Sometimes, God really annoys me. He asks me to do stuff that I don’t want to do and, frankly, it’s annoying. But he pesters you until you do it. Yeah, that’s it: God’s a real pest and I intend to talk to him about it some day if I ever stop peeing my pants in his presence. And on a side note: If I’m pants-less in heaven — as in naked — I will totally lose it and run around wailing and shrieking, I swear.
But recently, this annoying God asked me to do something anonymously for someone who has really betrayed me and, you know, it cost me — emotionally and financially. I don’t say this to say Oh, lookie me, I’m so great. Actually, I say this to say I very well may be the stupidest person I know and I know some pretty stupid people.
Several years ago, God asked this exact thing from me with a different cast of characters and I did it then, too, for months until he said to stop, and, frankly, for a long time, I felt foolish and stupid and it hurt. I cried myself to sleep over how much I did not want to do it. I felt like God was asking me to be a chump and I’m cool, not a chump, right? That argument didn’t really work on him. Before I complied, I would lie in bed and beg and beg to be let off the hook: Please, please, ask me something else, God. Ask me to walk down the street naked — which I’d rather die than do — but I know I will really die if I do this, so why don’t you just cut to the chase and kill me? Or …. how about that naked thing? No?
Because, you see, God, that pest, was asking me to bless those who curse me, you know, as the Good Book says. And now that I think about it, before I go to bed tonight, I think I’m going to cross that part out of my Bible posthaste because it’s caused me no end of trouble.
Still, it won’t change the fact that it really does say that and that, if you think about it or actually do it, it will truly and deeply chap your hide. You know, I tried to talk God into letting me toss some prayers his way about the person who’d wronged me, prayers that I’d say with verve! and gusto! to disguise the fact that I meant nary a word: “God, I will totally pray for this person. I will. IwillIwillIwillIwill I WILL.”
No, you won’t, Tracey.
Wha?? God can see through me?? Drat that omniscience anyway.
So I wheedled and begged and begged and wheedled and God just laughed, I suppose. I’m pretty sure I amuse him a lot.
The thing is, praying is fine. We’re supposed to pray for people, love our enemies, all that, but God knows me and knows I WON’T DO IT. If it’s some kind of mental/spiritual ritual, something slippery or vaporous, he knows: I WON’T DO IT. Well, that’s not entirely true. I mean, if it’s about someone I love, someone I care about who’s hurting or sad or betrayed, I’m there. I’ll do it, no problem. I’ll WANT to do it. But if it’s about someone who’s hurt me? Wronged me? Fuggedaboudit. Again, God knows: I WON’T DO IT. It’s too easy to say I’ll pray for that scum, that ass, that douche — none of which I ever say, of course — and then, uh-oh! poof! the notion just disappears into thin air. I WON’T DO IT because my heart is hard. Because I’m hurt. Because I’m clothed in my own righteousness and don’t I look nice? Because not doing it is easy-peasy.
So, with me, God pesters and pesters and pesters while I’m trying to sleep or watch TV. I know he knows I need sleep — I mean, sleep, hullo, his idea — but sometimes he doesn’t seem to CARE that I need to sleep or, well, watch House. I’ll bet even God watches House. But nope. He seems to really delight in waking me up in the dead of night or interrupting my ogling of Hugh Laurie and asking me to be proactive. Thoughts, prayers — good, but, let’s be honest: a quiet prayer sent heavenward costs a person nothing. I can pray in my head and not be embarrassed, not feel foolish, not feel mortified — I can even pray NAKED and not be mortified — and sometimes, God is fine with that, but again, with me, when I’m hurt or betrayed and jumping on the speeding train to Bitter Town, God asks something else of me: I have to DO something. Not think something. DO something.
Bless those who curse you, Tracey.
Ugh. It’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
Again, I’d much rather lie there in bed like some Posturepedic pope whispering, I bless thee, I bless thee, I bless thee and then drift off into the divine dreamless sleep I richly deserve. It’s easy to just SAY it. But doing it?
Ugh. It’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
The first time I did this, several years ago, I sent coffee gift cards, anonymously, to the person who had “cursed me” — because the person was a huge coffee freak and because God said, “Send the jerk some coffee cards” or, well, maybe not quite like that. I thought I would only do it once and be done with it. When I reached the mailbox and was about to put the envelope in, I paused, then walked away, muttering, Nope. I can’t do this, God, no way.
Go back, Tracey.
I turned, stepped one step toward the mailbox, then turned back away. This was on a public sidewalk now, this insane back and forth.
No. I don’t want to bless this person. I don’t want to give this.
I know. So then … can you give it to me?
Ah, crap. Are you kidding? Good one.
Yep.
I turned, stomped back to the mailbox, and shoved the stupid “blessing” in, overflowing with Christian love.
And the angels rejoiced!
Walking back to my car, I thought, Phhhew, thank God, that’s over.
It’s not over, Tracey.
Eh? Yes, it is. I mailed it.
You did, but you’re not done.
Oh, seriously?
Yep.
Okaay. Uhm, what now?
You’re going to do it again next month.
No way! That totally sucks.
That’s why you need to keep doing it. Until it doesn’t suck.
Ohh, pippa. It sucked for seven long months.
Because I didn’t get it and I didn’t get it.
I didn’t get just how bitter I was becoming about this person and I didn’t get that God’s prescription for my bitterness, for “the curse” I’d received was its counterpoint, its total opposite: a blessing. God’s prescription was something that cost me, emotionally much more than financially, something that felt like a curse itself, but was actually something other altogether.
Because as time went on, the ritual at the mailbox became easier. Each month that passed, I had shorter debates with God, I felt less huffy, I looked less like a free-range demented person, mumbling and stomping around a mailbox, and more like a regular person mailing a simple letter, no biggie.
Except it was a biggie, because with each month, I felt my heart, that looming glacier of bitterness, melt just the tiniest bit towards this person. The tiniest bit.
There was no excuse for what this person had done to me. It wasn’t a “hurt feelings” issue; it was, by anyone’s account, a wrong, an abusive wrong. God wasn’t asking me to do this to gloss over what the person had done and act like la di dah, it was no big deal. That wasn’t it at all. It was a huge deal, God knew that, I believe, and because he knew that, he knew the basic human potential for bitterness to take root in a wounded heart. My heart. We’re all just human, for God’s sake, and God knows that. And because he knew this person wouldn’t reconcile with me, he knew my heart well enough to know the only choice it would feel it could make in the face of such blithe abusiveness would be bitterness and thoughts of revenge. And because he actually does love me, he wouldn’t let me go there. Or rather, he wouldn’t let me stay there. (I had already gone there all by myself, ahem.) It took me seven months to feel free and to realize, too, that it was for ME that God had asked me to do this. Sure, that person got those gift cards, but that whole thing — a project MB dubbed “Blessings for Butthead” — was about me, actually. My heart, my spirit, my bitterness, and how to start to be free of it.
And now, he’s asking this of me again.
And it’s a real pisser, I’ll be honest.
But much less so this time around. And not because it’s some small thing or my feelings were merely hurt or because I feel less angry or betrayed with this situation. Actually, it’s worse than the first time — how it’s all hit me. Much worse.
This time is easier maybe, just maybe, because my heart’s kneejerk bitterness has been slowed, delayed, because of that time, several years ago, when God, that pest, told me to bless those who curse you.
I don’t know how long it will last this time around. I have a feeling it’s not done.
Because, let’s face it, God is just annoying sometimes.
