Walking The Edge

Ok, yet another blog that isn't a ha ha funny, so don't say you weren't warned.

I'm struggling with my faith. Or perhaps, a more accurate statement would be that I'm struggling with my LACK of faith.

I've been feeling this prodding to get 'serious' about my beliefs...which would be fine, if I really knew in my heart what the heck they are. I believe in God. I believe that Christ was the Son of God. Then...then I get stuck. Did Christ die for our sins? Yours, sure. Mine? Uh...

What it boils down to is forgiveness, as a good friend pointed out. I don't forgive. Myself mostly...but a 2nd runner up would be my mother. I hold a lot of anger and hurt and bitterness towards her. When I say a LOT, I mean...I'm not sure who I would be without that seething and boiling inside me. When my friend J told me that I needed to forgive her, I just about hung up the phone. See, I call J as a sort of guide. She's my...expert (although she would balk and cringe at that term) on Christianity. In J I see a person I'd like to be like. While she could enumerate her shortfalls and failings and weaknesses, I see in her a loving heart, a loving mother, and loving wife. I know she struggles, but that makes her all the more loving, because she never hesitates to say, "I fell today...but I got up again." She never attempts to pretend that she's better or perfect, or anything but very human...which is why she's as strong as she is, and why I trust her implicitly...and why I turn to her with questions of faith. J never says, "Believe it, or go to HELL!" She lets me fumble my way along, sometimes patting on the back, sometimes kicking in the butt, but she's there, and its all done in love.

Writing this, I realize how hungry my heart has been for that. As much as I vow that I loathe and despise people, that I distrust them, apparently there's a part of me that so desperately longs for closeness and trust and love. Ack. How the hell did that happen, and how do I rid myself of it? Its screwing with my vision of myself as a cold hearted sneering wench. Damn it.

And I've gotten off track. It happens.

Anyways, J was talking about forgiveness. I told her, repeatedly, that I don't WANT to forgive. Not interested. I would rather die than to forgive. What happened wasn't ok, would never be ok, and I would never let go of the hurt and rage.

Part of it is, if I were to be brutally honest, is that my mother doesn't acknowlege that anything was ever wrong. She's always right, ya know. Never her fault, never her mistake, always mine. Everything she did was cause of me in one form or another. I don't want to let go, because SOMEONE needs to remember that what she did was WRONG. She's never acknowleged it. And it was wrong. Period. Forgiving is like it didn't happen, like I didn't go through what I did, that it was inconsequential, to be swept aside, to be brushed off. "Alls forgiven" lets all be loving and sharing.

No.

I can't. Forgiving means that I can't hide behind anger anymore. It means that I'm going to hurt. And hurt, and hurt and hurt. And I don't know that I can deal with that. Anger is all that holds misery at bay some days. It gives me strength.

J would argue, if she were on the phone, that God will give me strength. That God will hold the misery at bay. That the love God has for me is more than enough to make up for what my mother never did.

How do I trust Him, when I don't trust me? How do I find the faith to let go of what pitiful control I have and free fall, believing to be caught when nobody ever has?

I'm scared. I'm on the edge of something I can't see, and I know I need to take that step. I'm scared of what's in store for me. I'm scared of falling...But part of me is even MORE scared of being caught. Because then I can't hide in the shadows of ignorance anymore, and I'll have a responsibility that I don't now. I'm scared of this feeling that there's something in store for me...and I don't know what it is, but I already don't like it.

J asked me to pray tonight. She asked me to pray to want to forgive, if even only to spite her. I didn't say I would...but I don't think she noticed. I'm afraid that if I do ask, I'll be answered...and I don't know that I want that answer. I don't know if I'm ready to find out who I am without anger fuelling me. The pain, the anger, the anguish and bitterness...they're friends now. They've been with me all my life. I know them. I wrap them around me as a way to keep people at bay, to announce that I dislike people, don't trust them...so that way, I risk nothing.

I hate it when J's right. She makes me look at things I'd rather not.

*sigh*

I'll pray, J. And it will be, "She's making me. I don't want this, but I think I need it...but I really REALLY would rather not, k? So feel free to ignore it, or say no...kinda like the can I get the winning lotto ticket gig..."