It's 2:38 am. God.

It's 2:38 am on Sunday, September 12, in San Agustin, Ecuador.


I sit in my bed, back errect, covered in blankets, and wearing my brown wool beanie.

I cannot sleep. My back hurts so very bad. I lay in bed playing Sudoku on my cell phone, tears streaming back down both cheeks to my ears.

And I finally get out of bed into the cold bedroom. My feet danced quickly as I ran to grab my iPod without losing too much body heat. I take a second pain pill and then another pill to help me sleep. I am too overtired from too many sleepless nights to go without a sleep aid again. When I do not sleep enough, my fibermyalgia flares up in my joints big time.

I am back in bed, now with music. The first song is lively, delicious Salsa. I choose to skip it; I need something tranquil to induce sleep.

And the next song is acoustic. Delicate.
"You are so beautiful."

This love song to God meant much more to me today than it would have two weeks ago. These things, the beauty of God, the enormity of God, the complexity of God, these have been circulating in my mind. Not because I want to be "holy," nor that I am deliberately meditating on these concepts. I simply want to know.

I want to know why it is that God is eternal. Why He is beautiful. Why He cares.

But I want to know how I know these things, and not "because the Bible tells me so."

More fundamentally, my question is: Do I know these things?


I am beyond tired of Christian-ese, the jargon, the repetition. I know the songs, in both English and Spanish. They kindly repeat Bible verses, which has greatly aided me as I am rather dreadful in memorization. I know the words, the phrases. But what do they mean?

My mom came to visit me in May. We had an amazing time running around the coast of Ecuador and visiting an Andean village. I loved speaking with her. This time is so precious to me and we have a much deeper relationship now.

But something else happened. I would tell mom about an issue I was having. About faith, or feeling lonely, or some other facet of life normal for any person to have difficulty with. Not to mention living with no friends from home for six months!

And Mom's answers were the lovely, trite memorized responses.

The words she said are in the Bible. It's like when we Christians face any situation we whip out a band-aid: A Bible verse or a quote from our pastor.

But what if I don't know what she said? What if I have heard the phrases so often, what if I have simply repeated these phrases as my own salve to soothe my human wounds... But without actually treating the root problem?

I have treated my anxiety with words for too long. "For I have not given you a spirit of fear...' Yet my anxiety returns three minutes later, or never leaves me for a moment.
Repetition of these words has been ineffectual.

After a few attempts of beginning to share my heart with Mom, I realized I only spoke two or three sentences after she paused me and gave me the "solution." I eventually broke down in tears. I needed my Mom, a friend, a hug, empathy. Someone to listen. And I received yet
another Bible verse, or "truth" of God.

But where is the reality of her words??? It all seemed so shallow.

What must I do to encounter God?

I must know the answer already. I have attended too many church services, gone on too many mission trips... I even produced a DVD on Christianity ( www.projectdigno.org )
I know the answer is inside of me. Not in a humanistic way, but in that I have experienced Him before, and our relationship "worked."

I do not expect to conceptualize God. To fully experience any of His attributes.

(Right now my iPod plays "Change me on the inside... There's only one way I can finally break free.")

And this has been my prayer - that I be changed from the inside. Recently my journal has been full of this desire. HOW can I know about God? Man cannot tell me. I must experience Him.

There is no other way. Because, frankly, I don't believe what a man tells me about God. How
would man ever know when he can only recount his experience.

We humans have given God so many names, categories, descriptions, and analogies. I loved one portion of the book "Mister God This is Anna." Anna said that Holy, Perfect, Just, and Beautiful are not descriptions of God.

Rather, it is exactly the opposite. Man's words can never describe God. We lack any capacity to ever comprehend Him, much less describe Him. Our words will never be sufficient to describe His magnitude, His fullness.

And so, God describes Holy. God describes Perfect. God describes Just and Beautiful. We can never know what Perfect or Holy mean without knowing God. He is the point of reference.

I want to know God.

I am reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Chan. My mentor Doug Comstock gave it to me when we shared breakfast just before I left the States. He knew I am going through a change in how I approach God. The jargon, the packaged view of God... I cannot accept this.

And now I slowly read the pages about God's attributes. My short letter now returns to its start: The book speaks of God's attributes. About how He knows everything, how He is completely powerful, how He is eternal. I don't know how to process these.

(I pause to read just in my bed. My back is still killing me.)

And so as I remind the staff members at San Agustin how to say "Good morning!" or "Thank you!", my mind continues to consider these thoughts. I am so glad that they gnaw at me. So glad that my being is driven to find some sort of change for the better.

Right now my life is simple. I have absolutely no commitments. None. Good grief - I am at a five-star hacienda, eating amazing food, breathing pure air, far from human's noise, and in the sunshine. And yet I am still anxious, still breathing shallow, and my mind is still racing. I am not at peace.

It could be a side effect of a medication. And yes, I absolutely need to take this specific medication.
One CouchSurfer talked with me about how our whole selves need to be cared for... And that perhaps because I was / am not having sex my person is unable to be in stasis. Interesting thought.

Other than these, I can think of absolutely no other reason my body is in such a poor state other than my spirit's unrest.

"For I have not given you a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and of a sound mind."
God, make this my reality.

(My iPod plays "Jesus, I will hold nothing back from You.")

It is 3:22.

God, make You my reality.