Well, I've already missed a day. Or has it been two days? Oh well. This next post, while not as shocking as the last, is just as important and is much more personal to me.
This post beautifully captures what I have been feeling and trying to say for over a year. I posted it on Facebook a week or two ago, so it might be a reread for some of you.
I tried to read through the Bible starting in February 2012. I was spiritually and intellectually curious, and I finally had some time to read, as I had just quit my job. I had read the whole Bible when I was eight or so, because that's what good Christian children do. If my memory is correct, my parents didn't force it, or even suggest that I read the whole Bible, but I wanted to check that box on the "good Christian girl" list. And I succeeded. When I was eight, anyway.
Anyway, I hadn't read the Bible back to back since then, and I was shocked to find out how much suffering and sadness there was. I picked up on it even before my pregnancy problems started (I read chronologically, so the story of Job came up pretty quickly). People yell and rail at God; they ask him where he is gone, why he is silent. Jesus himself asks God, while on the cross, "Why have you forsaken me?"
And it's not tactful or diplomatic. People YELL. They blame God for their troubles. I can picture raised fists toward heaven against a stormy backdrop. As it turns out, I can picture it quite easily, as that picture gained a face: my face.
After Weston died, it was all just too much. When I tried to read the Bible a few times, I was confronted with horrible things: yes, death and destruction. The Bible was placed on a high shelf and collected dust.
Since then, I've come to embrace the screaming and the wailing and the immense suffering of Jesus as an integral part of life. The "language of lament," as described in the link, is part of me now. And I am so very relieved to see that my lamenting self is so well-represented, beautifully, in the word of God.
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