The force of God
God gave me signs when I was a kid. Maybe it was because I was a kid, and maybe it was because I was drowning in something I couldn’t figure out. The more I tried to love, the more I tried to fix me, the more I sacrificed and prayed, my agonies remained. The abuse didn’t stop or ease. And in some ways, it got worse.
So, one day, I asked God for clarification. Did he like me or not? Was it my fault or not? I was sixteen, and I was in such turmoil. You see, when kids are immersed in chronic abuse, we don’t see clearly. I’d been told by my parents and perpetrators from the time I was very little that I was a liar, an ingrate. I’d been threatened. And my mind had, by that time, gotten very good as dissociating — putting the abuse away in a closet of sorts so I could go to school and function. I was, in effect, pretending all was good, and that pretense was so thick, it kept the truth even from my relationship with God. So, isolate me at any one moment, and I would have said my angst had unknown origins. it’s like PTSD cellophane spread tight across decades.
“If you’re okay with me, wake me up at 3:15.” I asked God this on one particular night. And by okay, I meant, did he love me, approve of me, or did he agree that I was a liar, an ingrate? I woke up at 3:15.
And what was the effect of this? We have to remember, this is relationship with God. When we put ourselves, open and vulnerable, in God’s presence, something will happen, and that something will have the force of God.
The force of God. It doesn’t look like we think it will look. It often does not do what we think or want it to do. But it does. And that doing? Well, let’s just say it prevails.
It prevails.
Reflection
How does God prevail in your life, even if it isn’t what you expected or wanted?
Prayer
Dear God, you are with us. The effect of your presence, your grace is to lift us, inform us, comfort, strengthen, and motivate us. May we grow in our ability to see, to hear, to sense, and to cooperate with you. Thank you, Lord, for your being with us. Amen.