A Crack in the Universe

Watching Doctor Who, particularly his 11th regeneration, viewers notice a pattern beginning with the crack in the wall of little Amelia Pond's bedroom. She prays for help because she knows something is wrong.
"Dear Santa, Thank you for the dolls and pencils and fish. It’s Easter now, so I hope I didn’t wake you. But honest, it is an emergency. There’s a crack in my wall. Aunt Sharon says it’s just an ordinary crack but I know it’s not. Because at night there’s voices. So please, please could you send someone to fix it. Or a policeman… or… Thank you Santa."

Of course, this isn't the last time we will see the crack because it is actually a crack in time and space caused by two points that shouldn't exist in the same plane. Yep. Easy to understand, right?  I mean, how often through our lives do we run our fingers over the same crack and tell ourselves this isn't the way life is supposed to be.  Two worlds intersecting...heaven and earth colliding...the crack tells us that there is something wrong.

A friend texted me the other day and asked why everything has to be so hard?  Why can't people just live in peace?  Why don't things get better?  She doesn't believe in Jesus or an afterlife. So where can she get answers?  Santa?  She comes to me. I wish I were Santa. 

Praying last night, the place where I can get the realist, even realer than a therapist, I noticed how sad and tired I am. Curiously, these feelings didn't arise from some confusion, unknowing, or resignation about life, like my friend. My feelings were from knowing who God is, believing who God says he is. I know my solid footing and hope lies in those things. But it felt like I found a new crack in the universe last night.  Simply put, I don't believe I am who God tells me that I am. 

Have I been chosen?  For a purpose?  Am I made wonderfully?  Am I a joy to God?

Scripture is bipolar-yes I am and no I am not. I bear the image of God but I am also in need of a Savior. I am fearfully and wonderfully made but I am also made of dust to which I will return. I am a broken sinner and God cannot look at sin but God seeks me out. Oh, I know the answers to those things, and several others are the yeses and the not yets. But the small, broken heart overwhelmed by this beautiful and generous God... It breaks my heart even more. 

We are all trying to find our way, imperfectly through this world. I don't believe that is the same as you do you but more akin to Romans 3:23.  We can pray to Santa, or talk to a friend, but will it bring the relief we need?  Verse 30 in Romans 23 says:

"There is only one God, and he makes people right with himself only by faith... "

Faith alone?  What faith can hold back the crack in the universe?  What faith can soften those sharp edges?  Why am I so faithless? People who look to me as this woman of faith simply are unaware of how small I am and how broken my heart is.  In prayer I encounter discomfort and flee to Him, but that doesn't make things right. Sometimes it makes me more conscious of how flawed I am and how broken this world is. I am not sure I know what faith is anymore. Too often my prayer time is just sharing sadness and grief with this invisible infinite God through the crack in my wall.

Dear God, there's a crack in this universe.
So please, could you send someone to fix it?
Not me. I am not able or not enough.  I am weak and scared and alone. 
Maybe send them a prophet or a preacher...
Or Jesus… Amen

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christ in His Distressing Disguise

Image
When I was much younger, I learned about this remarkable woman, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, then simply known as Mother Teresa. As a teenager herself, she had chosen to serve God by leaving her home in the former Yugoslavia to go practically around the world to India and become a nun. There she taught school, but she was distracted by the poor on the streets. Longing to care for them, she needed to be released from her teaching duties. Eventually a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, was formed by Mother Teresa to serve them, the poorest of the poor. I wonder today what attracted me to her. I didn't know much about India. The pictures of the suffering, the cachetic bodies that barely resembled humans, puzzled me. Growing up with movies and air brushed photographs, as well as a skepticism of news and government organizations, it can be hard to believe. How can there be such incredible suffering in my world? Mother Teresa was doing God's work; I know that was exciti
Read more

Blog Carnival-Seasons

Image
It was all so much simpler in my spring.  I suppose it is for everyone.  That is why babies and puppies and newness are squealed over.  I have been struggling.  Spring has long gone.  The leaves are falling. I loved what I had, what once defined me. Without it now, I feel like a crab without a shell-              vulnerable...                            homeless...                                           dry in spirit. I know, that all is not lost. I know, things change. I know, that God,              who brought me from there to there once,              will bring me from here to there again. I know, the story is not over. I know, the season will change, again. I wish my heart knew all this as well. Check out more blog entries on Seasons at the Carnival .
Read more

Blog Carnival: Community

Image
Blog Carnival: Community Community is getting to be a buzzword that hardly seems recognizable.  It has become permanently connected with a metrosexual worship leader at the hip church which has an outreach into some impoverished place.  But is that community? Yesterday I wrote about Facebook's social networking site.  Did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site? Is that community? Do we really have a community or do we talk so much about it and request friends by the busload because we desire it intensely? We were made for community.  Creator said it was not good for that first man to be alone.  Even Creator was not alone.  We need to walk with others.  We need our village.  We need them to not only walk with us and love us and share our burdens, but to challenge us, to force us to grow.
Read more