I prayed this today…

This is not a pleasant read. It’s not well-written. Many won’t like it. I don’t even think I do. It’s just how I feel and I had to say it.

To the people I love, please forgive me. I don’t want to hurt you if my words are doing that. But I am just really hurt right now and I have to get it out.

God. God?

You have FAILED me. You always do. I was just thinking about all of the parts of my life I would define as sorrows. “You” are at the center of all of them. I put “you” in quotes because I am not sure there is a “you” to pray to. Every time I put my hope in “you”, “you” always let me down. “You” are the fount of my grief. “Your” faith is the seed of my doubt. Everything I hate about me, is because of what “you” said my life was supposed to be.

I lived all my life trying to do right, but even as a child, it was clear that what I was told “you” were, and what the world showed “you” to be were not congruent. There wasn’t a single moment I can remember “you” coming through for me. Remember when I begged “you” to let me be seen as like all the other boys in school? Remember when I begged “you” to save my grandma? Remember when I begged “you” to save my pastor? Remember when I begged “you” to make me straight? Remember when I begged “you” to give me some sense of why I was here? Remember when I begged “you” to help me understand why it seemed as though “you” set my life in conflict with everyone around me? Remember when I begged “you” to help people accept me for who I am, or to make me into someone they would accept? Remember when I begged “you” to spare pastor’s wife, if only just to show that you can answer ONE of these prayers? I remember them all. All those prayers were about as useful as… well, they weren’t.

I’m tired. Tired of hoping that somehow, this all means something. That “you” are a benevolent force protecting those “you” claim to love. I may not know everything. I may not be that smart, but I know what love is. It’s not this. If “you” were an actual living breathing father, there would be no part of me that wanted anything to do with “you.” That would be because “you” would have little to do with me. “You” would definitely be that absentee parent I pined for.

I’m hurt. I thought maybe it was me. Maybe there was something in what I was praying. Maybe I was too selfish, too proud, too greedy. Maybe I was asking amiss. I love how, if anything good happens, I’m to give “you” credit, but when bad things happen, when failure happens, that’s on the world, that’s on me, that’s on us. That’s horseshit.

So, with the very real possibility that I am saying this into a big, black ether, or doing little more than sending a message of pain and disappointment out into the world of the internet, I’m making the decision to break from “you” for a little bit. Break away from empty promises, thousand-year old platitudes, moral absolutes that leave so many in tatters believing truly that “there’s something fundamentally wrong with the person I am.”

The word says “do not put the Lord, your God to the test.” Well, I say, I’ve seen/ felt/ heard nothing that shows there is a “Lord God.” I don’t know what it means to live without being defined by this faith in “you,” but I can’t imagine it’s much worse than this. And if the only argument to doing it is that it is worse, that’s a pretty poor one.

So, yes- I need a sign, I need an explanation, I need you to do what ANY loving ANYONE would do for someone they love: SHOW it. To be honest though, I don’t expect anything.

And no, that “you” “gave your only begotten son” does not count.

I prayed that today. I’m sure I’ll wake up tomorrow and probably smile and go through my day. But today… I did not need today.