A friend posted a video on her Facebook wall wherein Joanna Gaines, star of HGTV's Fixer Upper speaks about her Christian faith and how it has informed her life. I often find these kinds of testimonials grating. I'm not sure why--maybe because the people who give them come across as smug somehow? I don't know. Gaines' video, however, didn't affect me that way. Her sincerity and a sort of genuine humility and awe were present as she spoke.
But.
The video did make me feel . . . isolated.
All throughout the video Gaines talks about conversations she's had with God throughout her lifetime, and by conversation, I mean CONVERSATION. God is always telling her what to do. Start a business. Close a business. Take care of babies. Start a business again. She sits under a tree to receive guidance for an hour and in that hour God speaks to her.
She believes what she's saying, and I believe she believes what she's saying. But still. Why can't a few people I love sit under a tree and find some answers? Or at least some peace?
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I had a similar experience recently. My marriage therapist (whom I like and admire) casually recounted having "one of those family history dreams where your ancestor asks you to find her," as if she's had at least half a dozen of them. She did find her, and even named her daughter after her. Yet here I sit, in marriage therapy, with a serious lack of clarity about what I'm supposed to do next.
I know this guy that sat in a garden once, perhaps under a tree, and didn't get an answer.
I know this guy that sat in a garden once, perhaps under a tree, and didn't get an answer.
I pretty much do what I want.
And I'm shallow.
I keep thinking about this post. My experience when I want to talk to God is usually to sit under a chandelier in a temple, where I do feel like he speaks to me, but it's usually to tell me that all the hard things I'm going through are part of the great whole of my life---that it's not finished yet and I have to have all of these experiences, even though they are exquisitely painful. I feel like he knows me and he hears me, but he is nudging me to keep going. The only way to the end is through it. All of it. I hope this doesn't sound smug. Or grating.
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