I Am A Shit Ton More Honest Than The Next Person

If I’m being honest, really truly honest, then I’m pissed off and angry. The kind of angry where I read something on facebook that goes something like, “Consider your allegiances and God will change you!” and it’s some note about some guy who I’m sure is a lovely person writing about how he’s had an amazing transformative weekend because he’s chosen to seek God in ALL areas of his life, and it’s come about because he had an epiphany about (simplifying here, but because) he learned to pray for other people and God changed his life.

And I’m like…really? Honestly and truly? What are you, 22? (He might very well be, I don’t even know him directly, an acquaintance of mine was commenting on his link and it showed up in my new facebook profile, blah blah blah.)

WELCOME TO THE CHRISTIAN LIFE, IDIOT! YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO PRAY FOR OTHER PEOPLE, JACKASS!

Please, come talk to me after you’ve spent decades spending most of your prayer life praying for other people and noting how God moves speedily in answering your prayers for other people, but at a glacial pace in working in your own life. Come talk to me when you’ve spent decades talking to a God who rarely talks back to you, after you’ve spent decades listening for a single word from Him, only to be met with a thundering silence 99.9 percent of the time.

Come talk to me when your prayer life goes like this, “Fuck you, God, and Your plan for my life. Your plan sucks. I violently disagree with it. Go blow.”

Oh, I’m sorry. Was that too disrespectful? Too upsetting for your Virgin Christian ears? Was your first response, “Well of COURSE God’s not gonna answer you if that’s how you talk to Him.”

Oh, little one. Oh, dear dear dear hypothetical little one.

I don’t mean to burst anyone’s Happy Chipper Christian Bubble, but the dirty little secret of the Christian life is that YOU CAN TALK TO GOD HOWEVER YOU WANT TO, AND IT’S NOT GOING TO AFFECT HOW HE DEALS WITH YOU.

I have spent years being obedient and respectful. I have spent years being filthy and disrespectful. Guess what? I can be however I want to be in front of God my Savior, and He’s going to treat me exactly the same way. Because what He wants from me AND YOU more than anything else is to being fucking HONEST with Him.

If you can’t be fucking honest with God, who the FUCK do you think you’ll be honest with?

How I act does not change how God acts toward me. Wrap your Newbie Christian brain around that one.

Here, I’ll save you a trip. God loves you no matter what you say to him, and it’s only after you realize His massive massive love for you that you will be so consumed with guilt with your irreverence and disrespectfulness towards Him that you will immediately repent of your disrespectful ways, beg for forgiveness, and then be a Happy Chipper Little Christian until the next time you get pissed.

I’m so bummed there’s only one of me out here that’s got the balls to say that. Ah well.

The thing is, my current anger is actually NOT because of my dad’s cancer. I know it’s oh so tempting to draw an easy parallel to that. If it was a movie, it would be that. In fact, I know a bunch of you are sitting at the computer shaking your heads, thinking, “she’s in denial.”

But life is so much more messier, and my current anger is much more self centered. Dad’s doing okay, far as I know.

And whatever I’m going through in my own Amyland Bubble certainly can’t compare with my Dad’s cancer so quickly fuck me gently with a Heathers http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097493 chainsaw and my self absorbed anger over stupid meaningless shit like a busted internet router (so I’m sitting on the floor, tethered to a wall) and silly producers who don’t understand Excel, and the petty envy over dear friends who see God moving in blatantly obvious ways in their lives and the growing inability to sleep at night, which I’m pretty sure is a psychic connection with my dad, since HE’S not sleeping well at night, either.

I love sleep. I love sleep better than living. I never had issues sleeping until Dad’s cancer. Oh, yes, armchair shrinks, draw your obvious dime-store conclusions. You suck as much as God does. He knows I don’t like Him right now. He’s actually pleased that I’m honest about it. I’m probably more honest than you in that regard, so that’s gotta be good for an upgrade to Business Class on the plane trip to heaven, whenever that shows up.

Let’s look at pictures of PUPPIES!

I tried mightily to get shots of all three dogs at the Beagle House last week, and this was the best I could do.

Smiling Bella on the left, new dog Babs in the middle, and Bonnie sleeping in an apple box on the right.

Babs is a cocker spaniel, and I grew up with cocker spaniels, so I was immediately in love.

Babs is 12 years old, and as energetic as any puppy I’ve ever seen. She’s also the smallest cocker spaniel I’ve ever seen, half the size of the cockers I grew up with, a bonsai tree version of a cocker spaniel, and I found myself staring at her tiny face that fit in the palm of my hand. She wasn’t comfortable being picked up, which made me sad, because all I wanted to do was scoop her up and snort her up my nose like cocker spaniel cocaine. But she would sit by my feet and whine when she thought I wasn’t petting her enough, so believe me, she had it great.

Bella has had her face warts taken off, but regardless, she’s still the only dog I’ve ever known that actually smiles. And I tried mightily to get photographic proof of it:

This is not a smile:

THIS is almost there:

THIS is a smile.

SEE!?!?