The jail of a questioning mind

Rainbow row in Charleston. Rows upon rows of homes right up against their neighbor. It's famous for it's beauty. I look up and think of Noah's rainbow, the sign that humans would never be extinguished by God again.

En masse that is. Many have been killed since the rainbow, including His own son Jesus Christ, who took our place before the wrath of God.

I hear about God - that He is good, that He has overcome eternal death, that He always gives a way of escape. Where is my way of escape? Where is His goodness?

Round church in downtown Charleston.

How about that He works ALL things for the good of those who diligently seek Him. That God's plan does not always match up with my plan. He seems so very, very far away. I heard something else - something considered a fallacy - that God is a distant cosmic creator.

I can't understand how the earth and all that's in it came to be without God. Why, if His eye is on the sparrow,  every one of them, do I struggle to believe His eye, provision, and love are real and true and ever present in my life? I can't seem to latch on to the power I hear He offers, and I feel abandoned and alone, even when others tell me His promises do apply to me. I am afraid of my own questions and afraid of the consequences if I let my mind go in the direction it's flowing.

For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. "Mark this, then, you who forget God, lest I tear you apart, and there be none to deliver! The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me..".(Psalm 50:17,21-22a)

I struggle to believe that the trials that have plagued me since age 13 will ever end. I don't understand why I hurt, and He does not help or comfort or heal?  I cry I need your help, oh God. I need to change how I see you. I can't do it by myself. By myself, I'll become a theist agnostic.

Take the brush from my hand - the one I'm using to paint your picture and the picture of my life. I struggle to believe that I will not always be the victim, the sufferer, the child injured - the picture that suffering alone is my destiny. That even here you have great plans for me, that you are providing here even in the worst of times, when I bow my head and close my eyes hard so I can't see you anymore. I struggle to believe that you have not turned your face from me already.

These are the bars between mind and soul that leave me with questions without answers. Wherever He is, I want Him to show up in a big way because otherwise I'm floundering. Not just shells on the seashore or B-3 organs for free on the curb. I'm talking about mercy, justice, love, pursuing, disciplining...a God who shows His involvement in my life.