Two Things

Two things are my brain’s “proof” of God, in the way where I seem to stumble into his face.

The first is this concept; my imaginary friend can’t have superpowers.

The second is love.

Now is a good time to get a cup of tea.

Years ago, I decided to quit God. I was going to stop dreaming, seeking the future, seeking authority over demons, and I was definitely done with ghosts. I couldn’t make myself stop praying because I was constantly distressed, and I needed rest, peace, and hope. So, I tried to ask the Holy Spirit for presence without power. I lost both.

So, then I was spiritually lost, distressed, depressed, sad, sick, weary, sorrowful and afraid because I didn’t know my way back. And I thought I would never trust God because he’s Spirit.

Fast forward three years, my life met another emptying when my four friends moved far away in the same month.

And then all I had was my imaginary friend and a memory: years prior, I was sitting in a nearly empty auditorium because – a boy. And God talked to me in my heart. He told me that he was going to bring my life into complete isolation and if I didn’t listen to the warning, then, I would be at risk for believing that I had utterly failed at life. And my life would be risk if I thought I was a reproach. When I heard God, I didn’t hear a kind voice, or safe or inviting voice. His voice was very cold. His Spirit gave an impression that when I heard him in combination with my fear of him that my mind approaching God was like walking up to a lion eating a meal, he might think I’m there to steal his meal and attack me. So, he was choosing to speak in a voice’s way of not making any sudden movements.

He then asked, “do you feel threatened?” and I didn’t. So, he continued explaining that he needing to take me into isolation because as a good father, which he is, he can’t let me move forward until I stop choosing boys based on the definition of their legs. But that I would receive the one he chose for me. I accepted that. He then, made my eyes aware of the ceiling I had been starting at: it was making me smile inside because the lights and the tiles were such that it looked like a straight-face smile emoji. He said, “You will know that I am God when I bring you under this same ceiling a second time.” He emphasized that he didn’t mean I would return to the auditorium. The next visual he showed me looked kinda like a smile emoji except that it was a house engulfed in flames. He said, “don’t be afraid” but with an emphasis not of “it’s going to be scary but I will be with you” instead it was like “not real flames; don’t worry now cuz you won’t be able to consider worrying later, when you actually see it.” He told me that when I see this image of the burning house then I would know the timing was right. And then he kept talking about what I will think about the preacher, at that time, and that I will choose not to bring up my concerns but pray about it and then I won’t be humiliated and by the time that preacher gets to his next sermon series my concerns will be met with seeing him clearly and they will fall away and I will be glad I didn’t bring up my concerns and God said when I pass that test then he will know I am ready.

My season of isolation came and the wave of shame was unbearable, except that I looked at the ceiling of my studio basement apartment and saw a miniature version of a straight-faced smile emoji that I had seen before. The memory returned and I didn’t believe it was real and certainly not meaningful. But I hoped so.

Then I got sick. I’m convinced it was covid-19 first round before we had a name for it. Although it was November ’19 I was fitting eyeglasses to a woman who had arrived that day from the Philippines and was coughing. I got sick the next day and was out a week because my job was talking and if I spoke, I swooned within a sentence and besides I couldn’t scream to make a whisper. I didn’t get better.

But the thing was, I had lived my whole sick. And while 8 years gluten free had helped, I remained in too much pain to stand up straight. And I knew that the purple pock marks spreading over my right shoulder blade was bad news. And I was tired of being in pain.

Then God spoke, again, to my heart and asked if I wanted him to heal my body or my mind first. I told him I was in too much pain to think so I’d rather him heal my body first.

February 2020 and I had been wanting to quit my job because I wanted freedom. I thought maybe God was behind the desire but I wasn’t going to risk it, until I heard an angel speak. He wasn’t in glory. And maybe he’s just a man, but he didn’t greet me when I walked by, instead of a regular greeting he said, “what are you still doing here? What are you waiting for my permission?” that’s not a normal thing to say to someone who you really don’t know. And he was just standing at the front counter not being helped by anyone.

March 2020 I quit my job. I go on walks. I watch a Jesus show called The Chosen. I watch YouTube music videos. I go on more walks. And my friend starts calling me everyday, at totally different times but whenever I decide to go for a walk she called. We talked about God because God was sending her dreams and she wasn’t sure if she should reach out to people. Well, I was repeating to myself that I was concerned I was leading her nowhere. So everytime she asked if I thought it was God telling her to contact someone I answered, “I don’t know.” And she’d bravely go ask that person if she could pray for them.

Then a friend of mine I hadn’t spoken to in three years comes through town and asks to stay on my couch. Of course! And she talks about our mutual friend who I hadn’t talked to in two years and then God spoke, “I want to you to go wherever I send you, for however long I send you there.” I agree. I call everyone I’m in contact with who could give a couch and ask for two weeks.

I’m watching music videos and a Nick Jonas video comes on and I see the burn house, just as I remembered it. The timing was right, I believed enough to couch surf and sell paintings.

I set out on the road.

October 2020 and I’m staying with the friend who called me everyday. By now I am participating in her prayer group and developing friends via zoom. A few months prior, she had reached out to someone from a dream. Turns they had the same dream. He told her the meaning of the dream and we had prayed for him. And in the course of the prayer the Holy Spirit knocked me out. I opened my eyes to see that people in the room with him had stoop up and were laying hands on him and I had been praying in tongues. Well I just kept going, transitioning from rebuking evil off of him to blessing him. As soon as I changed my intent to blessing him, he smiled. And thought, the Holy Spirit moved. And I hoped more that the God I called imaginary was real. So, then I start talking to him, the guy. And I get the chance to drive with my friend a couple hours to meet him.

On the drive to Nashville I am filled with faith. Suddenly I know I’m going to get a prayer that will change my life. And I’m thinking as I’m celebrating inside that this has to be the Holy Spirit taking me over because I couldn’t muster up that much energy for anything.

Days go by and I don’t get prayed for. Until more circumstances occur so that I’m at her parents house for ten minutes alone with her Dad. And he asks if he can pray over my celiac disease. Yes! My prayer! I jump into the dining room chair.

He asks if there’s anything else he can pray for. I tell him I’m not going to give him the list, but he can pray for my joint pain. He prays and I feel fingers on my upper lip. I open my eyes. It’s not him. I close them again. He keeps praying. I talk to God some more. He prays over my celiac disease last and I feel heat cover my gut where all the pain stayed.

There’s more to the story about the weeks that followed as I tiptoed into the idea that I was healed and slowly tested things.

I was totally healed and the pain never came back. It took two years for the pock marks to appear but two months for them to disappear. I can stay warm. I drink beer and eat pizza and nothing changes in my mind or speech. I can eat anything I want and I never feel like I’m about to vomout Of, joint pain is gone too. And muscle weakness is gone. Oh, and heart palpitations are gone. There’s probably more.

The fingers on my upper lip where an angel that healed my teeth pain, which I didn’t think about and never thought I’d be free of. I didn’t ask for that, but he’s not the God of pain.

It was a shock to believe in God, again.

But I can’t go back to thinking his voice is imaginary.

The second thing: love.

People often repeat the scripture “God is love.” But it seems like some people think this phrase indicates that God is the substance of what constitutes love.

The thing about love is that it’s void without a consciousness.

Love isn’t love without being felt by a conscious being that perceives in order to feel it.

Love isn’t total, full, if that being doesn’t see, everything, every tinsy little bit of the object of it’s affection.

Love can perpetuate forth from the being without reciprocation; I can love my painting and accept, even it’s flaws and surprises, because I painted it and I seal the lover over/into it by speaking love over the flaws by casting the painting new light by way of a self-acceptance by speaking, “I don’t see any flaws. I love you because I created you.”

Another scripture “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

Can love exist without being in the form of a gift, being an expression of the will and heart of a giver of love?

What is love without consciousness?

Light emits.

Water falls until it fills.

So, if I believe that God is real then truth is in my relationship to God, which he decides.

If God says that I am his child, that is an immovable fact under all conditions: making it truth that is built on a solid foundation because although everything in creation can change and change and change, God is eternal and his opinion matters things into substance, with everlasting value.

When he speaks love it is true.

Because when he sees, he sees in totality, which qualifies his love as unconditional.

I love my painting when I love myself enough to love it with  flaws until the flaws are just apart of my masterpiece.

And God never changes.

Another scripture “he is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow”

How firm is this relationship?

Jesus says, “My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.”

Why didn’t you give the scripture references? I’m not your teacher, do as the world does and google it.