You may have read my previous post (and I encourage you to before reading this one): https://dremilythomasvet.com/i-appreciate-it-but-youre-wrong-about-me/ But if not and you don’t feel like it right now 1. you’re my kind of person 2. Here’s some background (you may skip if you’ve read my previous post)
I was raised in the deep south where you were either Southern Baptist or straight up heathen. My parents did not raise me to be religious (me=heathen) and I struggled a lot with whether or not there was even a God. I believed there was deep down inside but couldn’t wrap my head around the “loving God” that the people trying to save me taught versus the highly judgmental, hateful god they all acted like they served by their demeanor. (btw “Saved!” is a fantastic movie if you want to know what it was like to live in my town)
So, before you decide to stop reading – ugh! another religious, witnessing post – just know that I felt and sometimes still feel the way you might about people wanting to talk to you about religion. This post is purely to walk you through a part of my journey. To be quite open and honest, I still struggle with the workings of God, whether we’re all worshipping the same god, but kill each other over the minor differences in translations, whether we just made God up to give us hope in the dark depths of despair of there just being nothing after death, why no one we love has come back and told us there really is a God, and maybe, if we all just lived like we are told, following the golden rule (in almost every religion), maybe that’s just the best way for us all to live and thrive – through love.
So, here’s a few stories about my asking for an answer from God and getting them. I’ll tell you He certainly does not answer all the time or even most of the time. There are definitely periods in my life where I think I just made all these experiences fit with there being a God, but then sometimes, He answers again when I’m not expecting it.
I’ve told you the story about how I came to work for Dr. Pol – I prayed for an answer to our current situation – I needed a new job fast and I was pregnant – and then Dr. Pol called me and off to Michigan we moved – from South Carolina – and that ended up a good thing for me – I have people interested in me and I made good money with the Nat. Geo Wild network. But then, there was leaving Pol Vet. I was miserable – as you can read in my blog “Growing as a Veterinarian” – too much time given to work, too little time with my little ones. I was angry, always miserable, didn’t have many friends due to having kids and always being busy, no family, and was quite honestly, lonely despite being surrounded by people ALL the time. My therapist kept telling me over and over to just leave, get a new job somewhere else where the environment was better for me.
I was scared. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find a job somewhere else and what if I did and it were even worse?! At least at Pol Vet, I knew what the struggles were, a new place could be worse. Unbeknownst to me until more recently, God sent a very indirect message that, sure enough, got me moving. I had been going to see my doctor on a relatively regular basis and had always gotten along with him pretty well. After we became Facebook friends, I realized we had a lot in common from sense of humor to political views. I talked to Tony about it, and though he thought it was a bit weird, agreed to hanging out sometimes. I invited the doctor and his wife to go out for a beer sometime. He agreed, though he and his wife were separated. My other best, good friend, Dr. Sharkey had already been swooped away (mentally and emotionally) by my brother – which was also cool.
We all hung out a few times at a local brewery, having a ball; talking, laughing, swapping horror stories about our professions. He and I chatted on Facebook messenger often (I even showed Tony our conversations as they were always just silly and fun and I’m, like, the most honest person you will ever meet and didn’t want to be thinking Tony might be thinking anything weird was going on) and I got some good laughs while at work which totally brightened my day. We met up with our kids and his for play dates and had him over for dinner and game night. Eventually he would tell me that he had a girlfriend – I was ecstatic for him! I tried to invite her out with us too, but she was frequently breaking up with him and then making up – I couldn’t quite figure it out until a message from him greeted me one morning at work that just said that his girlfriend was jealous of me and that he wasn’t allowed to be friends with me anymore.
And just like that, he was gone. I was blocked from contacting him at all, complete black out. One moment we were joking, then next, he was gone from my life. I was crushed. I hadn’t had a good, consistent friend in so long and now I was back to being lonely. That whole day sucked, then a Tom Petty song came on the radio “Time to Move on” and it hit me full on. I knew that it was time to get out of my situation. I can only now look back at that time and see that as the final push to get me to pick up and move out. God knew I was scared and hunkering down, clinging to anything I could to not have to make a change, then he just shoved me off the cliff. And I’m very thankful that He did, though I still secretly wish my friend would be my friend again.
The next story is a little silly, but I still give it a lot of credit due to the timing and odd occurrence. I was dating Tony and still wondering about God, did He exist, did He not? We were vacationing with my mom’s family at Pawley’s Island, SC, staying in The Penguin as my family had since my grandmother was adopted at 16 years old (orphaned with her brother due to alcoholism and suicide). Fishing and crabbing were activities we sincerely looked forward to every year. We would surf fish – wade into the ocean, holding the fishing pole high over our heads as we battled waves, just to cast as far as we could past the surf and would usually pull in anything from the regular spot or pinfish, mullet, bonnet head shark pups, and the occasional sting ray or particularly stubborn crab who wouldn’t let go of the bait.
One night, I had convinced Tony to go night fishing – same thing, just in the dark of night where it feels like the ocean just might swallow you into the swirling blackness. I had done this activity several times with my brother and cousins, and we would catch about the same things as during the day, but sometimes bigger sharks – 2-3ft sand sharks. I cast my line and, after awhile of not getting a bite, I decided to reel back in. With surf fishing, the rhythmic tugging and releasing of the line can hide bites and strip the bait off the hook. I reeled and reeled, and finally saw my lead on the beach, but it looked like there was something on it. When I got up to it, sure enough, there was a fish on the hook – not a very active one, but a decent sized fish that I did not recognize. I needed to know what kind of fish this was because, one, I am a scientist and need to know, and two, I had made a rather silly request to God about a week earlier. I had been praying about whether or not God exists and had jokingly said “if you exist, maybe I can catch a mackerel so that I can then say “Holy Mackerel!” – not actually knowing what a mackerel even looked like.
Well, I ran up to the house, grabbed an empty trash bucket, ran back down to the beach, grabbed some seawater, put the strange fish in there, then ran it back up to the house to ask around with the other “fish experts”. No one had seen this fish before – in the years and years of fishing there, night and day. Defeated, I returned the fish to the ocean and proceeded to catch nothing else that night. The next morning, eating a bowl of cereal, I had found a book on the ocean somewhere in the house and was flipping through to see if I could find my mystery fish. Then, I saw it, my exact fish – a King Mackerel. I dropped my spoon.
My last story is a little dark, and looking back, I realize it could have easily been a figment of my imagination/eyes playing tricks on me, but it scared me enough to definitely not discount it. I was in high school and going through one of the hardest times in my life so far. My parents were getting a divorce, but staying together until I graduated. My brother and sister had already moved out of the house at least 3 years prior. The news of my parents’ divorce was a shock and devastating. I suddenly felt like all of my childhood memories, no matter how precious they were to me, were lies, and if not lies, were too painful to revisit and therefore, slowly disappeared from who I was as a person. I was not a popular person in high school, I was a weirdo (still am) and most people steered clear of me. I was dating Tony at the time, but he was about an hour and a half away at a Christian college (Brewton Parker) and we were dealing with long distance, which I hate.
I don’t remember if there was any particular incident that triggered that night, but I was deeply depressed, hated myself. I wanted to die. I considered all the ways to die and thought if there was a handy gun in the house, that would have been the easiest. But, all my dad had was a shotgun that wasn’t loaded and I didn’t know if we even had any bullets. I was too scared of doing anything else for fear of the pain I would inflict on myself, so I came up with, what I thought, was a full proof plan. I prayed. Not the kind of prayer most would tell you about though. I prayed for God to kill me. I figured if there was a God and if He is all-powerful, he could certainly (if not easily) smash me like a bug. I was laying in my bed, crying my eyes out, praying over and over for God to kill me, listing all the reasons I deserved it- over and over.
I don’t know how long I was begging for God to take my life, but against the very dull light coming from through my open door, I saw them coming. Dark shadows, creatures slowing crawling from the far corners and the end of my bed. They did not have a lot of definition, but were simply black with long claws that pulled them closer and closer to me. My tears dried up immediately, I went silent. I thought I was seeing things and tried to open my eyes larger to adjust the light but the dark creatures just kept creeping toward me radiating pure, cold evil while they approached. The fear took over every ounce of sadness I felt and I knew that death was NOT what I wanted. I quickly prayed again, this time apologizing for my earlier request and begging for God to take these dark creatures back to where they came.
Immediately, the darkness receded and I had the most overwhelming sense of relief. I thanked God over and over and apologized again and again. It took me a little while to fall asleep after that, but I was happy and content when I did.
I know these stories sound crazy and even silly, but they stick in my mind as powerful times in my life. I STILL definitely have moments where I question His existence. It doesn’t seem to matter how convincing one or more scenarios are and I still feel guilty every time I know God has taken such effort to convince me and I still doubt, but I think that’s pretty natural and have come to accept that’s just how it’s going to be. Maybe one day, after I die, I will come back and tell someone what happens, unless it means not making it to heaven, in which case; Bye, good luck to you!
*Side note: all the art work on this post (except the mackerel) is my original work and all inspired somehow by spirituality.
