Honesty is the best policy, part deux

Yesterday was one of those days...

I woke up and it seemed the whole wide world was stacked up against me. Granted, I had been traveling all day, crashed at 2 am, and woke up on a very uncomfortable pillow...all of this created the backdrop for a perfect storm. Do you ever wake up and things are already going not-so-great? Like, as soon as your feet hit the floor, you feel like pretty soon, your knees, hips, elbows and shoulders will hit the floor soon after? I'm not talking about feeling paralyzed here. It's a metaphor. Please keep up.

I went to the living room of my friends house where I was staying, and was already not in a great mood. Granted, I am not a very big morning person, but this was different. I sat down and shared with my friend how I was feeling, that I was mad...at God. It took guts to verbalize, but I did it. I began to cry, expressing that I hated being upset, hated confrontation with God and just wanted to love Him simply. My friend, the great friend that they are, said "let's go to the Chapel". You know that feeling in the pit of your stomach when you know beyond a shadow of a doubt that someone is right and something big is gonna happen?...this was one of those such times.

We drove to the Church, and I was dropped off at the Adoration Chapel, where, upon walking in and seeing about a dozen little old ladies praying piously, I realized that this was far too public an arena for me to be honest with God. I suspected tears would be flowing (since they were already welling up in my eyes) and really wanted some privacy. So I got my friend to unlock to Main Church and I stomped my way to the tabernacle and sat down.

I soon began to cry. And when I say cry, I don't mean "a beautiful solitary tear fell across my cheek, splashing onto the floor". Nay. I sobbed. Wept. Dribbles of snot everywhere. That kind of a cry. I was furious as I cried too. I yelled (literally) at Jesus saying "Why aren't you saying anything?!!?!" I pounded the floor with my fists. I kicked, groaned, and trashed about like a beached whale. (Weird image, I know.) I yelled that I didn't understand what the heck He was doing. To put it plainly, I threw a temper tantrum...in front of the Lord. And I didn't care. I was so in the moment of honesty with Him, knowing He could handle my tantrum.

Now you probably are reading this with the image of me performing such an act in your head. You're probably thinking it looked pretty funny. And it probably did. But it was just me and Him. At one point, I even got up to stomp to the back of the Church for some tissues, wandering into the bathroom, barefoot like Brittany Spears, grabbing any toilet paper I could find and STOMPING UP THE AISLE BACK TO THE TABERNACLE. This was def-com 5 hissy fit action. Again, it looks hysterical in your head, huh?

Part of me is kind of embarrassed to say all of this, but I say it for one reason and one reason only....because it is the honest truth.

I sat and thrashed before my God. The God who has loved me, formed me in the Truth, spoken to me in Love and Truth, and yes, at times, said nothing at all. I sat on the floor at His feet and cried. Like a 4 year old. And do you know what happened next?

At first, nothing. I actually laid down on my side, curled in the fetal position, and gently wept until I calmed down. I breathed deeply to regulate my heartbeat and take a break. And then...then in the quiet part of my heart where I can remember being a kid and hearing His voice for the first time, He said "I love you and I've been there". Part of me didn't want to hear it. Sometimes we don't want to hear God. We want to sit in our stuff and stew, throw a pity party. But I heard Him, loud and clear. He said He loved me. He also later said that it was going to be okay and that he appreciated my honesty. I was afraid to be honest, but boy, did I lay into Him, knowing He could take it, accept it, love it and transform it.

It reminded me of being a kid. When I was in trouble, my parents had a "time out bench". This was no ordinary bench...it was actually an old church pew, uncomfortable and rigid, with some sort of hand made family heirloom doily; ugly. I can remember doing something stupid and being told, "you have to go to time-out". I would wail when I heard those fateful words, "time out". Once I made it to the dreadful bench, I would be told by my father that I would have to sit there for 5 minutes, which would make me cry even more. He also would say that the time didn't start until I stopped crying...which consequently would make me cry all the more. Eventually, I'd slow it down to a sniffle and eventually stop, then before I knew it, my time would be up and I would never ever ever want to be on the bench again.

The discipline of my father and the "bench" reminded me of how God sits while I throw a fit. In that moment in the chapel yesterday, I yelled and screamed and wondered aloud as to why all of this was happening and why He wasn't saying anything, but it wasn't until I shut up and was quiet, broken, open and vulnerable with my Father, that He clearly spoke to me.

(Side note, I realize that God speaks to all of us differently, so please don't think that I'm some mystic that God has chosen to speak to, this is just how the two of us work and that I've slowly been able to get out of the way and hear Him throughout my entire life. I bet a lot of you don't know that. Hence the "Listen in the Loo" title.)

To continue with the analogy and the story all together, my friend came into the Chapel, after receiving a text requesting the presence of a person from me, and upon seeing me, hugged me, helping me to see that God was there to comfort me with not just words but also with a physical manifestation of His love. My friend proceeded to listen to me explain what had been going on and they said, "Sometimes He does it for our own good"....kind of like when my parents would put me in time out for my own good, which, again, didn't start until I stopped crying.

The point of it all is this, honesty is the best policy especially with the One who Loves, who is Love. In the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Carmen tells Tibby that it's easy for her to get mad at her because she knows she'll still be there and love her. Isn't that true with love? When you know someone loves you, you aren't afraid that they'll leave when you're honest...if anything they'll be more apt to stick around. That doesn't just go for our relationships with others, but with God, because, after all, our love with others shines out to the world to show what the Love of God looks like. It's only appropriate.

Be honest with God today. If that means you don't say "Dear Jesus" or "Thou" or "Thine" when you go to pray and instead say "what's up", do it. If it means, you sit before Him and throw a hissy fit, do it. If it means you just sit there silent, do it. Go and be with Him....that's what prayer is. That's relationship. He is relationship...not a theory, not a formula, not a "thing" in the sky, but a Person...who just happens to love you. Surprise.

Love can handle anything. That's what I keep telling myself because God keeps telling me and I keep doing. It's hard, don't get me wrong, but it's worth it. Why would you love something that was just easy, when the things that are hard are always the best and most worth it. Honesty, selfless love. It's possible. It is REAL and undeniable when Love is made present and Love takes the temper tantrum and still loves.