I need to get back to corporate worship. For that matter, I need to get back to private worship, too. Church is hard. It is hard to ignore God when you are in His house; seems kind of rude. Today, I realized that the words to the songs are so much more personal that I ever remember them being. To sing them is to speak them to God and that is hard.

I’ve never been good at lying. I credit my parents with this as they always told me I wasn’t a good liar and I believed them. (I tried to give this gift to Christopher. I always made sure that he knew I could tell when he was not being truthful. I can remember when, someone must have told him that parents could tell you were lying when you wouldn’t look at them in the eye. After that, he would star intently at me when he was lying. It actually made his lies much easier to detect, I must say!) The thought of lying to God is a tough one to consider and it feels like singing these songs/hymns is lying to God because, while I believe what they say, I don’t feel it right now. That’s why prayer is difficult right now. On the other hand, church is good for me right now. It forces me to expose myself to the truths I believe.

I have to say, however, that I am encouraged to realize that the difficulty with prayer is the same as the difficulty with taking to a friend who cares deeply; in both cases, I am free to feel deeply. However, rather than do that, I tend to isolate. My fear of feeling the depth of the pain is bigger than my hope of comfort which might be available in relationship.

It is times like this that I think about how I would respond as a parent. It would make me terribly sad if Christopher were not willing to come to me for comfort when he was hurting. I suspect that my unwillingness makes God sad as well, as if I can’t trust Him to provide comfort to match my pain.

As Dr. Phil would say, “How’s that working for you?” I need to think about this. It is a choice that I am making.