When I was young, my mental image of God was the stereotypical bearded man who gave gifts and love. He was essentially a more spiritual Santa Claus, and his son was a laughing carpenter.
As my family grew and changed, my parents showed me God through Jewish festivals, Hebrew prayers, and Jesus’s words.
At camps and youth retreats, I looked for God in collective worship, signed covenants with him during emotional altar calls, and prayed to him under stars and at the foot of epic mountains. God was more of a disciplinary figure at that point, with high demands of me, a sinner.
In Hawaii, I spent time with God in our prayer room during three hour shifts. I was hungry from fasting, journaling fervently, and listening to music that brought me to tears. I was deeply in love with him and also deeply worried about disappointing him if I didn’t save enough souls.
When my body started to turn on itself, I was angry with God; surely I had earned a better life than this. Slowly, my idea of God and what I deserved changed as I came to accept my autoimmune disease.
In a desperate attempt to help someone dear to me who’d lost their faith, I read a book called What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell. It explored how God is with us, for us, and ahead of us. I loved that idea. But with more ideas like it, God was losing his shape, what I thought made him real.
For a year or so, I didn’t think much about God at all. When I did, it was either out of a sense of guilt, like when you realize you never call your grandma, or it came up as a thought experiment, comparable to thinking about what it’d be like if aliens existed.
After we returned home from Spain, I saw a change in Ryan as he grew closer to God. I recognized his desire to know more about God and his renewed love for life and family.
One evening in the desert, family and friends talked for hours about God and time and what it all meant for our lives. At one point in the conversation, Ryan said, Isn’t it nice that we can just rest in the moment?
Throughout the next year, I studied Joseph Campbell, Ram Dass, and, to my surprise, the Bible, yet again.
One night after our wedding, in a tent by a lake, I felt like I was a part of God, a drop lifted from a vast pool and gently placed into a strange body. I experienced this world as though it were my first time here.
Now, I see God in laughter, in the waving leaves of trees, in the familiar words of the Bible, and in my love for others. I look for God in all places instead of restricting it. But I feel God most strongly in the moment, when I truly embody myself, observe the glory all around me, and don’t judge any of it. I give God more freedom to be and more space to grow than ever before. I’ve lost the certainty of my youth, but I revel in the mystery. Now, I care less about defining God and more about honoring it.
Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash