A Shitty Year

Just a bit over one year ago, I wrote about my general goal for 2014, to "Get Shit Done." I did get shit done, though it wasn't the shit that I was hoping to get done.

I got divorced. So, that was the main shit that got done. Not that my marriage was shit, but the whole situation in general was.

The rest of the year was a blur. It was quick and painful. Like I was beheaded but never died. I keep blinking. And screaming in the windows. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. This is to myself. I don't hate my ex-wife. Actually, I hope the best for her. And I love her. I will always love her. She was my best friend. Now, there is no one.

The student.

Except God. Though it may seem that He has stepped out. A comfort has been C.S. Lewis's incredibly candid work, A Grief Observed. Though he was writing about the death of his wife, it still involves the loss of a spouse and so, many of his ideas and feelings brush against mine:

"Meanwhile, where is God? This is one of the most disquieting symptoms. When you are happy, so happy that you have no sense of needing Him, so happy that you are tempted to feel His claims upon you as an interruption, if you remember yourself and turn to Him with gratitude and praise, you will be-or so it feels-welcomed with open arms. But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and the sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside. After that, silence. You may as well turn away. The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become. There are no lights in the windows. It might be an empty house. Was it ever inhabited? It seemed so once. And the seeming was as strong as this. What can this mean? Why is He so present a commander in our time of prosperity and so very absent a help in time of trouble?"

The sage.

Lewis wasn't afraid to ask the difficult questions. Many times, Christians are. And they come across as plastic and disconnected. People who are entrenched in their own naive world that is bright and cheery, colorful. But, that isn't what life is like. And that isn't what real Christianity is like. Jesus wasn't a weak white hippy that said that everyone should simply get along and be good. He was a severe Middle Eastern radical who hung out with the shittiest people in society. He realized that the world was a dark place. And it needed His light. And so did Lewis. And so do I.

And along with Lewis, I find that in the end, God is there. Even when it doesn't seem to be so, God is there. God is there. God is there.