Welcome back. You belong here.

The day before is usually worst than the day after. Tomorrow is my echo and although it should be fine it still makes me nervous. For years, whether CTScans, MRI’s, ultrasounds, and a myriad of tests, I’ve always expected the worst – brain tumors, anyurisms and tomorrow is no exception. Btw, all these tests have come back normal/negative. I live in the what if. It sucks.

I’m also taking two beta blockers instead of one starting tomorrow, to see if that helps my heart palps. They bother me every day throughout the day.

I did other things today, but none that really brought me peace. I finished the handrails for both set of stairs, got our family 2 nights, 3 days at a hotel in the area (mini-family vacation) and went for a drive. That was eventful.

When I arrived at my destination (some mountain foothills nearby, it was snow-blowing), I wrote to God in a way I haven’t done in a while if ever. It was about God being an “absentee father” in my life. I wrote page after page of the effects God’s absence caused on me psychologically and physically. There was blame, doubt, some anger (not much), it was more methodical than emotional.

I went through event after event over my last 20 years where I didn’t see God. Where were you God when….I resisted thinking of all the ways I think, or others would say, he’s been there in order to stay in the moment and be as honest as possible.

This is something that I haven’t done much if ever. It was uneventful to say the least, more like a surgeon than a hurt son. I was testing the process in a sense to see what would come of it. Nothing came of it, except to feel pretty much the same, distant from God.

In the nice things of life, the nice people, the good days, finding God is almost no fun. It’s obvious, not that God was there, but that you’re feeling good so who needs God then? But trying to make sense of the trauma of my childhood while “God just stood there”, what do I do with that?

My counselor (as well as my spiritual director) both tell me to keep talking, to tell God everything. I’m not sure there will be some emotional outburst on the other end of this, right now it’s mostly a hurt person being very linear and truthful about a situation that is beyond repair. The hurt was done, I live with the consequences daily, God didn’t spare me much and so now I’m left to pick up the pieces.

I’m not saying God doesn’t help me in that, it’s just I’d rather He’d kept me from the trauma to begin with.

Towards the end of my time “with God”, I tried to think of something miraculous, something supernatural in my life that I didn’t create, I didn’t do FOR God, but that God has truly done for me. A sign, or many signs that God does care.

The word that came up was “grace”. It’s been in the grace people have shown me when I was at my lowest that I see God. I can’t say that was people being nice, or me being lovable. I can’t say it was something I asked or forced them to do. I can’t say I deserved it, in fact, I felt I deserved punishment. And this was more than once in my life.

Instead, grace is the closest thing to “the Son of God” that I know of. It’s something I can’t explain away, but it is something I have received. So maybe in my conversation with God, even though I heard no “I’m sorry Trig for leaving you alone” nor “Yeah, you’re right I was absent”, instead I heard “Grace”.

Have a great day.

Into the future,

davidT