I was a big Judy Blume fan growing up as a kid. In fact, I was a big book fan, period. (Still am, but I think now you'd call it a book junkie.) We used to have Book Fairs at our elementary school - remember those? They would pass out those small, newspaper circular-like catalogs of delight where I could gleefully plot the direction in which my imagination would be turned. I remember the unbelievable freedom I felt while shopping for those books. Book Fairs were the only instances I can remember as a child where my parents never restricted how much I could buy. The sky was the limit, and I was usually that kid who came home carrying her books in one of the boxes they were shipped in. On Book Fair days we could be picked up by our parents instead of taking the bus home, and I remember waiting with glee in the school cafeteria, staring out the big windows for the familiar car. I spent the whole ride home wishing my mother would drive faster so I could choose the first book to be read. Once home, I would drop my bookbag full of homework just inside the door (which to my father's annoyance made the most effective doorstop when he tried come in after work) and plop myself and my box on the end of the couch and choose. And then I would read. And read. And read. Boy, do I miss that kind of excitement.
"Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret" was one of the many, many books I read as a child. It was about a young girl who grew up with a Christian mother and a Jewish father and was searching for a single truth for herself. I actually did not remember that part of it until I Googled it earlier - it was the title itself that popped into my head. It got stuck there as I pondered my own search to find God "again". Over the past several months I've had a number if conversations with many different people of all ages about faith and belief and just about everything that intersects with those things. And do you know what the one common denominator is? Doubt. Doubt about many things. The very existence of God, or the existence of any God, for that matter. The value of faith communities. The transparency of organized religion. The validity of the doctrines and practices of different denominations. The genuineness of "devout" Christians and Christian leaders. And it seems that underneath that doubt lies the other common denominator- fear.
Now, Nicole, you say, you can't have two common denominators!!! That may be true, but where you find one you usually find the other. And the truth us, fear and doubt are two very human responses that we are so often told are signs of weakness and lack of true commitment when it comes to faith. And you know what? That's just crap. We all have our own fears and doubts in life, and in my own life the exploration of these doubts and fears have led to some pretty extraordinary discoveries about God, faith, and myself. The key for me has always been to not allow myself to be paralyzed by doubt and fear, but to find a way to work through them to the other side. And don't get me wrong - it doesn't always work out. I don't always "work on it", and I often end up wrestling with the same stupid demons over and over again. I have found myself lying awake at night wondering if God was really up there anyway, and did it really matter if I did the right thing even though no one would ever see only to wake up in the morning wondering what in the world I ate the night before that brought such ridiculous thoughts to my head. And while I've never really been afraid of death, per se, I know that when I'm pondering these things in the middle of the night I am terrified that when the time does come that I will die alone. And then morning comes and I roll my eyes at myself and move on. Maybe I should work on my "middle of the night madness" next...
I refuse to believe this makes me less faithful, or even any less strong. It makes me human. I am not perfect, and I never want to be. I want to become the person I was meant to be by living into the potential that has been built into my soul. I know that God put that potential there and gave me the tools to achieve it. I just don't always see it or have the patience to look for it. But hey, that's my struggle. Being faithful doesn't mean being perfect. So every once in a while I will stare into the ceiling lit by the occasional light of the moon, notice with disgust the spots I missed with the paintbrush, and say, "Are you there, God? It's me, Nicole." Hopefully those times are few and far between. But despite the doubts that may be momentarily running through my head, I can take some assurance in the fact that I still crave to have the conversation and that God is still listening.
