Dear God

I have a bone to pick with you. You see, I’ve become extraordinarily disillusioned with you, or the idea of you, a supreme, omnipotent being. I’ve spent a lot of time lately praying, begging, pleading, bargaining, with you for some relief from the stress and trials of my life. I don’t think I’ve really asked you for much. I’m not asking to be rich or famous. I’m asking for things that would make it possible for my life to be just a little more bearable. I ask, “why you are testing me so much?” I ask, “what I have done to deserve the misery of the last several years?” I ask, “why are you punishing my family with so much shit?” I have never been as depressed as I am now. I have never felt more cornered. I talk but feel like nobody is listening to me. Can’t you see I’m hurting? Can’t you see I’m drowning? Can’t you hear my cries for help? My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?

[Silence]

You never answer. You never seem to give us relief for more than a few hours or days, then pile more shit on for good measure. I spend much of my time thinking about what I’ve done over the last few years to deserve this wrath of yours. Is it because I’m gay? Is it because I divorced my husband when I finally decided to be true to myself? Well, if it were, that would make you a real asshole. But then, maybe you are like the God of the Old Testament. An eye for an eye, don’t fuck with me or I’ll wipe you off the face of the earth. Definitely not the more forgiving and benevolent God of the New Testament. Maybe it’s because I abandoned my Catholic faith many, many years ago. But, can you really blame me? I’m not a fan of religions that are hypocritical, so organized religion just isn’t my thing. But even so, I haven’t abandoned the idea that you exist. Maybe I’m finally being punished for the time in grammar school (a Catholic school, mind you) that I said creationism and evolution could easily coexist. I mean, who’s to say that one day in your time wasn’t a billion years? Even that doesn’t seem like a good reason for why you punish me. But as I cried myself to sleep for yet another night, a thought occurred to me. Perhaps this is happening because I still, on some level, hate you. Why? I think you know, but I’ll explain anyway.

Even though it’s been over three years, I haven’t forgiven you for what you did to our family. I was struggling with my own identity and getting ready to tell my family that I was gay and getting divorced. It was going to be a very difficult time for everyone. Then I got the call. My aunt had had a stroke and was in the hospital. She never woke up. I never got to say goodbye. You took her away from us when we would be needing her most. You broke my family and we have never truly recovered. So that day when you abandoned her and us, I began to hate you. If she were still here, if she had been around to help us deal with what I had to tell my family, perhaps things would be better. Perhaps my mom wouldn’t have gotten cancer. Perhaps I wouldn’t feel like an outcast. Perhaps my family would like my partner. But she wasn’t there. And none of these things can be changed now. I never really mourned her loss. I never really mourned the loss of my previous life. And now I find myself too exhausted to care about anything. My life is crumbling around me. I’m broken. I’m a ghost of the person I used to be. I’d like to find that person again, but I’m afraid I just don’t have it in me to try anymore. My spirit is broken and I don’t know if I can ever mend it. So, here I am, over three years after this all began and I’m still waiting for your answer. Why?

[Silence] 

Maybe if I start to forgive you, you’ll start to answer me.

Let’s call a truce. It’s what my aunt would have wanted.