Where Am I Now?-3 Years Later

Three years ago I wrote a reflection for my new blog and for all the new friends who were following me on the journey I had begun, and I answered the question I got all the time: was I still a Christian? If so, what did that look like? I used to be a Christian, but what was I now?

You can go back and read that blog here, but it basically outlined the contradiction I was living in of being angry at God and yet desperately needing him. I knew I needed him. I wasn’t sure of anything, but everything in my world was crashing down and I needed this to work…I needed to be a Christian because it was the only thing left for me to try. 

I had destroyed my relationship with my best friend, who had been my anchor. I had just left my family home, was a few months into navigating a life post IFB, grieving the loss of my family, battling depression, and continuing to walk deeper into the addiction I had developed and been wallowing in for years. It was a climatic time when I was letting go of so many things and figuring out what I wanted to hold onto, and I knew I wanted Jesus.

There were many days I would open the Bible, try to read it, and throw it on the floor, raging and crying. I was scared of God. I was scared of men. I was especially scared of dads. I wasn’t sure what was real today, or what would be real when I woke up tomorrow. 

I ended that blog with this: “There are not many things in this life that I feel like I really know. I know there is truly nothing that I need as much as I need Jesus. I can figure out all the details later.”

Three years later, I help other people work out their own details, from my office at the women’s shelter where I work. I feel the imposter syndrome every time: Thea with borderline personality disorder, Thea recovering from addiction, Thea with unresolved grief, broken relationships, PTSD…this is the Thea who styles herself a student therapist, and beams when she explains to clients that she is in the last few weeks of her masters degree in social work. 

In one day, I cycle through the whole gauntlet of life experiences with people who are where I was three years ago. “It’s ok to be angry at God, just keep talking to him,” I tell the mother whose teenage son was shot 9 times through the chest. 

“Learning what safety feels like can take time–be patient with yourself. Let your body figure it out,” I tell the young women with visible black eyes, who just escaped her abusive husband, and wakes up screaming at night. 

Sometimes I’m more stern. “I used to make excuses for my behavior because I was being abused and had borderline, and I ruined my relationship with my best friend. I miss her every day and wish I could fix things. And you know what, it’s 100% my fault and I have to take responsibility for it. And I don’t want you to go through that, because someday you’re going to hurt someone beyond fixing and you won’t be able to take that back.” I level with the survivor of human trafficking, who consistently yells at me and displays aggressive behaviors, while thinking she can come back the next day and things will go back to normal. 

The only people it’s still hard to speak to are the ones with addiction. It’s still too raw to share my story, but I can hug them and tell them that God loves them, no matter how many times they relapse. “You can never be more loved by God than you are right now.”

We talk about everything: abandonment, daddy issues, the problem of evil, self-harming, the power of community, standing up for yourself and setting boundaries, forgiveness, reparations, all of it. 

And sometimes God lets me have a moment where I share something and the person across from me starts to cry and says, “I never thought of it that way,” and something inside me heals too. Maybe that’s why God let this happen. 

The God of all comfort comforts us so we can comfort others. 

Three years later, God is still comforting me. But these days there’s less anger and more curiosity. I’m still angry at my dad sometimes, but I also get to explore things about my Heavenly Father that baffle me, awe me, and lead me deeper. “Do you think God is proud of me when I make good grades?” I text a friend. “Do I make God smile?” Sometimes I dig through the Bible for an answer. Sometimes I just have to look around me. The mom tossing her toddler up in the air, both their faces radiant with joy. The father choking up making a toast to his daughter at her graduation party. Every good gift comes down from the Father of lights. You are the one from whom every father on earth takes their name. I’ve learned to lean into the happiness of others with whole families, watching them and then wondering what it means for me to be God’s child. There are still the days I pray for an earthly father and I’ve learned to be ok with that grief too. In all the moments when what I have now doesn’t seem to be enough, I know that I’m missing something I should have and that one day I won’t cry anymore. 

I still have lots of questions about the Bible. There are still things I read that make me extremely uncomfortable, though I no longer feel rage spilling over as I turn the pages. Instead, I finished my second semester of Hebrew this year, ordered way more books on theology than I could ever read, and am knee deep in two seminary degrees. I don’t have many of my questions answered–in fact, I only have more now–but I can read and wrestle and put it down and talk to a God who I’ve come to personally know is good to me. Separating the study and the knowing of God is essential–I make time to put the books down, erase the mental whiteboards, and know who God is to me, even if I can’t comprehend who He is to everyone else in all of history.

Do I still wonder if it is all real? Sure. I won’t lie about that. Especially when life feels a little empty. There are definitely nights when I have prayed the same thing for the 10,000th time and wonder if my voice is just absorbed into the blackness of space. I find myself 5 pages into a paper on the commutable attributes of God and suddenly realize that my money and time and indeed, my whole life, is utterly wasted if what I’m believing is not true. I have grief that only is consoled by the very thing that I find the hardest to believe–heaven. Heaven is where I’ll dance with my dad and he’ll smile into my eyes and tell me how proud he is of me and how sorry he is we didn’t get to do this sooner. Heaven, where I’ll meet online-Elaine for the first time and all the shame and regret I’ve held for years will melt away into a mutually ecstatic greeting, and the beginning of a friendship that will last forever. Heaven is where I’ll see Jesus and I believe that somehow, magically, everything that has never been enough will finally be more than I could have hoped for. I will be fully loved. I will never be afraid again. I will be with God and will never want anything again.

Who could not feel afraid of such a large hope? I have put all my eggs into one basket, so to speak. Everything about my life is for this one thing and like Paul said, if it is not true that we will rise with Jesus, we are of all men the most to be pitied. 

Three years ago, I wrote this: He promises something that I’m not sure He can do, but it’s something I know I can’t do, and that is enough to make me run after the hope He offers. 

Something has changed though. The girl who was desperately trying to find Jesus has been found. The fear is still there but so are so many more testimonies. I have three more years of God’s faithfulness to testify to than I did three years ago. And boy, those three years have been something. That faithfulness is there to combat the doubts with the experience of coming to not just believe the love of God, but to know it. 

The details are still in progress, but three years later, I am more confident of this than I have ever been before: there is nothing I need as much as I need Jesus and I belong to Him forever, and no one can ever take me out of His hands. 

From Him who loves me now so well,

What power my soul shall sever?

Shall life or death, shall earth or hell?

No! I am His forever. -James Small