Once upon a time, I found a way to love God. That was a long, long time ago. After a while, I started to lose my way – not because I was living wildly, or hurting anyone, but because life always seemed to beat me down. Life beat me down continuously. One struggle after the next, and I could barely keep myself afloat.
And so I lost my way. Because in the darkness of my sorrow, I blamed the One I had loved. I turned away after shouting: “I’ve had it with You! You never seem to care! And all You give me is pain! Why would I ever want to devote myself to Someone like that?”
I fumbled in the dark; I cried. I tried to live as normally as I could, but every morning came the reminder: a tug of the heart toward some unseen Presence, some ghost of a Person Whose absence seemed wrong, seemed somehow profane.
And then, rolling out of bed, I began to find the words forming mysteriously in my mouth day after day. In fact, the words still come to me now, every so often, even as I pray, turning themselves into the soft and simple refrain:
“I miss You, God. I really miss You. Please come back.”