I Took God's Name Out of My Mouth

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that I was using it correctly. I imagined Isaiah with the burning coal that cleansed his lips and I swallowed and, in swallowing, scorched my insides. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure He wanted to be called. I imagined Deborah and thousands of other women who walked with him in confidence. 

I took God's name out of my mouth because I wasn't sure that there was anything I could say that would help. And I imagined Job's friends whose best advice was their silent patience before they said anything at all. 

My prayer day and night has been that God would be patient with my questions, my doubt, my pain. My promise has been that I would not leave unless he sent me away. I know plenty of people and churches who would have sent me away.  But I remembered Ruth and Hagar whom God kept. So I listened to my questions but did not look for answers yet. And I listened to the doubt, the pain, the fear. I did not send them away. I let my bones rattle and I did not ask them to stop.

All this time, he has not sent me away. Hope has been rising and I have been learning a new way of being with God. I am making peace with my questions even when they don't have answers. And I am learning to live in this body, in this time with a God who blesses me even when I do not speak his name. There's a new intimacy even as I haven't found all of the words yet.