God's Angsty Too

I love the moments when you realize something about God and it hits you in the face and takes your breath away.

I'm reading The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila. It's a really good read for me in light of this disconnection (or whatever it is) I'm having with God.

I've lost a sense of God's love for me. I no longer understand and believe it as I once did. Midst this desert, I sense His indifference and His complacency for my situation. My head knows the falsity of this, but my heart is another story. I think it's a lot more difficult to understand something with your heart than with your head.

But God smacked me today. And basically said, "FRICK I LOVE YOU!!"

Context. In this book I'm reading, Teresa explains the soul as a castle composed of many mansions. I don't understand all of it since I've only started. But the outer mansions are the soul's concerns with earthly affairs; this is where Satan dwells the most and has the most influence. The inner mansion, the 7th, is utmost connection and oneness with God, and a place Satan cannot penetrate.

In the chapter about the 2nd mansions, Teresa discusses how there is more suffering to be had than in the 1st mansions. Those in the 1st mansions are ignorance, and don't understand that those inner mansions and connection with God even exist. She calls them "dumb," saying they can "hear nothing." But those who dwell in the 2nd mansions understand that there is more, but they are far from it. There is potential for more depth with God, but it's something they lack. Teresa describes them as those "who can hear and not speak."

Teresa writes of God's view of the 2nd mansion dwellers, and why that makes them suffer so much:

"[T]his Lord of ours is so anxious that we should desire Him and strive after His companionship that He calls us ceaselessly, time after time, to approach Him; and this voice of His is so sweet that the poor soul is consumed with grief at being unable to do His bidding immediately; and thus, as I say, it suffers more than if it could not hear Him."

For the first time in a while, I did not see complacency from God. I saw anxiousness. I saw eagerness for me to long for Him. My angst for this dryness was matched.

I still feel the necessity of this desert. I understand that it's simply something I must go through. After all, God trusts me, right? But He hurts as much as I do. Just like a parent who watches their kid suffer but does not jump to fix it. For they know the need for lessons of life experiences, and maturity through hardship.