He or She? i'm just a sheep.

on friday bryn turned 6 and i remembered our birth day- and his traumatic entry and week in the icu- and i was filled with thanks and awe for his big little life.

on friday, at his party, a friend asked me why i refer to God as 'she' sometimes, because for her, it's uncomfortable.

on saturday i was in luweero at clinic, we tested 11 people for HIV, 5 were positive.

today a friend posted frustation when someone came to her door stating that her beliefs would send her to hell.

what do any of these things have in common?

that i don't know.
i don't know lots of things.

that life is only predictable in it's unpredictability.
that i don't really get it.
that life is complicated and so is God and there is so much that i just don't understand and i'm actually okay with that- i don't always like it, but it's okay. what do i mean?

what i believe is very basic- i believe that God is LOVE and that love is huge and i only understand the very beginning of it and even those beginnings i don't understand or live out very well. i have seen this loving God allow bad things to happen to me and mine- things like life long learning disabilities, and hydrocephalus and brain tumors and a newborn pneumothorax.  i have seen this loving God allow bad things to happen to other people- things like cancer that doesn't go away- and chronic disease, and depression, and shootings, and job loss and poverty and HIV.

but. i believe that God is still LOVE.  and that God is HUGE and much more complex and capable than i am. i believe that i'm made in the image of God- and because i'm a woman, i think God must have woman in Him, or Her- that God is bigger than gender- that all of us have masculine and feminine with in us- as does God. so sometimes i think of God as a loving father, other times i think of her like a loving mother.  but i think God is big enough that She or He doesn't care.  He cares about my relationship, my interest, my effort, my reaching up, my submission, my attempts to LOVE back.  She cares that i am trying, She is gentle and knows that i mess. it. up. all. the. time.  and i believe that She cries with us, and i know that He holds us when those bad things are happening because i've felt it.

i believe that Jesus is God, a part of God, a part of the trinity of God- another thing that like eternity- is impossible for my mind to understand fully.  i know Jesus was a guy- but He is only one part of God and just because the human part of God was a man- doesn't negate the feminine parts of God- in our silly little human understanding of 'parts'.

sometimes i imagine what it will be like when we actually meet God- i think after we stand in awe and amazement, and fear and trembling, and joy and excitement,  we will have a good laugh at ourselves and our language and our limitations.

and i also don't understand why people are still showing up with new diagnoses of HIV in 2013?  why were half the people we tested positive?  where is the lack and the why is there such disparity?

and why are people being scarey and threatening in the name of 'sharing the gospel?'
being scarey and threatening is not love.  how is telling someone they are going to hell 'sharing'?
sharing is telling someone that God loves them. no. matter. what.  sharing is telling someone why you believe that to be true, even. though.  even though your mom had cancer and your friend died too young and your kid struggles every day with basic activities that other people don't have to think about.  sharing is talking about the everlasting arms that you know have held you when the darkness was closing in so that you were not alone. sharing is saying- 'i don't know' (not having all the answers doesn't mean what you believe isn't real...)  

there is a reason why God and faith and belief are hard to package in a neat little box and drop on someones doorstep.  THEY ARE TOO BIG!!  there is a reason why Jesus lived for 30 years on earth before he started talking about these things. our lifetime is about trying to see these things, trying to find them, and find ourselves in them, and work through all the trauma and the goodness and open our hearts to making some sort of sense of it.

so i'm so thankful.  that God - He, or She, or just God- is gentle and patient, and most of all LOVE.  and if His analogy is that He is the Shepard and we are the sheep? i think we're fine- the expectations are pretty low- we can stumble around bleating 'He' or 'She' or whatever- and God will gently nudge us in the right direction or grab us by the neck with that shepherd stick if we're way off or in danger. i think it's about trying, and listening for His voice and learning to trust it, and going where we hear it.