My Love/Hate Relationship with G-d

I've always had this intense relationship with G‑d. I prayed all the time growing up. And I don't just mean the on-my-knees "As I lay me down to sleep…" kind of prayer I was taught as a Catholic child, or the structured three-times-a-day prayer of the Orthodox Jew. I prayed about everything. I asked for things. I talked to G‑d about my thoughts, my hopes and dreams. I trusted in G‑d in a way that I didn't trust in anyone else. G‑d was the ultimate "imaginary" friend. I had this "one-sided" relationship that felt like it was going both ways because I could see all the little miracles that G‑d enacted in my life every day. My little sisters were miracles. My new Barbie doll was a miracle. My absentee father calling me from far, far away was a miracle.

I couldn't understand why I had been spared and my sisters hadn't But my relationship with G‑d became fractured when I ran away from home at seventeen. G‑d had performed the ultimate miracle. He had helped me escape from my mother's abuse. G‑d had finally come through, had finally saved me. But my sisters were still being held captive by my mother's mental illness. So my mental health deteriorated. I had nightmares about my mother every night. My physical health declined. I couldn't hold down food. When I continued to pray to G‑d, to beg on my hands and knees, it wasn't the kind of relationship we had before. I was more reticent. My survivor's guilt clouded my feelings towards G‑d. I couldn't understand why I had been spared and my sisters hadn't.

My relationship with G‑d became even more turbulent when my sisters finally ran away from home. Again, G‑d had performed a great miracle. Two of my sisters had escaped with my help. But the seven-year-old was trapped. There seemed no way to rescue her or us from the nightmare we had feared most, that one of us would have to stay behind, that we would be separated from each other again. I couldn't see the miracle of the pro-bono lawyers who helped me fight the war I waged in court against my mother to win custody of my fourteen-year-old sister. Instead, I was flooded with rage. I was angry that I had to fight a three-year custody battle. I was twenty-one and angry that none of "the adults" in my family wanted to help me. I was angry that I had to grow up too fast. When I looked for my childhood, I couldn't find it. And I wouldn't even ask G‑d why He had put me on this journey. Instead, I turned away.

My early twenties were a period of time when I "acted out" against the only parent I had ever truly known: G‑d. I tried to self-destruct through troubled love affairs, through money mismanagement, through unabashed hate. I wanted to carve the pain I felt out of my chest. I thought I would explode, or implode, from the terrible fits of anger that overcame me. I punched the walls. I screamed. I yelled. I took my rage out on others when I was done with taking it out on myself. I was certain that I finally hated my parents, that their neglect and their abuse made it obvious they hated me. And in that "they," I included G‑d, too. When I prayed, I spat out these words with venom: "I hate you, G‑d. I hate you. And I will never forgive you."

I regained the connection that I was sure had been irreparable But then things started to fall into place. I won custody of my sister. I found a steady job that turned into a glorious teaching career. I believed in G‑d again. It was easier to believe in G‑d when things were going great. I could see the master plan. I could finally see G‑d more clearly in the good things, and in the bad that had crossed my path. I bounced around wearing "G‑d" spectacles, and I could spot G‑d everywhere. I prayed the way I had prayed as a child through my teens. I regained the connection that I was sure had been irreparably singed through my early twenties. Renewed spiritually by my fervor, I decided to convert to Judaism.

And then my health failed again. My body exploded in pain. All the pain that I had felt throughout my childhood manifested itself in my bones, in my muscles, under my skin. But doctor after doctor prodded and probed, until I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. It was chronic; it was a life sentence, and it was incurable. Physically, I had trouble holding a prayer book in my hands and spiritually, I couldn't find the will to pray anymore.

By the time I finally converted, I thought that it was G‑d's cruel joke that I couldn't sit through a prayer service without feeling bone-crushing pain. Intermittingly, I picked up a prayer book, but I said the words listlessly. During the happy moments that would break through my depression, I would murmur my gratitude. But I felt like I was doing it with my back turned to G‑d. I wasn't angry at G‑d. I was sad, almost terminally so.

I was sure that G‑d had given up on me, sure that I was being overlooked. The space between us seemed infinite and never-ending. I didn't know how to close it. The fire that had consumed our earlier relationship had blown out to tiny embers. What would happen to us if it never came back? Would I ever feel His invisible arms wrap around me on a windy day? Would I ever feel His breath on my face in the rays of sunlight on a clear day? Where are you, G‑d? I wondered. Which one of us is lost? And how do I find my way?

When a friend, the mother of two young children, told me, "I wish I had time to pray," I nodded in agreement.

"I don't even have time to go to the bathroom by myself," she continued.

"That's awful," I said, knowing deep down that I had all the time in the world to pray.

"I don't remember how to pray," she added finally.

"Neither do I," I replied. "Neither do I."

I know that G‑d is waiting for me Slowly, I began to rip my life back out of the clutches of fibromyalgia. I went to psychologists and psychiatrists. I tried "happy pills" that didn't make me happy. I went to the gym to soothe the physical pain. And I began to write again. It took a long time to see how this was another of G‑d's miracles. I had never had time to write when I was healthy and suddenly, illness had given me all the time in the world. I still imagined myself unable to look G‑d in the face. I didn't trust Him anymore. I didn't understand His miracles and His mind games. But something stirred every time I discovered and rediscovered Psalm twenty-seven.

"G‑d is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?" I started tentatively. "One thing I asked of G‑d, this shall I seek, that I may dwell in the House of Hashem all the days of my life, to behold its sweetness and to contemplate in His sanctuary."

And I realized that to me, Judaism had always been a fulfillment of this yearning.

"When my father and mother abandon me, G‑d will gather me up," I said with a shaky voice.

And I knew that for better or worse it was because of my father and mother that I had always felt closer to G‑d.

"Hope to G‑d; strengthen yourself and he will give you courage, and hope to G‑d." I finished the prayer and every time, I wanted to cry. And I knew that I was no longer numb. I could feel G‑d's presence again.

Now I find myself walking towards the bookcase where all my prayer books sit. Some are new and unopened. I trail my fingers over them. So many choices. Transliterated, English, Hebrew. Tall hard covers and light paperbacks. Sometimes, I choose a light paperback and tug it off the shelf. I sit in front of my ingenious book holder and plop the prayer book over the latest copy of Entertainment Weekly. And as I sit and wait, I know I'm supposed to crack the prayer book open. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. I still can't manage to pray with any kind of regularity. It still hurts, mentally and physically. But I know that G‑d is waiting for me. I know now that He loves me. I know that He understands everything- even when I don't. And I know that I am working my way back to Him, working my way back home.