Hallelujah, Amen, You are Dismissed.

Men make me nauseous.

I'm not joking. Every single time I see a man, I have an intense urge to throw up. Maybe I'm some kind of new era feminist. Feminism is so ingrained in me that it has moved to my bodily functions.

Or maybe not.

Perhaps it's true that I've been hurt a few times. To be precise, it is definitely true. When I am hurt, I go through cycles of being ok and full of forgiveness and then being horribly angry and unforgiving. The following may have been in one of my more unforgiving states of mind after being hurt by, you guessed it, a man.

When I told you that I had forgiven you, I'm not sure I was correct. It's not that I was lying, but I may have been mistaken. I'm so angry with you. I'm angry about how you treated me. I'm angry that we're not together. I'm angry about the kind of person you seem to have become. I'm angry that we're both pretending everything is ok. I'm angry that I care so much. I'm in love with what we could be together, but I fucking hate how often I am reminded of how much we fall short. All of my dreams of you are turning to dust before my eyes. The sandcastles I'm trying to build out of this dust don't cut it as a replacement. I miss you. Or more accurately, I miss who I once believed you were. I want to wake up to find that you're that beautiful person I always thought you were. I want to believe that you are. I want us to bring out the best in each other. I want that faraway picture I had to come true. But most of all, I want to sweep away my dusty sandcastles and forget you.

Stupid man. Yet lovely. See? I'm still conflicted.

I was at church a few weeks ago, ruminating about this man and several other things that occasionally go horribly wrong. As I prayed, I got this feeling that God was trying to say something to me, so I shut up for a moment and what I heard was:

I love you so fucking much.

Hm. God swears. Who knew?

There is something broken

About a hallelujah

Hallelujah says

I'll praise you anyway

Hallelujah says

You are God despite

Always despite

Despite my aches

My tortures and sins

In every rancid moment

You are God despite

Hallelujah

If God is willing to swear to get my attention, I'm willing to do all I can to praise him, even when there are men (and others) all around me trying to make me nauseous.