Tales of a Secret Rockstar

This week has probably been one of the lowest points in my distinguished four year stint at Bible College. There are many factors. The main factors I choose not to discuss, even in this relatively personal environment. These main factors were simply catalysts anyhow.

I'm being faced with this simple reality: I am angry. I feel like after 20 years of passive-aggressiveness I'm coming to this boiling point. It's kind of scary. All this anger is coming to the surface. I don't know what to do with it.

Here's my first clue that there was a problem. Every time I thought about some frustrating thing from my church upbringing, even something really mild, my next immediate thoughts involved hitting things with a baseball bat. Mainly the front doors at CLA. I'm not much of a subconscious theorizer, but I think that might mean something.

I think maybe God brought me to this point on purpose. It's like he and I both want to go so much deeper, but, in the immortal words of Hansel, "First me and him need to straighten some shit out." I have issues with God. I'm not convinced he really likes me. I think he loves me because he has to. That's why I was always supposed to love non-Christians. "Love them because God loves them." I suppose that's biblical, but something always seemed amiss. For me, there was no joy in loving non-Christians. My friends were easy enough to love. But they weren't the bad street people that I was supposed to love. They were normal. I don't think I was able to accept that my non-Christian friends were normal, coherent people. I always assumed that they were, on some fundamental level, unable to be happy. Unable to experience joy or love or grace in any form. But really, I think that image is closer to who I was than to who they were. I was depressed. And I knew one thing for certain: if the life I was living was what Christianity was all about, I wouldn't wish it on my enemies, let alone my friends. So I dutifully witnessed (when I could, which was like, once) because I knew that Christianity was right. Morally and logically correct. All this to say, this seems like the reason that God would love me. Because loving me is logically and morally correct. Because it is against God's character not to love me. (Just in case anyone was wondering, I'm being brutally honest here).
But to love me because he wants to?
I can't grasp that. I feel like Martin Luther in his monking years. I just don't get it.
Thus, because I see things this way, I find myself not liking God. I feel like he wants me to bleed or something. I've found myself this week just wondering what the hell he wants from me. Why he let me go through so much in his own freaking church. This whole aspect is really vague. But those are the thoughts I've gathered.

Thus, God and I seem to be at an impasse. Not really an impasse at all, actually. I have walls, he wants them to come down, so he brings me to this place where I have nothing. Nothing at all. I can't even pretend to be happy. I'm not. I just want to swear all day and take up smoking just so I can get caught and draw attention to how screwed up I feel. I've heard every answer the church can give to the whole God's love issue, and I still feel like crap. I think the church's view of the world is seriously skewed. But that's another story.

There's this image I got of God recently. I was thinking about this girl friend of mine, and how messed up her dad is. He is probably one of the most vindictive people I have ever heard of. So I was thinking about God, and how he is her father, and this is the picture that kind of lodged itself in my memory.
Imagine a father whose child is in bed, asleep. I think God would go into that child's room, sit down on the bed, and tuck her in. Then, he would pray for her, stroke her hair, and whisper to her just how much he loves her. Then, I think he would sing over her. Lullabies.
That's the kind of God I want to know.