People Of God
Observation time. Today while I was scrolling social media, I saw a post that said “Her game changing strategy was God.” Being a man of faith, that got me thinking. I can’t remember if there was ever a time that I felt God was a game changer. And working in mental health my entire life, has done nothing but confirm that.
What I had observed, is that religious and people of faith, break all the time. Many abandon God when life turns upside down on them. The God or faith that once provided them a sense of strength, now seems to have escaped them. Sure, some make it back to their belief system. Yet, many don’t. I have had many clergy walk though my door and question everything they believed in. Cursing the God that once they praised. Both pain and trauma can be very powerful forces. And we should not sit in judgement when someone has experienced a loss.
I’ve said it before on numerous occasions. As a man of science, there is no way I could believe in God. As a man of faith, there is no way I could not. My wife and I lost everything. I truly do mean everything. At the darkest moment of our life, we lost our daughter. She turned to anger. I turned to meditation. She was totally justified in her anger. And what was a powerful response on her part, she insisted that we continue to do church on the weekends, and pray nightly together. To this day, we hold hands in nightly prayer. Me personally, I never saw God as either good nor bad. I see God as more fluid. God exists right here. Being an educated man, I cannot wrap my head around the horrific things I have seen being a first responder. And that has been my game changer. Not God.
My point is this. The faithful stop believing, just as easily as those who have no faith at all…in my humble 36 year mental health experience. God, the concept of God, or the belief of something bigger does not make us exempt in painful days. Can it ease the burden? Of course. But as an educated man, I could say both drugs and alcohol do as well. I could not advocate in good faith for either. For me, meditation has been my game changer. While I believe in God, I have a lot of questions. Questions that can’t be found in a book. I know, because I have spent a lifetime reading them. And if I am being honest, those books aren’t worth anything more than the paper they are printed on. So I embrace humanity. I recognize that we all will suffer. People of faith, and people without.
A lifetime of meditation and mental health has taught me a few things. And probably the biggest, is that the faith you have today, in most cases will look very different when you lose everything. When you lose a child. When you hold your spouses lifeless body in your hands. When you are homeless. When you are terminal. People of God. You don’t have to stop praying for those who don’t believe. But please keep that quiet, and put your faith into action. Just help. Because one day, you may lose your faith. {I’ve seen this happen many times, over the span of almost 4 decades.} And asking the hurt to embrace God or faith, is not helpful. It may make you feel good. But for those in pain, offers little to no use at all.
People of God break like everyone else. And maybe at the end of the day, that is the point of God. To break us in a way, that removes all lines. Because pain is the great equalizer. Spend just one day working in a hospice. Watch one person beg you to kill them because their pain is too great. Watch someone being killed, raped or tortured. And then maybe, just maybe, you’ll start to understand.
