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| Photo credit: Ralph Cann 2011 |
I love the church. I do. I love the coming together of the body. The sense of belonging. The common purpose. The intertwining of generations, and cultures, and journeys of life. I am at home in church. It is my lifeblood. I soak in the teaching of the Word.
Or, at least I use to.
For the past few months anxiety and
bitterness having been sharing my pew. Some weeks, it takes all the energy I can muster to sit through a service. I am angry. I am doubting. I am weary. I
cannot bring my lips to sing words my heart does believe. In silent rebellion, I remain wide-eyed and
bitter, projecting nothing but anger.
Don’t get me wrong, I still love my
church. I still love my God. I just
don’t really want to talk to them right now.
I have become a spectator. This
cold heart does not wish to engage. Do
not ask me to lift my hands in worship.
I can barely lift my body out of this pew.
So on this Sunday morning I am sitting on my couch,
staring at my computer. Typing out truths
in black and white. I cannot sing God
praises, but I can wrestle
with Him. I am asking Him the hard
questions. The ones they don’t tell you
the answers to in Sunday school class. There is no neatly presented lesson plan, complete with flannelgraph. There are no easy remedies. No pre-packaged responses that remove
this animosity.
But there is truth
here. There is a subtle bravery in this working out through poetry and prose, with fear and trembling.
There is faith in a Saviour who
is not alarmed at my anger, who is neither daunted nor deterred by my
doubts. I am leaning into vulnerable.
And it's okay. Because my faith life isn't a straight trajectory from the day of my salvation till now. It loops, and bends, and winds. Sometimes it meanders along and other times it goes at breakneck speed. And right now I'm just trying to figure out how to work the gear shift.
I'm starting to come to the realization that maybe I don't connect with God through music. I don't feel Him in the bassline, or hear Him in the hymns. Not that He's not there, He's just not choosing to commune with this daughter in that fashion. It's not that this heart doesn't want to engage, just that it is created to connect through other means. Maybe for me, I worship with words, and I praise through prose. The scratching of pen against paper sounds as beautiful to my ears, to God's ears, as does the grandest orchestra.
I've tried my whole life to force it, to worship the way that we celebrate worship. (And for the record: I've failed miserably at every instrument I've picked up. I'm in excellent singer in my shower, but absolutely nowhere else.) I've desperately sought to find joy in the chorus, to discover grace in the notes, and sometimes I do. Sometimes it is genuine, but if I'm honest, most times it's contrived.
This here, with pen and paper and words on my heart, this is how I connect with God. The bitterness and anger come when I try to confirm the person God has created me to be, into the image of someone else. The anxiety and disconnect results from denying the process through with I express my exaltations and try to emulate the manner in which others profess their praise. I am giving myself permission to place as much value on what happens on the page as I give to what happens in the pews on a Sunday morning. And that has been the most freeing decision of my life. When I stop trying to white-knuckle joy into existence, when I breathe in the freedom of being who God made me to be, with all these words burning at the tips of my fingers, I find that worship comes easily, because I'm already doing it.
So for today, this couch is my pew. This electric hum and clatter-clap-tap typing of fingers: my hymns. I have coffee and croissants, but this is communion. This is holy. This is the throne of God. And it is not pretty or put together. It is messy, and broken, and sometimes it gets ugly. It is poured out and laid bare at the feet of a God who I don't pretend to understand, and only sometimes like. It is real.
And this too, is a form of worship.
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