7 Days of Thankfulness – A reprise

I’m writing now in defiance. I received some deep prayer at church this evening and all kinds of ugly things surfaced. The things I said, I couldn’t even believe were falling off my lips. Memories of scowling, snarling, clawing in this irrational rage and fear at my spiritual mentor, who is precious to me: prayer warrior Jane, who hears my cringing, spluttering, shame-filled confessions time after time and reconciles me to God, with one arm holding me and the other hand free for me to squeeze…

The words ‘I bind you’ hitting my insides over and over, like a sledgehammer, wrenching cries out of me and leaving me clutching at the pew in terror…

The horrible sight of her cross pendant making me writhe as she drew close and stared intensely into my eyes with a bone-chilling, malicious smile, so that I had to push the cross away and cover it with my hand: “Get that thing away from me,” my voice cried… then my hands went for her throat… she and her assistant Debbie restrained me before I could reach it…

What had come over me? What was I thinking? How could I do that to another human being, let alone my precious Jane? How could I think that, or even feel that way, about the Cross that I so love? And yet, while I had seen and heard it all happen, I had only been observing my body and mind acting in spite of me. Nothing in me could misconstrue that sneer of perfect hatred in Jane as she glared at her soul’s enemy and commanded it to manifest itself through me, as being in any way addressed to my person. I could feel the thing thrashing in or around my belly, struggling up my torso. It was that thing which she was addressing. When we were done I felt like I’d been dragged backwards through a hedge. My knees were so weak that for a moment, I had difficulty standing up. It was a little like that wobbly, helpless feeling after a particularly violent episode of vomiting. Except that I hadn’t vomited, and I felt very, very clean.

Now I’m home. The freshmint ‘new penny’ feeling has faded and distressing intrusive images have been filling my head. So I’m writing in defiance. I’m going to be thankful to God in Christ Jesus tonight and I’m going to praise him even if it hurts.

I’m going to think of three things for which I’m going to thank God, and I’m not going to write them here. Please pray for me, whoever you are reading this. I hadn’t thought that this sort of thing happened to believers, either.

Opening my mind to God – how it feels.

When I set my mind on God, I always have a feeling that I am tapping into something vast and ancient; something far more complex than my perceptions can grasp. I can just sense it as I do it – and I feel almost a sense of vertigo as I become suddenly aware of how small I am. When I open my mind to God’s spirit, I get a sense of myself as being peripheral to the world, as being subject to God, rather than the world and God being subject to me. It’s not a thing that I decide to do; it comes automatically. Every time I really open my mind to the Holy Spirit, I see the axis on which the world functions as being outside of myself; I see God as ‘universe central’, and not myself. Since my own perception of the world is unique and is centralised within my mind, it should seem that the whole world spills out from my mind, and as such, that my mind is the origin of it. It does, when I do not let God into my mind. But when I do invite the Holy Spirit, I no longer see the world as a product of my perceptions. I see myself as being a product of the world; I see myself as an object working within it. I feel this deep-seated conviction that the world is not subject to my perception of it, but that I am subject to the perception of another — God.