Just a stranger on the bus

Well, our trusty old iBook just stopped working while I was working on my thesis presentation on it. I don't exactly remember when I last saved the document or even if I will be able to get the computer started again, so I am not feeling too positive.

However, on the whole, it has been a good day. On "good days" I don't think about my faith too much. I just enjoy my kids and the outdoors and make connections with my friends and feel love for and loved by my husband. Good days do not seem to have correlations with my spirituality or Christianity. They are just kind of zen and peaceful.

I watched the beginning of Hitch last night because my parents and in-laws had recommended it and it happened to be on TV, and there was this line about how we should not try to see how long we can live but how many unforgettable moments we can have. Something like that--basically that the quantity of moments should matter much less than the quality, which I think I agree with.

Unfortunately, I keep thinking cynical thoughts about what happened at church yesterday. This is the basic outline of my negative thought: The only reason that the intern from the visiting church called me and Ray to stand up and have a word was because he happened to know our names. He probably only knew the names of about eight people at church (maybe a few more), and nobody else besides our friends, Leticia and her husband, knew that he knew us at all. Of course he picked us out of the masses. First of all, we had some sort of rapport already and even a mutual respect or understanding. Secondly, it must have looked that much more incredible and supernatural to the rest of the congregation when he called our names, almost as if God had just given him those names out of the blue, as though he wasn't even sure there were two people with our names at the church. You could hear a general sound of awe coming from the congregation when he called us, and that is probably why.

The other part that bothers me is that the verse and passage he prophesied over us was not really positive. In fact, besides the fact that he compared us to God's chosen people, Israel (a concept I have struggled with, as it is--that God has one "chosen" people), whom had been blessed profoundly, there was nothing very encouraging about the passage. It is about how we have rejected God and given up our faith. I wonder if the intern even knows that. Supposedly, the whole point of "words" is to reveal really positive good stuff, the "gold" within people. I cannot see how that passage calls out the gold in us. When we went up to have the guy pray for us, I expressed the fact that I wasn't really sure if I believed in God anymore, and then when he prayed, he didn't really have much to say. I wonder if it is because he realized this whole situation.

So that's my purging of negativity towards God for today. I wonder if he sent Jesus to say "I love you" to me (to REALLY prove he exists) if I would even believe it was Jesus or if he really truly actually meant that he loved me. Even if I did believe, I would probably just feel guilty that Jesus had to come waste his time to talk to me just because I am such a doubting Thomas. This sucks.