Torn.
This summer was hard.
These tear stained, coffee spilled thin pages ripped up into a pile on my bedroom floor. I was so mad. I stopped myself in the middle of it. I came to some pause. It wasn’t a dramatic, get attention action for me. I knew what I was doing. I scanned the pile while sobbing to find John 15, some of Isaiah and my favourite Psalms, but I still continued . I even cried more as I thought to myself some people don’t even have one of these in their hands in countries and still I tore the pages of my Bible in pieces. I was processing grief of moving, sickness and isolation. I didn’t and don’t want all the medical and mental sicknesses going on with me. I had to leave my friends, ministry and even my physical care was getting heavier. I would now have care workers come in to help me twice per week. I was not getting along at some points with anyone who would try and help me in my family. It was terrible. Just weeks before I had wept and prayed for God to come into the ways that I had seen or perceived the ways the Bible was used to ‘kill’ in ungodly ways in my life and in those around me. It all just came to an angry spiral.
What happened? I don’t fully know yet, but it did feel cathartic as much as spiritual in some way. It will not be a memory that I willbe proud of—and I will still contemplate it with God even now as I see several Bibles laying around my house every day The Bible is precious to me and can be idolized in some places to an unhealthy level. It’s Words and Spirit hold so much breath giving things too. Though I have no excuse for the action of that day, I know the Word can never be scribbled out or written out of my heart, but my learning and heart can be expanded by it and it can be like a fire shut up in my bones and breath to my lungs or like a mirror that shows me who I am. It’s not always easy to sit with.
This particular bible had my name imprinted on the front with the year I finished my mission credentialing. It still held for me some sort of trophied accomplishment. It was like I needed to hold onto it to remind me that all that I did was worth it. I wasn’t planning on keeping it anyway. My plan was to send it to my dear friend in celebration of my journey and the journey they so carefully had walked with me in the last years. Instead in a moment of angry sadness my sword of the Spirit lay in pieces on the floor. The grace in this was that I was handed a recycle bin and left alone to finish by myself. There are just some things that only you can walk through alone.
I am thankfully in a better place in some ways then that moment, but for the ways I have idolized the pages and used it’s words wrongly I had to confess. For the ways I felt I had turned away from it for myself I had to confess.
I am not recommending that we all go out and rip up our bibles—please hear the remorse in this writing! I am learning and listening to the Spirit while meditating on those ancient Love Words again. For me personally as I reflect back I know it was an outburst of anger and an outward sign of grief and indignation. It was a confession that makes me want to fall on my face and say sorry to God and everyone in my family I traumatized this summer. I know some of you recycled your paper bibles a long time ago, but for me it’s different and difficult.
Today I write this in a more level mental state and ask for the holy in this prayerful confession. I want you if you are reading this to think about your relationship to 1)the Scriptures 2)the ways you deal with things that cause you anger. To some the Bible is just a book of cool stories—to others a book of laws and regulations that make you godly or violent. Are you bored with it, angry at it. For me personally most often as I take it in I often find it to be something I “call to mind” in order to have a holy hope because there is a God PERSON behind all the words that can be known and discovered through it and in it, but He’s always way more than that.
About the anger…
I am now on a steady dose of dr.’s visits, prayers and antidepressants. I guess I also want to say that anger is normal. Be angry and find ways to let it out.
If you are offended by my tearing up of Scriptures —I get it. It was NOT something that I did because I want others to do the same. I share this story to normalize such experiences. I have had to stomp on the shame and accusations of the enemy in my own head and also open the door to let others know that their similar feelings or experiences in their faith walk are not isolated places. If you have had experienced such trauma/anger call mental health lines, find your people to help heal your trauma and let it all out. I pray that there is just one that if nothing else will hand you a recycle bin when you need it. There can be beauty there friend.
And for the bibles …
Yes, some people long to have one. Others still see it as hate literature. Some don’t even have a language written down in order to translate it or any other book into there own language. For me, I miss my one that held so much intimate history and notes between me and God. I also want to give all the ones I see laying around to those who want one and can’t have it. My soul is stronger as it walks around in its Words some days and some days I just let it be . I do want others to have that invitation to love the holy Scriptures. It’s a love letter to cherish, but I know I cannot make anyone believe it. However, it’s words have become my only friend mixed in with all the tension and ways I can feel uncomfortable about it. It is my conversation starter with God in my life that gives me hope when I have no other conversations in my day.
PS I am grateful for the people who stood around me and at points walked away from me this summer when they needed to. It was a hard one.
I am grateful to the WORD who is faithful and True above all else
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