agitated

Lately everything in my life points to this one unresolved issue that I have with God. I don't talk about it very much, if ever, but it has become such a part of who I am and how I relate to people that I have a hard time remembering who I was before any of this happened. I am going to give you just a few examples of how haunting and overwhelming this has become. The deeper I delve into this story the more I can uncover about how twisted and confused I am as a result. But I bear intense pain because of it which is something I am constantly struggling to overcome or forget. My life and personality and interactions with others have been shaped around this struggle. I am sure you will see what I mean.
My junior year of high school I lost one of my best friends, Michael. How it happened was this: he was living in California at the time, going to school and working to support himself and his brother. (He was in film school and he took care of his brother because he had a drug problem. His father left their family when Mike was really young and their mother worked two jobs so he couldn't get hte kind of attention/supervision he needed here, which is why he moved in with Mike.) Both of them were really into extreme sports and got injured all the time. Mike was an amazing surfer/snowboarder/skateboarder. He was the most talented athlete I've ever known, and he was literally fearless. He used to describe himself as an adrenaline junkie. Needless to say it was a dangerous combination. The summer before his senior year of high school he was involved in an off-roading accident that landed him in the hospital with a broken arm, two broken ribs and a broken leg (femur). He had to have surgery and the doctor told him then he would have to take it easy on his leg from then on. Of course he really did not pay any attention to that at all and went back and started doing all the things he had done before the accident. Midway through his sophmore year, he had a bad skateboarding accident and shattered (SHATTERED) his femur/pelvis. He was still in California at the time, and had to have surgery again. Because of all of the hospital bills and being basically bedridden he dropped out of school at this point and came home to be taken care of by his mom (she is a nurse). I remember this vividly because the doctor told him he would be lucky if he was able to walk normally, and would definitely not be able to participate in any kind of sports for the rest of his life. He was completely devastated. One conversation I remember with him in the last two weeks of his life, he told me there was no point in living if he couldn't do the things he loved. Two weeks after that he started having complications from his first surgery and had to go back in for a second. There was some sort of problem with the anesthetic and he never woke up.
I can't really explain the shock. I remember the day that he died because we had a field trip i coudln't miss, which is why I wasn't at the hospital with the rest of his family. I had told his little brother to call me when he woke up and I was expecting it to be in the early afternoon. When he didn't call me I immediately knew something was wrong. It wasn't until I got home from school that day and called Lee that I found out what had happened. Basically, I shut down.
I didn't cry. In fact I pretty much pretended like nothing had happened. The next day I went back to school and acted normal. His memorial service was on the following Wednesday, and I skipped it. I NEVER brought him up in conversation and I shut down when other people asked me about him. I focused on school and work and started painting and writing a lot of poetry. I just can't find the words to explain how much this messed with my head. I really think I stopped operating on every level except for what was absolutely necessary for survival. Later I started cutting, but it never crossed my mind to be sad or angry at that point. It was mostly just numb. Like, okay, this happened, I need to move on.
Two things happened as a result of this event that nearly destroyed my belief in God. The first was that, the night before Mike's surgery, I had asked my family to pray for his safety. My mom was working that year and so when I came home from school I was usually alone. My conversation with Lee took place before she had gotten home from work. When she came home I was lying on my bed with all the lights off, just lying there staring at the ceiling, I think with the door open, and when she asked me what I was doing I just said, "Mike died." and she started crying and ran over and gave me a big hug and said, "Didn't we pray for him?"
I know she didn't mean it in the way she said it, but it shook me. It hadn't occured to me yet that this was God's fault, but it clearly was.
Mike died on Wednesday and that weekend was Acquire the Fire, which is basically this huge evangelistic Christian conference for middle school and high school students. My parents made me go to it because they thought what I really needed was to be around my friends. So I went. And I spent the whole weekend learning about how amazing and satisfying God is. And I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but it sounded like such bullshit to me.
Point being, that soon after that I stopped going to church and I really didn't start up again until about six + months later when I started going to The Bridge. That was more a process of identifying my pain and how it impacted my relationship with God. That was when I started feeling stuff again, and it was mostly anger and intense (almost torturous) emotional pain. I couldn't identify anything in my relationship except for that mistrust and hatred. At The Bridge it felt good to connect with that pain and find some way to express it to God. To let him know I was pissed. (When I started going to The Bridge is when I finally stopped cutting. It seems obvious looking back on it that cutting was a temptation I gave in to because I didn't have a relationship with God to keep me grounded or offer any kind of consolation for my hurt.) I have found it almost impossible to connect with God on an emotional or intellectual level since this happened. Most of my interaction with God is physical. I know this probably sounds like a bunch of crap but whatever. I talk to God with my art and through musical worship. I don't think this is at all complete or satisfactory or a good picture of communication with God but that is still how I operate.

Why this all comes up right now is several reasons. First of all it is approaching April 14th which is when Michael died. Second, we have been talking about Heaven at church and that has got me thinking. For the most part this has been crappy for me. I kind of alluded to that earlier and didn't post all of my thoughts on it, and Matt, you said you were interested. If you want to talk about it I would definitely talk to you, but I don't think I want to post about it here. This is all really really personal.
Tonight, during his sermon, Justin spent a good amount of time talking about our new bodies in Heaven. This made me really happy for Mike. I think about him being faced with living life in a crippled body, and how devastated he was by the thought of not being able to do the things he loved. Now he is heaven with an amazing new body. I am so happy that he has that.

The last reason this comes up is that one of my friends, Jak, has knee problems and is going under for surgery this week. Umm... yeah. The whole situation really hits a little too close to home. I am freaked out, for the obvious reasons. I know it is irrational to fear anesthetics but I'm terrified. I really don't want to lose him. And even if I don't, going through this process is making me relive everything that happened with Mike. It makes me nauseous and distracted and agitated. I am almost afraid to pray about it. But I am. I really hope something bad doesn't happen.
If you ahve read this far, thanks for staying with me through my ramblings. Please pray for Jak. He is a firefighter and this surgery will affect his employment options for the future. Please pray that he would have a sucessful operation and that I will be able to be supportive in spite of all my fears.

This is all just the tip of the iceberg, but knowing even just this fraction of my story probably helps you make sense of me in some way. I am still dealing with all of the ugly things that come from grief/loss.