Sarah Nyhan

I wish I could scream this from the mountain tops for all the world to hear.

It’s amazing the answers you can get from God when you go to Trinity for wisdom versus trying to decide which interpretation of a book written thousands of years ago to different people still applies to you.

In that, God has even been healing the Bible for me.

So many examples. But some from a theme that has been running for me a good while now.

One: I was asking God about something. He told me if prostitutes were good enough for Jesus then they’re good enough for me. As in the church folks were the ones condemning the women Jesus welcomed. So, no shame at all there. Practical concerns, sure – time for that in a different conversation. But most importantly Jesus was encouraging the prostitutes not to sin only in the sense of not allowing anyone to talk down to them. Not to trade what the judgers said about them in exchange for what Jesus says about them.

I feel so confident in this. But you’re welcome to keep looking at it differently. If that’s the measure you feel comfortable holding yourself to.

Again, in like manner with music for me. You have no idea how many decades I’ve wrestled with this. A constant battle. Until I brought it to Jesus. Then freedom. I heard, “Hasn’t this music helped you?” So, so, so, so many times. On repeat. Kept my head above water more so than even therapy. These artists. With their words that you judge. Risking being open and honest when so many others shame and condemn. Reject. Dismiss. Radio silent.

No, music saved me more than anyone. So, play. I am, I will. EnJoy this Life I’ve been given. This freedom.

That really came out of being able to say “no” to a long, long standing battle I’ve been in since December 2017. God brought me a thought kinda like, “Go, give away all your money to the poor, and follow me.” Except it was, “Take two weeks without working and write.” All this time, almost five years, I’ve been wrestling with that sentence. That proposition.

Until one of my customers recently showed me a song (again, music) called, “God Hates the Tips” by Trevor Moore. The lyrics are ridiculous. And that’s the point. It finally hit home: “I wonder if the people of old could have told God no?” Whether He really said what they thought He said might be irrelevant. But maybe, ironically, God plays Devil’s Advocate in order to get us to see the insanity of some of the things we are so married to. If we are reluctant to accept that things might actually be good and easy sometimes.

But you have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You have taken that burden on when it is way above your pay grade.

THAT was the whole point of the book of Job. I’ve heard, the oldest of those stories told in your precious Bible. That’s the question for all of us: are we going to appoint ourselves as judges and choose law? And proceed to exhaust ourselves round and round on the hamster wheel of performance to obtain “worth”? Or are we going to let God Love us – simple as that?

When you are an innocent kid, before your behavior threatens the image they want to portray to the world in order to try to obtain security through the illusion of acceptance, you just trust. You live and don’t think of these things. Who deceived you?

So I told God no. After almost five years, I told God no – I’m not going to do “crazy” things anymore to try to prove my faith, love, trust, and belief to you. And I felt like God said, “Finally!” As in, it’s about damn time. “You never have to prove anything to Me. I always have and always will Love you the same. I relish in giving you everything. As long as it is healing. And won’t contribute to some ongoing bondage in you.”

God never needed to test me. God never needed my faith or belief. I’m the one who insisted on that burden. I was trying to prove it to myself. Thinking that maybe then I’d be good enough for something. Maybe then love would come my way. Since being myself hadn’t worked so well up to that point with others. Broken in their own ways. Unable to be there for me. And I took it way more personally than was warranted. Although, understandably. As it started way before I was old enough to know any differently.

So I’m the one who insisted on performance. On tit for tat. On earning something. When God was happy to give it freely all along.

We’re the ones who decided to take the gavel and then couldn’t live up to our own standards. We run and hide in all kinds of theology.

When all along God beckons us just to simply come back Home. Where the table is set, ready to celebrate.

But we are the ones who insist on a sacrifice. On penance to be paid for not living up to the rules we decided to judge ourselves by.

So They said, “Fine, give Us all you got. All the punishment you think you need in order to be made clean.” And we did it. We hung Him up by nails on a tree. After we beat Him and made Him bleed. And God said, “Is that enough for you? Be sure. Because I don’t want you to be afraid. To live in this lie of fear.”

And at some point, after enough blood was shed, we said, “Yes, we are satisfied.”

So every time we don’t live up to the rules we decide to hold others to, God says, “Look at that Cross – if you need to. In order to not be afraid. In order to climb out of your tree and come back to Me. To sit at the table and talk some more. So eventually you will start to see and know that no matter what you could ever do, my Love for you never changes. I don’t need a sacrifice like you think you do. You’re the one who insists on rules. When all along I am scanning the horizon, anticipating the joy of welcoming you back with open arms.”

And this, this is why some people need marriage and kids. God told me that also. When I was asking Them about singleness.

The world condemns me and my relationship status. But God told me differently.

When I was talking to Them about how I had many loves in my life and didn’t want to choose one at the expense of the others. Surprised me so much yet again.

Showed me the whole angels aren’t given in marriage thing. That the point of marriage and children is to bring people to the place of where they see themselves either in the position of God or otherwise. Either way it still works.

Where you either love someone so much that you keep giving of yourself to try to heal them no matter how much it hurts. You can’t ever see yourself giving up. And then you realize one day that that’s how God feels about you.

Or on the opposite side, you keep hurting someone and they won’t ever give up on you. You don’t understand it, it doesn’t make sense. It might be easier for you to self-destruct if they’d just leave you alone. Until it dawns on you one day that that must be how God feels about you.

And then you get it. Then you finally understand that the real story has nothing to do with rules or measurements. Despite how all the broken people in your life treated you.

Some people need commitments like marriage and children to come to that point. Others don’t. Others learn it differently.

This is what this journey is about. First seeing God correctly in order to maybe more so see ourselves and in turn others correctly. So we can fully LIVE and love!

This isn’t a theocracy for the sake of. That’s blasphemy.

This is God Loving Their children and wanting us to be free. Not staring at Trinity in a constant state of prostration as if that is somehow pleasing versus a bit creepy.

Have you been outside lately? Put down your Bible, put down the books, turn off the screens. Step outside of the congregation for a bit in order to see this amazingly beautiful Creation!

Where there is endless Life abounding in diversity so immense you could probably never catalog and put it into those little boxes you’re so fond of. To do so is to lose the essence of what makes uniqueness so great.

You know this in your soul. You naturally cheer the underdog. Why? Because they don’t measure up to perfection? Or because they don’t let all the naysayers stop them? They are determined to LIVE in spite of all the hell thrown at them.

And so go I. Here. Reveling in newfound freedom to start to embrace everything Created for us. Such as the poetry set to music that moves me. And all the layers and levels of love my heart wants to explore and hold onto. The very good that is still left in this world if we’d just relax a little and let go. And know that we are fully Loved!

Everything is okay even when it isn’t. We make it too complicated.

So much more.