I walk the line..as the old song goes.
I don't believe in God because I read about him in some book, or someone told me stories about him. Although those things made me
want to believe that he was real..
No, I believe in God because I challenged him NOT to love me.
I did something that I thought would disqualify me from his love.
back then that's what I did, I would usually try to sabotage relationships in my life before the person could get a chance to hurt or abandon me in some way. I guess I would draw first blood. Ha! but that could not work with the one whose blood could cover all my sin..This time it was Jesus who drew that first blood..his own!
And then I had an experience with the presence of God.
He told me that he loved me.
It was the most amazing experience in my life...I was forever changed.
But..I've always walked a certain line, a strange barrier between this world and the other.
I believe it started when I was a small child.
I always talked to God, though I was never taught very much about him, I never went to Sunday School or church with my family.
Whenever someone would falsely accuse me of something I would always tell them with complete confidence that it didn't matter what they believed..God knew the truth!
I did attend Catholic Mass once with an elderly neighbor whom we affectionately called 'Lucky'. Lucky was a widow who lived alone.
She and I first met when I was hiding from a boy between her garage and my grandma's in the city.
She peeked up at me from where she had been tending her garden and asked if I wanted some green beans...I timidly came out from my hiding place and joined her in her garden. I've been hooked on fresh green beans from the garden ever since!
She was very refined and educated. She sewed a dress for me..and I was allowed to spend the night with her once.
She tucked me in with a hot water bottle at my feet. The dark wood frame of the single bed shined, and the linens were crisp and white and I felt like a special guest! She would make us tea in her ornate but neat parlour where she would tell me about her life in the olden days, and then she would listen to me talk about art and animals and all the things that I loved. I would sit at her big piano and run my fingers along the keys.. She wanted to teach me to play, but before that could happen my grandma moved away, and soon Lucky became only a bright memory from my childhood days.
I still recall the awe of walking into the church with Lucky..my first experience of attending church.
Later I would attend another Catholic church with a family in the trailer park we lived in when I was older. My mother was not religious but my stepfather was a Catholic and we would watch the Choirs sing at Christmas on TV every year. He had a large painting of the Madonna holding the Christ child hanging in their bedroom.
Of course my grandma would always talk to me about God and she liked to watch Oral Roberts on TV..I loved my Grandma most of anyone in the world. I look forward to seeing her in Heaven someday. My Mother also.
These days living with metastatic breast cancer, I am finding that I am walking another kind of line..the one between life and death. Though I suppose it's not really so different than the one I have always walked between this world and God's Kingdom.
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.
Psalm 23
