeks now.  God is waiting patiently as I have a temper tantrum, knowing that eventually I will do the right thing, but that I have to get this out of my system first.  This, whatever it is.

I know about the gathering of saints verse.  I just don't know if I care.  I can do church well.

I can sing off key.

I can stand and sit on request, tho I draw the line at closing my eyes on command.  That is creepy.

I know where Amos is in my Bible, without tabbies.

I give money.

I even carry my Bible and paper and pen to take notes on some sensationalized message that annoys me or some teaching that I could get from my own commentaries and meditation.

I hug my friends, introduce new people, and offer to pray with people on occassion.

I am not doing as well outside those walls, tho.

So what is the point?  Make myself feel good for 2 hours only to come back to the mire that is my own spirit, my own emotional life, realizing that the anesthesia of corporate worship has worn off?  Prayers for healing that are empty words as children die.  The hollowness of my own consolation for my friend.  Invitations to what?  What do we have?  Eternal life?  What about here?  The only people having pep rallies for God right now seem to be the prosperity heretics.  'Course, if God was gonna make me well and rich, I might cheer, too.

It isn't that I don't believe.  Actually, none of this would matter if I didn't.  

But it does matter.  I wish God didn't.  I wish that I could ignore these questions.  The world could believe as many liars and lunatics and actors as they wanted. I wouldn't be wrestling with this. My pain might not wake me up, or at least not matter. I wouldn't be praying in the middle of the night with this pain in my gut. 

Gathering in an antiseptic environment, putting on a smile, I just can't today.  I want to scream.  I want to wail at the injustice.  I want to scream until He hears me. 


Then Job replied to the Lord: “I know that you can do all things; no purpose of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my plans without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know.

“You said, ‘Listen now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you shall answer me.’ My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you. Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  (Job 42)

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