Religious Battle

Once again, I was awoken early by the heat filtering into my house, only rather than beginning to prepare for another day, I lay in bed and think about what had happened the night before. Writing in my notebook reminded me of the prayers that I used to write to God before The Incident, when I still had room in my head for anything else. I used to be really into Christianity, but after The Incident, well, everything changed. It wasn’t that I stopped believing, no, that wasn’t it at all, but I couldn’t deal with going to youth group or the services on Sunday mornings. I became afraid of large groups of people who didn’t know about what had happened, afraid that people wouldn’t understand, that the people who I used to think of as friends would notice the change in me. As I stopped attending church functions, I kind of let my faith slip away from me.
I missed talking to God, though. God was the only person who I could tell everything to. Even Marissa and Dana didn’t know as much about me as God did. Well, I know that God knows everything about everyone, but what I mean is, I told God more than I had even told Dana and Marissa. When I was still in elementary school and people would ask me who my best friend was, I was actually known to say Jesus on most occasions. I missed those days.
I guess I was angry at God, too. I mean, after all, He hadn’t done anything to stop what had happened to me. He had watched every horrifying moment of The Incident occur, sat by and watched as I screamed and tears poured down my face. I had to remember what I had been taught when I still went to Church, though. God gave us free will, that’s why bad things happen. God doesn’t do the bad things to us. I was still angry, though, no matter how many times I tried to tell myself what I knew was the truth.
My Bible still sat on the little bookshelf next to my bed, but I hadn’t touched it since a few months after The Incident. I hadn’t meant to stop caring about my religion, but it just sort of happened. Most people wouldn’t have been shocked about my sudden religious change after The Incident, but I was. God and Jesus used to be such a major part of my life. I missed those times, though, and I really wanted to go back.
That desire to have the happiness that I had before The Incident is what drove me to rolling over on my bed, and pulling my Bible off the shelf. I blew the dust from the cover, and allowed the book to fall open to a random page. My eyes fell upon a verse that I had underlined at one point in my younger, more innocent, days.
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding,” Proverbs 3:5
I laughed quietly to myself. Yeah, right, I thought, trust. I barely trust my own family members now. But then, as I began to think deeper into what the verse really meant, I thought that maybe God was trying to send me a message. I didn’t really want to listen, though. I mean, I had been begging to know the reason why all that I’ve dealt with has happened to me just hours ago, but that doesn’t mean that this was my answer. No. I didn’t like this answer any more than I liked what had happened to me. It was like the insult after the injury.
Despite my anger at that moment, though, I was driven to pray the first prayer that I had prayed since around the time of The Incident. It was a short prayer, fueled by anger and stubbornness, but a prayer nonetheless.
Not today, Lord, not today