You know the fear of uncertainty when you’re released from any and every academic obligation (a degree being the bare minimum to please your hardworking parents), and you’re thrown into the working world until you have sufficient money to retire. By then, you’re probably 80 years old given the current food and in general, world crisis. The fear of securing a job in a foreign country is possibly the most anxiety-inducing, can’t sleep for a few nights a week, binging on 5 bowls of cereal at 3 a.m. kind of way.

It’s amazing how much more broken God can make you. You’re the unwanted, forgotten mug collecting dust in the corner of a vintage store. You’re dropped on your last legs because no one in the world, at least those who didn’t have addictive personalities or at the very least impulsive purchasing tendencies, would want to buy an old and bruised mug. And say you’re on your way out for a smoke break (for those who cope with stress by ingesting nicotine) or a quick breather from that debilitating 9-5 office job, here is a sledgehammer waiting to knock you down on your way out. The hardest part when you’re being broken down, even more, is that it becomes increasingly difficult to reconcile with the belief you had in your grateful moments with God, the thundering and fulfilling love you felt when you’re worshipping when you don’t expect any worse to come at least for a while. You had a plan with God, you thought you knew exactly what He wanted to do with you in the next few months at least. And that plan breaks down. It tears you apart until you have nothing to look forward to, no plans, no agendas, nothing to show for. There are no words, there’s nothing left. There is nothing left to express because all there is, is dust left from broken clay.

God isn’t here visibly to tell you why He’s allowed what has happened to happen. You feel disillusioned. Disillusioned by the fact that you thought God was your dearest Father, your closest friend. At that moment you see Him as a liar, a deceiver, the guy who manipulated you into loving him for him to tell you weeks, months later after trying that he doesn’t feel ‘happy nor fulfilled’ with you.  Then history repeats itself and all the thoughts you felt as a depressed and lonely teenager, come rushing back as you return from what was supposed to be an endorphin-inducing workout. ‘What value do you bring to the world? I mean, your mom and pop will probably be sad for a while when you die, but they won’t be sad forever. You bring no value to the world, no company in London would hire someone like you. God would never ask someone like you to do law, you’re not competent nor smart enough to do it. You don’t have it in you. You are nothing.’

My mother told me when I was 5, I had a dream about God. I was the bride, and I was, by obvious deduction wearing a white dress and walking down the aisle with a heart-shaped diamond on my waist. I couldn’t see Jesus’ face, but I saw his bright and white silhouette at the end of the room. That was it. That was the dream. If I recalled this dream at the age of 15, I’d laugh and make a mockery of it. I’d say, ‘Screw you’ to God and shove it to the man up there, continuing to rot in my bedroom smelling of greasy takeout food with the 1975’s ‘If I Believe You’ playing as my head lays upside down for as long as I can (I had read somewhere it may cause death). You’ve taken the appropriate steps to ruin your health in every possible way, to die a slow and painful death because your mother thinks you’re not the daughter she raised. The daughter who served in church faithfully, was active in Sunday school, and even put on that god-awful eye makeup for a Christmas performance at a rundown mall to share the gospel with non-believers.

I’ve never seen God face to face before, but I’ve felt His presence throughout my life. In the best and worst of times, I knew why the awful phases in my life needed to happen. They were all lessons learnt. People, were lessons learnt. Those who played an active role in your life to become a passing memory, happen for a reason. I can imagine with just one look on His face, my surroundings would subsume to His magnificent being. You don’t have to see Him to know He is there. You breathe air and you don’t think any further of it. Yet, here I am, wondering why the air I breathe is forsaking me and abandoning me.