Are You There God? It's Me... Teedra

Today while driving into work, I realized just how disconnected from God I have become. As a daily routine, for a certain stretch of my ride, I pray for about 10-15 minutes. While engaging in the routine, I’ve been doing for 2.5 years, I stopped mid-prayer & asked God do you even hear me anymore? I realized that I’ve been reciting the same prayers so much out of habit & routine that I didn’t even feel or believe what I was saying. If I didn’t believe my own words how could I expect God to believe them & bless me?

For the last year or so I have been wrestling with the idea that maybe how things are is an indication of how the rest of my life will go & honestly, it’s been a devastating feeling. Heartbreak after heartbreak, loss after loss, pain & then more pain, stagnancy & complacency plagued my thoughts. Am I worthy of what God has planned for my life? Had I messed up that much that I had been counted out & skipped over? 

Out of my 31 years of life, about 27.5 of them I’ve spent in church. As a child it was routine & as an adult it became a desire… a want…I needed to be in Gods presence so every chance I got I was there. In all honesty, this was when I felt the closest to God. I wasn’t in my Word like I should have been & truthfully I still am not, but I was working & making myself available to do “God’s work” while neglecting the work I knew God was wanting me to do within myself allowing myself to believe my actions were enough. In doing these works for the Lord, I was being rewarded…life was swell… things were looking up. I made the decision about 3 years ago that I needed more out of my relationship with God, so I went on a journey of discovery. This journey led me to where I am now… The furthest I’ve ever been from MY source. 

Everyone’s walk isn’t going to be the same. Everyone’s God isn’t my god. Everyone’s goals & desires are not my own, but yet every chance I got I was comparing what “blessings” those around me received & lost sight of me. I lost sight of the path that had been set forth before me. So lost that, now that I’m trying to get back on track, the path to who I know God to be for me has been covered & I’m fearful that I will never be able to find it again. I desire so much to feel what I hear others describe as their “God Moment”, but I fear that God has deemed me as a lost cause. I fear that my capacity to keep my mind, heart, & spirit tuned into God is so weak that I won’t be able to fight the things that come to deter my journey back. 

I am fearful that God doesn’t hear my deepest thoughts because my mind is so cluttered with so many other things that I have allowed to take precedence over our relationship. Today was when I really saw how far I had gotten away from who/what I KNEW God to be. I can encourage & push others all day, but scared to even face myself and project those things into my own life. The mask of a believer is what I’ve been wearing, but now is the time I take it off. 

Thankfully I don’t have to go back to the starting line, but I do need to reroute back to the moment when I began to take Teedra’s path & not God’s. I need to go back to where the path was clear before the debris of life began to cloud which direction I should have been going. I have to get back to a place where I am comfortable & not ashamed of the faults & flaws that have always invaded my thoughts & led me to believe that I wasn’t enough. The thoughts that had me believing that I needed to make my own way. The thoughts that had & still have me believing that God doesn’t hear me. 

I used to use church as a crutch when it came to believing. I would always say, “I believe in God. I go to church every Sunday” not realizing that I was the church… not realizing that my life, my relationship, my journey/walk is what gave me the courage to be… the faith to see… & the heart to be open to the notion that God has in fact not forgotten about me, but instead was waiting on me to get back to the basics when all I had was Him to depend on. 

In so many ways, God has been standing at the door of my heart waiting to be let back in & I have been standing at the door of our relationship waiting to walk back through it not realizing that all I needed to do was to move out of my own way. I knew how I wanted my relationship with God to be… how I wanted it to feel… what I wanted it to look like, but failed each time to realize that I needed to do the work. God isn’t a magician. Things don’t come to pass after we say the magic words. Believing in, having relationship, & walking the cleared path with God has always been the goal for me, but the detour I took had/has me sidetracked in my thought process. My thinking cap is on now though lol. 

So, tonight as I pray I hope the words leave my mouth & head straight to Him. I hope that He hears the cries of the lost retuning back. I hope He remembers my voice… it’s been so long, but I’m back. 

Are you there God? It’s me… Teedra

Let Go & Let Love