How has my relationship with God changed since the trauma and death I experienced as a chaplain at Children's Hospital Boston? I still think of God the same but I feel wary of letting God get too close. I don't know if/when God will do something that will rip my heart out of my chest. Again. I know God is Sovereign, loves me and ultimately wants the best for me, but God is playing the game at such a higher level than I am, I cant love God as much and as deeply and as closely as I want, because at any moment and without warning I may have to be sacrificed as a pawn to win a much larger game I can't comprehend. And I'm willing to be sacrificed, to be hurt and go through things I'm incapable of making sense of. But I'm terrified I'll lose or become deadened to my feelings for God in the process. So I don't let God in too close so I don't have to be heartbroken again. How many incomprehensible and seemingly unforgivable things can I witness that I know God had a hand in, by omission or commission, before I just can't bear to love God any more? I know in my mind that there is a blueprint to it all, that is in every way beyond me, but that must ultimately resolve in peace, love, redemption, fulfillment, communion, and all the other good words. But that knowledge can't change the way I feel when I witness these horrors up close, over and over. Can it? Should it? I guess I'm treating God like a respected but dangerous opponent. The only way to win is not to play...
I suppose its like that video on the power of vulnerability, only by taking the risk of failure do you reap the truest rewards. What am I missing by loving God in theory but keeping God at arm's length in practice? God is the lover of my soul, and if I'm honest I've been very much missing that sense of intimacy and support in my interior life. When I'm alone in the night I used to play with God, and now I don't have that. I ALWAYS know that God is there. That truth brings me so much joy and assurance. But we don't really talk any more. I pray to God, not as much as i should of course. I respect God. I trust God, or try to as much as i can. I've got to work more on honoring God, but I at least know that I should...But I no longer talk with God in a personal way. And that's why I feel I no longer have an interior life. Because my interior life has always been about my relationship with God.
Five years of keeping my best friend behind walls I built to create a false sense of security; keeping the only one who can truly love me unconditionally at a distance because I was afraid I might not be able to keep loving back through the visicitudes of life. It makes me so sad.
So...HOW do I fix this? How do I let God back in and start loving God more dearly in practice? I'm on a journey to know the truth of God, and I think I do as much as I can right now. Buy how do I get back on the journey to love my God with my whole heart and mind and soul?
I don't know how, but I will start by clinging to the belief that God made me strong enough, strong enough to love God.