I want to believe, I really do

I haven't fully understood this, and unnervingly never forgotten it. I feel like I could say that about a lot, lately. Ive been very introspective, Ive been interrogating my past. Tonight at church I was overwhelmingly flooded with a memory that didn't really make sense until now. I was in the seventh grade, undoubtably optimistic, unrealistic, and uncommonly happy. I went to a rally on the state house steps with my church, when Daniel was the youth pastor, I remember his missing fingers in this picture. I couldn't tell you now what the speaker said, I'm not sure it mattered, but I remember the worship. I dont remember the songs. I remember my knees pressed against the pavement, I remember my forehead on the ground. I remember me crying and crying and crying, and I remember what I was saying.

I prayed, "Please dont ever leave me. Dont ever leave. Dont ever leave me. Please. Please Jesus dont ever leave me. Dont leave me like everyone else. Dont ever leave."

I was twelve. Who knows where that sense of abandonment came from. I remember how hard i was crying, and how I didnt understand. Half way through I felt like a fake, I didnt have anyone leave me. Why was I crying about being alone? I didnt know why I was so upset, I thought maybe I was bringing this on, that none of it was real. It felt real though; I felt God. And now it feels like I was crying for what I had no idea was going to happen. I just kept on and on, "dont ever leave, dont ever leave me."

Looking back on it now, maybe he never has.

I see God in a lot of petty things; on most days I dont need convincing that he exist. What I wonder is if he cares, what I wonder is if hes active. Ive known the answers all along I just didnt want to accept them, I didnt want to accept that there is no single person to blame for all of this. I really wanted God to storm down from the clouds and stop these things that hurt; and he never does; and he never will. I do struggle with that, and I will, but I really want be with him again. Im ready to bury the image I had of God; Im ready to start over.