Dear God,

I haven’t written you in a while. I haven’t even prayed, but I’ve begged. I cried when I begged, but you ignored me. My tears are selfish. I have no right to them. I have nothing to be sad about. Everything is going my way.

It doesn’t feel like that right now. I have this vice on my soul and it’s crippling. It’s not my thoughts that are holding me back. It’s the sick you’ve left me with. I am hurting from the inside out.

I want to make myself feel better. I want to make myself feel better right now, so I can get back to real life and the happiness that I deserve. Except you have gifted me with the sight of knowing that it’s just not that simple.

Instead, I try to slow my breathing, to be calm and still, to listen to the world while I let my mind go.

I hear the coffee pot gurgling to my left. The light above me is humming like one of those old neon signs you see flickering in horror films. I wonder about that. I wonder why people like to watch other people being killed. Gore is especially hard for me to stomach. I don’t care when it’s “just a movie.” Why should I not be offended when the mutilation is creativity. Someone imagined the torture before it became real. Which poison is worse? Or perhaps the question is, what came first, the chicken or the egg.

Maybe the yolks on you. That’s right, I just made a chicken joke. Do you have a sense of humor God? Do you laugh? I hope you do. I imagine that you do. I need you to. Will you laugh with me?

Laughter fixes everything doesn’t it. It’s not even a question. There is something about the way a soul opens to joy. I love to laugh until it hurts and then I love to laugh some more.

Another deep breath in, now slowly out. I am not laughing enough. I am not letting my cares be free and they can be. You want them to be, don’t you? You don’t want me to hold onto things that keep me from flight, yet you insist that I be grounded and reflective. You demand that I be reverent and disciplined. How can there be laughter then? With so much responsibility and purpose. Where is the fun?

Now I hear you telling me that there is a time and place. This I know as I wish and long for you to expedite the pace.

You smile then. I smile then. Our voice is the same heart.

“Do not rush this gift, this life. Embrace the struggle, the triumph, the strife. You are here to feel your way, to love your way, to lose your way, this life.”