Melt Down: In the waters of confusion, I need someone 60% water, 100% God.

Pt. 3 of the series "Full-bodied Gospel"

Hey y’all. I’m continuing Monday’s newsletter about my own salvation story before we get into what etymology and the Bible have to say about this misunderstood word. For Monday’s letter, click below. If you’ve already read it, let’s pick up where we left off.

Hot Air: the condensation of shapeless faith

Anchor

I waited patiently for the Lord;
    he turned to me and heard my cry.
He lifted me out of the watery pit of destruction,
    out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
    and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
    a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
    and put their trust in him. — Psalm 40: 1-3

Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash

Sea

If my years from age 6 to age 19 were about intellectual assent to the idea of Jesus, then year 20 was when I finally actually met him. Last week was about religious hot air. This week is about drowning in the sea of existential doubt. But before we jump into the whirlpool, let’s back up just a bit. 

At 18, I fell in love with a Muslim man named E.B. Church-going, Bible-reading me. I never loved anything or anyone as much. I shook with anticipation when I was around him. Every poem was about him. My first tattoo for him. It was an overwhelming passion that consumed my love of literature and rivaled my love of Jesus. But when E.B. asked me what I thought about marrying him, I laughed and retorted without even thinking, "I’m going to marry a Christian." Immediately, I regretted the words. This man loved me, and I adored him. How could I be so flippant? More unsettlingly, how could I be so sure Christianity was right? 

Over the next two years, I started exploring Islam. When I was 20, I went to study abroad in Egypt. Slowly my question about whether this was the man for me morphed into whether Islam was the way for me. Like, love E.B. down and all, but there were other fish in the sea. We were talking about God: Biggest Fish in the sea. The Whole Sea. The One who holds the sea. What if I was wrong about God entirely? What if Christ wasn’t the way, the truth, and the life like I had been taught?

Confusion, anxiety, despair, and for the first time, the outright FEAR of God flooded me. God is holy above all. Righteous and powerful and without equal. What if I was insulting God, my Creator, by exalting Jesus as Lord? What if, in following Jesus, I was worshipping an idol? 

On the contrary, if believing that Jesus was Lord was the only necessary requirement for salvation, here I was denying him. Doubting the One who died for me. And for what, a man?

No longer a question about love, this was a question of existential identity. I had always known myself to be a daughter of God and a follower of Jesus. I’d never questioned him. But now I had to acknowledge the possibility that I was wrong about the thing that mattered most in life. On top of it, I’d left the man I loved for my faith. Had I lost him for a lie?

During that time in 2009, on the dust-ruddy streets of Cairo, where my heart bled like a sieve and neither time nor holy book functioned as a tourniquet,  the knowledge of my salvation, the knowledge of God as Savior, would translate from unquestioned theory to unquestionable reality. 

“I just want to honor You!” I mouthed without sound, hot tears free-falling down my face.

“If You want me to be a Muslim, I’ll be a Muslim. If You want me to remain a Christian, I’ll be a Christian. A Buddhist, an atheist even. I don’t care. But I need You to tell, and I need You to tell me right now! Otherwise, I’ll die.”

I wasn’t bluffing, and I wasn’t interested in bargaining. It was “God, come through, or I won’t.” It was and is the humblest moment of my life. I wasn’t asking God for stuff. I wasn’t even begging God to convert E.B. I had a question that neither reading the Bible and the Quran nor talking with preachers and imams could answer. It was a question for God himself about God himself. And I knew my life depended on the answer.

If I was going to live through the agony of loss and the uncertainty that honest living (regardless of religion) really entails, I needed to know Him. Really know Him. And I couldn’t just conjure the faith to believe. Not for all the searching and praying and convincing and trying.

If I was going to live for a Holy God, He’d have to meet me in my unholy doubt.  

As for me, I am poor and needy;
    may the Lord think of me.
You are my help and my deliverer;
    you are my God, do not delay. — Psalm 40:17

The miracle was Jesus met me within six minutes of praying that prayer. On my walk from the AUC library to the bus stop, boo-hoo crying, my question unbeknownst to anyone but God, my mother sent me a text. It read: “Nothing matters but sacrificial love.”

Of course, it was my mom speaking, but I heard Someone else behind it. Turns out the God I was searching for had been listening to me. 

It was everything. All my doubts and even my love for E.B. had led me to this moment when God reached down into my confusion and angst and came for me. He didn't come to fix the situation or correct my creed. He came to get me. In just five words. In just six minutes. All those years. All that distance. All that searching and longing. In an instant.

May all who seek you
    rejoice and be glad in you;
may those who long for your saving help always say,
    “The Lord is great! — Psalm 40: 16

It's funny that the moment I stopped caring about Christianity, I finally encountered Christ. When I needed God most, Jesus came. 

Many people feel like a savior is unnecessary. Haha. Imagine shouting to a drowning person, “You can swim! You shouldn’t need anyone to save you. Save yourself!” If I could save myself, I wouldn’t be drowning.

Only you know when you’re really going under. At that moment, you don’t need a lesson or a pep talk or a God who's just an idea. You need a living breathing rescuer. Somebody willing and able to jump into the eddying waters and save your life. 

In the desert, of all places, I learned it was never about my ability to swim. It's not my sacrificial love that counts, but His. 

Sail

For this week's Sail, I included my performance of my poem "Will Not Go Without" with musician and friend J.P. Cooper. This poem chronicles the above experience. Shout out to my momma! 

Verily,
Alysia