Exercise 87

My Relationship With God


Mom's belief and behaviors about God:


My mom is a Catholic, and she raised her children in the Catholic Church. My mom knows the routine and rituals of the Mass. We were taken to church, but my mom could never quite explain to me why she did certain things. Like why we genuflect, why we nod our heads when we hear Jesus' name, and why she would strike her side when they would ring the bells before communion. I am not quite sure what my mom "believes." I know that she stands by the Pope's decisions and thinks that he is infallible.


Dad's belief and behaviors about God:


My dad never shared his religion (Presbyterian) or beliefs. He converted to my mom's religion when I was about sixteen years old. Prior to that, I never witnessesed my father going to a church of any kind.


From the above information, are there any of either or both parents' beliefs or behaviors that you have duplicated in your life? If so, what are they?


Definitely. I call myself a Catholic, but I know I am really not a "good" Catholic from an outsider's point of view. I go through the motions of the Mass, but I don't understand why I kneel when I do, or stand when I do during church, and I can't explain it to my children either. I married a Methodist man who never went to church again after his Confirmation. Unlike my mother, I have been largely unsuccessful in the conversion.


What were the long-term effects of these beliefs or behaviors (good or bad) that you saw in your parents' lives or relationship?


I honestly don't know, because I can't tell you what they really believed except that there is a hell and that I would probably end up going there one day.


What specific plan can you make not to have these negative results in your life and relationship?


I can be genuine, be slow to judge, and be quick to forgive.


Describe your relationship with God as a child.


Good, but very much fantasy. I've said before, God was like Santa. Good kids had prayers answered and bad kids didn't. I even thought sick children were somehow being punished for their sins. There was a boy that I went to school with who died from cancer in sixth grade. I remember wondering what he could have done that was so wrong. I still feel badly for having those feelings toward him, judging him. It may seem "unchristian" of me, but I refuse to tell my children the lie that my parents told me "God is going to get you for that" when I didn't comply with their requests or when I misbehaved. From what I saw as a child, bad kids got what they wanted and rarely suffered consequences. I finally came to realize (as a young adult) that bad kids didn't suffer consequences because their parents didn't enforce any, which is why they were probably misbehaving to begin with. Not because God had turned around and missed the boat completely on what the kid in question was doing. My parents' threats were just a convenient way for them to avoid parenting us. In December, Santa was watching, the rest of the year it was God, so you were either getting a stocking full of coal or going to hell in my house. As a result, I didn't see that my falling off of a bike two days after fighting with my sister was not somehow linked to a faraway God laughing his ass off at me, saying, "I got you!" It was at times like this where my mom was usually reminding me that her prophecy was coming true, "I told you God would get you for what you did." I also recall fearing that bad things would happen to me or my family if I forgot to say my prayers at night. I prayed out of fear of what would happen if I didn't, not out of love for a savior.


Describe your relationship with God as a teenager.


It was about appearances. I went to church to appear "good" to my mom's friends and the priests. I figured if people believed what I was displaying on the outside, then so would God and I would be a good candidate for Heaven. My hard work had paid off. I was one of two delegates from our church to meet the new Archbishop of New York, John Cardinal O'Connor. My mother was thrilled. I was petrified. I knew that one false move might cause embarrassment and dishonor for our family and church. I made it through, without incident, but it was not one of my most memorable teenage moments. I basically walked up to this prominent man, surrounded by other prominent men, smiled, shook his hand, and walked away. Whoopee! Nothing but a display of teeth and handshaking that day. I remember wondering if I was holy for having touched him, and if that would get me into Heaven. It was as a teenager that I met my future husband. During that time, I was coerced into having sex. I remember as soon as he was finished thinking, "Oh, shit, I'm going to hell!" The sin of premarital sex was definitely grave, and I engaged in the behavior with full knowledge and deliberate consent. All of the criteria for mortal sin. I felt sick and trapped. I screwed up big time and there wasn't a thing I could do about it. I was doomed to be seperated from God for all eternity.


Describe your relationship with God as an adult.


I had essentially pushed God out of my life as a young adult. I had lost hope for going to Heaven so there seemed to be no point in continuing to try to serve this demanding, hostile, old man in the sky, who really never gave me what I had ever prayed for anyway. God was a nasty perfectionist who had no use for me, except to mock me with the "You're going to hell" taunt. If you have ever seen a cat "play" with it's wounded prey, you will know how I felt. I was the mouse, and God was this huge, horrible cat that would grab me in His jaws and shake any time I tried to crawl away from His punishment. I thought it best to just lie still and play dead than to initiate another round of beatings. So, I was spiritually dead, knowing I was physically alive, but too afraid to move forward for fear of what was coming next.


Describe your relationship with God as an adult prior to your recovery.


Much as described above, I was God's redheaded step-child. I felt God was a distant, unattached, disinterested party except when someone else had made Him mad that day. Then I became His personal whipping boy. I felt like God was this giant phony, a fake that preached love and forgiveness and wanted everyone to bow down at His glory, but then He had me, His creation gone horribly wrong, hidden in His closet so that nobody could see what a big liar He was, and what a grave mistake He had made by making me, that he wasn't perfect after all. I felt all of His wrath was saved up for me and my lousy little life.


Describe your relationship with God as a recovering person.


Wow, did I say all that? Looking back at what I thought and how I felt, it is hard to believe I am the same essential combination of organic material. There must have been some miraculous shift or change in brain chemistry over the past several months. As a recovering person, I realize that God is listening to my questions, He just doesn't reply right away because He gives me the time to answer them myself. He hears my prayers, but like any good Father, He doesn't always give me exactly what I want, but He does give me what I need. He hears me when I cry out to Him, but sometimes holding someone is better than rationalizing with them. I'm crazy about God now, really crazy about him. He cares about me and wants a relationship with me. It's amazing, I'm listening to several books on CD right now, one of which the author was an atheist, and the other the author no longer attends church. I am learning more about God from these books than I learned in eight years of CCD. I know, people get kind of skeptical about what is being said in these books, but I have more of an understanding of God and Jesus now than anything religious education taught me. The Brennan Manning book really helped too. All of this new information has really lit a fire under me spiritually. The more I read, the more I want to know. I trust God, love Him, praise Him, and desire His mind. I want to know what He thinks. I want to know everything about Him. I know now what they mean by a personal relationship with God. And my relationship with Him is not like anyone else's.

My Letter to God:

I think this letter has to do with the concept of God as a parent, as it follows our letters to our earthly parents.

We speak of God as a "father," yet I've never known a healthy parent and child relationship in this life. It is very difficult ot conceptualize a parent that is not critical of or apathetic toward me.

It is also hard for me to develop a clear picture of who You are based on religion. As a Catholic, I've always had the idea that you were unable to accept less than perfection, and that Catholicism was the "one, true religion," and that all others were destined for hell. I've met many people recently who do not believe this. They, rather, believe that theirs is the one true religion and that if I am not born again, then I am going to hell. Who am I to believe? And why is there this struggle over who is right and who is wrong? I feel tied up, like Gulliver in the land of the Lilliputians, struggling over whether to join forces with the big-endians or little-endians. A question for you - is faith alone enough, or must it also rely on the execution of the faith? Why can't we all be right? Why must I choose? What if I choose wrong?

I fear angering You. I fear separation from You. I want to choose none for fear of choosing wrongly.

My hope is that You are a God who is slow to anger and quick to forgive one who is repentant. I hope that this "one, true religion" thing is a lot of man's influence and insecurity and not Yours. I hope I will have the joy of meeting You one day. I hope that You are loving. I hope that You are everything I wished that my own parents would be.

I am coming into my own understanding, slowly, yet the fear still remains. I hope to one day eliminate that from my life.

Your daughter,
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