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Thanks for visiting my diary. I've been journaling since 1984 and have chosen to share some of my entries online. They are not all positive thoughts, but I hope that reading them might be a blessing to someone who needs encouragement.
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Once again I've begun the project of trying to read through the Bible, starting at the beginning and going on to the end. Why I think it's important to do this I'm not quite sure. Perhaps part of it is my notion that since it is organized this way it's meantto be read this way. Perhaps it is my feeling that I cannot really understand God's grace unless I understand man's (not just my own) need for grace. Perhaps it is that I cannot understand myself fully unless I understand this humanity of which I am a part.
In any case, I am reading, and often I come up with more questions than answers. I find that I am suddenly interested in knowing things like where the person came from who was a wife to Cain or Seth. Were they his sisters? Who were the other people on the earth that Cain feared would kill him? His own family? Perhaps these are insignificant questions, but they are the questions I find myself having. There are, no doubt, some things which aren't apparent in the NIV, which is why I also want to use the Amplified. But the NIV is available in braille, and the Amplified is not.
I have gotten as far as reading about the Tower of Babel since Monday night. The one thing that stands out to me is one single question: In acting in a certain way, am I attempting to "play God", to have my own way, and am I attempting to draw my fellow human beings into participating along with me in this act? That is all I understand so far. God created all things as an expression of who He is. He created mankind in His image, with a need to love and to be loved--and if man was to truly love, then man had to be free to choose to trust God or to live under the difficulties of there being a difference between good and evil. Otherwise man would not have truly loved God.
I'm not saying anything new here, and in fact, I'm just walking in circles. I guess I am just trying to sort something out that only halfway makes sense to me. It's all very confusing to me, and I haven't even mentioned my curiosity about where Satan comes into this and why the serpent was the animal who deceived Eve. And do Adam and Eve represent one man and one woman or a group of men and a group of women? Does it really matter? I have no idea. I feel very lost, almost as if I am sitting in a classroom with a professor looking down at me over the top of his nose, sneering because everyone else knows the answers and I don't. I know that God is not this way. Surely He can make me understand. But what is it that is keeping me from understanding? Am I trying to play God again, trying to make myself understand?
What has happened to me since I was last close to Him? Did I get caught up in the fun of on-line friendships and activities, the equivalent of socializing and ignoring God even though at times I talked about Him? Have I been too busy talking about Him to talk to Him? Have I only spoken to Him in passing and deceived myself into thinking that I pray to Him regularly? Have I thrown myself too strongly into trying to find a career that I would enjoy instead of allowing Him to guide me into it? I've wandered far from where I once was. I know in my mind that He is not far from me, that He is in fact holding my hand and has been from the moment I reached out and asked Him to bring me home again. But I cannot feel His presence or hear His voice. I am restless and cannot sleep. A few nights ago I came to Him unashamed, confessing my doubts and everything. I could feel Him then. Why can I not feel Him now? I want to cling to Him, but instead I feel as if I'm wandering through the house trying to find where He's gone. I want to sleep in His arms. I can neither find His arms nor sleep.
I'm reading The Wider Place by Eugenia Price--I've never read any of her books before. I've made it all the way to chapter 9 since Tuesday. No, I'm not having a contest to see how much I can read, but since making my little breakthrough earlier this week it does seem that my interest in reading has been renewed. She talks about how Jesus came to restore sight--spiritual sight, of course. This got me to thinking about all these years I've spent professing my belief in Him. I started thinking about life since my surgery and realizing how much of a parallel there really is between my physical condition and my spiritual condition. In the beginning after the surgery, things were so bright and the colors so clear. It was that way spiritually. But seeing is truly a learned experience, and for me as an adult it is difficult to learn it. Also, the portion of my eye which handles color is damaged, so I do not always recognize color or perceive it in the same way. It interested me to realize how on different days I see the same things from different angles spiritually.
One of the things I've learned about myself while reading this book is that I am so tied to appearing normal, to keeping up with society. So much of what I do has to do with nothing more than ensuring that I am on the level with everyone else in society--and to ensure that, I have to have the same kind and amount of activities, have to have people assuring me that I'm doing things correctly, etc. I have not been free to just be whoever God makes me. I have not been emotionally free to read a book and enjoy it despite having all this time and even despite wanting to be free to read a book and enjoy it. Especially now that the surgery is over, I feel the pressures mounting. It has been so long since I've trusted God with the ongoing act of creation of me. He's not done with me. He didn't just create a physical body and leave the rest to me. He is still creating me, still making me to be an expression of who He is! And when it comes down to it, I suppose I'm glad I don't have revelations like this every day. They would get to be awfully commonplace, and I'm afraid I would take them for granted.
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