On The Bathroom Floor

Some raw words from a now-deceased woman that just might give you permission today to be honest about whatever you're going through and trust God can meet you there... even on the bathroom floor: 

"I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe He'll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn't grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me. 

I am God's downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat and let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself. 

I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset. 

Call me bitter if you want to - that's fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: 'I'm sad too.'

If an explanation would help, He would write me one - I know it. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between us - and I don't want to argue with God. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms. 

I remind myself that I'm praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn't pray. For forty years, their shoes didn't wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven. 

I look hard for answers to the prayers that I didn't pray. I look for mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means 'what is it?'

That's the question I'm asking - again and again. There's mercy here somewhere - but what is it? What is it? What is it?

I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my mother's crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. It's not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. It's a prayer I don't mean yet, but will repeat until I do... 

I know it sounds crazy, and I can't really explain it, but God is in there - even now. I have heard it said that some people can't see God because they won't look low enough, and it's true. 

If you can't see Him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor." 

                                                      - Jane Kristin "Nightbirde" Marczweski