(This was supposed to post several days ago but I’ve been on a mini-vacation (a wonderfully refreshing mini-vacation) made possible by an insurance payout from my late father-in-law.)

My job is deteriorating at an alarming pace.  Some truly bizarre plans and programs are being instituted at higher levels which can’t possibly bode well for a peon like me.  My particular store is apparently on very shaky ground despite decent sales numbers overall.  It’s certain key stats, however, that aren’t good enough.  Yes, that’s right, it’s the annual store is going to close scare.

This is the seventh or eighth time in the last ten years that this hoary old chestnut has been reused.

As usual, I’ll believe it when I see it.  I spent 17 years trying to convince myself you have to believe it first then you get to see it.  That’s what faith is, the evidence of things unseen.  You have to believe god’s promise first, believe you have already received the answer before there is an answer.  Then it will come to pass because god’s promises never fail.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen.  Got that?  Faith is substance and evidence of the invisible.  Word of faith bible teaching at its best.

If you refuse to believe something until you see the evidence of it, well, that’s not faith.  It’s just an observation.  But if you believe it just because god (or one of his minions) said so, then you have great faith.  If you believe without any evidence at all you can work miracles.  Just ask Jesus.

Except that it doesn’t work.

Even the people who teach this stuff know it doesn’t work.  Baptists and other mainstream denominations know it doesn’t work so they try to alter the meaning of the verses or add all sorts of conditions.  Pentecostal types tend to declare the verses in question are absolutely true but almost without exception the people are full of sin and prevent them from working.

God’s humble followers always have an excuse why god never does what he says he does.

The believer is always at fault or god has some mysterious purpose why they must suffer.  But there is always an excuse.  We always want the answer right now but it isn’t always god’s time, he operates on a different level at a different pace.  But rest assured that all the shit in your life is happening for a reason, a real good godly reason.

I tried to convince myself of that when I got sued, I tried to persuade myself when my wages were garnished, I knew god had a plan when he let my wife drive our new car into the side of a building, I tried real hard to believe all those times and more.  But guess what, I still can’t fathom any plan in any of those events even thirty years later.  None of them made me a better person or a better christian.  I didn’t learn any valuable life lesson.  I gained no understanding, I didn’t become wiser.  And my faith most certainly did not grow stronger.

So what divine purpose could there possibly have been?

Faith was my life despite all those failures, which shows how far gone I actually was back then.  My faith convinced me that I could beat my ridiculously high blood pressure without medication.  Surely god would honor my faith in his healing power instead of the chemicals of men.  I most certainly had more faith than a mustard seed.

God was busy elsewhere the morning the morning of my stroke.  My blood pressure was so far gone I should have been dead.  I had no symptoms, I felt absolutely normal, there was no warning.  I was full of faith, praising god.  I was completely convinced I was right.  But my heart couldn’t pump blood to this small part of my brain.  The  oxygen it carried couldn’t reach the brain cells that were dying by the millions.  And suddenly, I lost control of the right side of my body.  Some fundamental component of who I was died as the brain tissue died.

My old life was over.  There was a new man in his place.  This new man had no faith and didn’t care.  But that didn’t matter.  This new man was a better man than the old man.  He wasn’t deluded.

In August I will have been living with this for twelve years.  Twelve years of pain daily, continually.  Twelve years of being unable to concentrate long enough to read a book by an author I love.   Twelve years of not caring.  Twelve years of altered perceptions.  Twelve years of being unable to remember large chunks of my life.

But it’s also been twelve years of not trying to make all this crap fit into my belief structure.  That’s the big BIG difference.  In many ways life is much simpler than it used to be.  Back when I believed god was in control and he had a plan for my life, I had to work very hard to make all the random disasters that kept befalling me fit into that plan.  Which is very very difficult (if you think about it) because god never seems very willing to let you in on just what that plan actually is.  A wrecked car here, a financial disaster there, a horrible illness on the one hand, an untimely death on the other.  All of them have to fit some ill-defined plan that you’re only guessing about in the first place.  It’s a stress producer.

I always used to wonder why so many church people needed to be refreshed from daily life every Sunday.  How could they get so burdened down every week?  Why did they have to show up for mid-week service so they could get through to Friday?  At least for me what was happening was the exact opposite.  All the praise and worship and sermons and teaching were in reality just loading me down with more sin and guilt and more worry that secular life was going to corrupt me even more during the week.  So I rushed back to every service to get the strength I needed to cope with life.  But what I was really getting was reinforcement of what a wretched sinner I was and how desperately I had to cling to god.  And to church.

I’ll admit that “shit happens” isn’t always a very satisfying way to think but it is worlds above “I wonder what god’s plan (purpose) for this disaster was?”  It doesn’t require any great anguish or soul searching. No mental gymnastics required.  No trying to figure out a plan that doesn’t exist except in your own imagination.

Shit happens.  I’m screwed.  Let’s get on with it.

Simple.

I like it that way.