2005-11-08
Jesus isn't a Monster
I have this friend, Emily. She's much, much younger than I am and she totally reminds me of myself about 10 years ago.
She's Eastern European, just like me, and she recently went to Indiana to visit her Bousha.
She spent a lot of time talking to Bousha about her life out here and Bousha identified me as the girl with the sexy walk. She told Emily that I had an exciting life and that I needed to forgive one of the people in my book.
I needed to find what kept me there - keeps me there - on some days.
I don't know what kept me so in love with Jesus. I have never looked at another man with the same level of adoration and trust and I don't think that I ever will. Part of that is growing up, part of it is the fact that between me, John, and Jesus, my trust got shredded and it hasn't been taped back together yet.
But Bousha said I needed to be nicer and she's right. There's something in me that will adore Him forever and always. Had I not come here, I would have stayed with Him - we all know that.
But why?
After all the fighting and the crying and the stories about Jesus sucking the life out of me, why would I stay there with Him?
He loved me unconditionally. It's why the metaphor works. He loved me without asking me a bunch of pitying questions. He hated some of the things about me and broke up with me often, to prove His distrust of all things Jewish and/or Democrat but honestly....
He knew better and I could have trusted that I did, too.
I could have had faith that His love for me was pure and real. Deep down in my soul, I knew it was true but I was so young and so starved that I did not trust that.
Just enough things happened on the balance sheet to tip the scale from Function, into Dysfunction.
But oh my god, I loved Him and I had reason to.
My mom told me that once, my step dad asked her if I'd ever been in love and she was right to respond, "I know she was in love with Jesus." This was years after we had broken up and it's true. Since I left, I have not been in love like I was with Him.
But why were you in love with someone whom you purport to be the holy face of evil?
He was my partner. He would lay His hand on a dinner table and I knew how good it felt to lay mine on top of it and feel Him squeeze it comfortingly.
He would think I was asleep and He would sit up in bed and lean over me and move my hair so gently - more gently than I've ever felt someone touch me - and then He'd lean over and kiss my forehead.
He would call me and leave excited messages for me from wherever it was that He was traveling. He wanted me to see what He was seeing and to be as excited by it as He was.
He lit up like nobody has ever lit up when I walked into a room.
He was the first man that I ever loved, I guess. I had crushes, I'd one very short-lived but actual boyfriend but I'd never been in a major relationship with anyone before Jesus. I knew nothing about sex, nothing about communication, nothing about spending long, boring hours with another person; not sharing make-up tips and fashion ideas.
He was my first love and I guess that's a lot of why I stayed, that's why I get nostalgic and miss the shit out of Him, and that's why had I not left, I would still be there with Him.
He was kind to me on at least twice as many occasions as He was cruel.
For all those time, for all those hands being held, for all of everything, that I couldn't name before Him but now know.... I stayed. There were some heavy family things that He saw, that nobody else had ever been allowd to see.
You'll never, ever be able to understand how much we loved each other; I'll not understand how there wasn't room for me to come home and how this all fits together but Jesus?
He was no more of a monster than the others who are in their early thirties and who can't decide between what's easy but predictable and what's weird and unlimited. He was bound by fear in so many ways but when I was there, with Him, I never ever felt safer as a grown-up.
So yeah, I might be workin' it out with Jesus for awhile but I just wanted to say, you know, that He wasn't a monster, or a freak, or anything. He was just� someone that I loved more than I thought I could love.
And I was the same thing for Him.
We scared the crap out of each other but yeah� of course I wonder.
Who wouldn't?
arizonasarah at 3:57 p.m.