God and I are at an Impasse

God and I are at an impasse.

And since God doesn’t change His mind, I suppose that leaves me to make the next move.

I don’t want to.

I’m angry.

I don’t trust Him.

Every Thursday, my boss, Pastor Jerry, meets with me and the leadership team at our school. Before we talk about budgets and staffing and the weight of leading people, he always begins with a devotional. Over time, my team and I have come to depend on these moments. Without knowing what each of us is carrying, he almost always speaks directly into it. God uses him—this I believe. He understands leadership, the quiet burden of responsibility, the cost of caring for people.

This week, he spoke about joy and peace. About gratitude. About what Scripture calls a sacrifice of praise. I don’t think I ever really understood that phrase until now. Sometimes praise is a sacrifice—not because God needs it, but because it doesn’t come naturally. It doesn’t come easily. Sometimes it doesn’t even feel genuine.

Then he talked about peace.

He asked each of us if we had ever experienced unexplainable peace—peace that arrived when it had no logical reason to.

When it was my turn, I said, “No. I run on anxiety only.”

I know that isn’t entirely true. There have been times in my life when peace showed up in the middle of a storm. But right now, because of the place God and I are in, I can’t recall it. My memory feels selective. Or guarded.

Pastor Jerry encouraged us to remember what God has saved us from.

My mind immediately responded: You mean what He allowed to happen to me that I got myself through?

My mind is not always a safe place.

As he continued speaking, my thoughts kept interrupting.

“Do not worry about anything. Pray about everything.”
I do. It doesn’t work.

“Whatever fear, sadness, or anxiety you have—hand it to God.”
I’ve tried that too. Also doesn’t work.

“God gave us a formula for peace: take the thought captive, tell God what you need, thank Him for what He’s done—and then peace will come.”
I tried the formula. It didn’t produce the promised result.

“I call bullshit.”

I sat there nodding, taking notes, carefully dotting my i’s and coloring in my bullet points. I smiled when it was appropriate. I laughed at the right moments. Outwardly, I was present and engaged.

Internally, I was screaming.

Why doesn’t this work for me?
Why does it seem to work for everyone else?
Why do I feel abandoned by the very God who is supposed to be my refuge?

Abandoned.

This is my deepest wound. My greatest fear—to be left, not chosen, forgotten. And every time something even resembles abandonment, panic takes over.

And right now, I feel abandoned by God.

At the same time, I know He is the answer.

Two things can be true at once.

Earlier this week, I drove home from an event on a day that broke me. It was the day after I gave my dog up for adoption. That story is too fresh and too raw to tell fully yet, but the loss gutted me. I had spent the day leading, encouraging, writing a devotional for my staff—as if I had anything together—smiling through conversations while feeling like I might fall apart at any moment. Then I drove nearly two hours to a Christmas party and kept pretending I was fine.

By the time I got back into my car to drive home, I couldn’t hold it anymore.

I screamed.
I screamed so loudly it surprised even me.

“You abandoned me. You left me. You left.”

Over and over again.

An embarrassing number of times.

When I finally stopped, what I felt was a strange mix of release and shame. Guilt and anger. But mostly, it felt honest.

Because it was.

Has God brought me through every day of my life? Yes.
Has He also allowed unspeakable pain? Yes.

Is He responsible for both?

I don’t know how to hold that without my hands shaking.

I believe in free will. I know some of my pain is of my own making. I also believe God has rescued me, that He is the answer to my life—and that He has been silent in moments I begged Him not to be.

I believe the verse that says He works all things together for good. I have seen that before. I know that someday I will likely look back on this season and feel something softer than what I feel now.

But today is not that day.

Pastor Jerry used a phrase that stuck with me: “backfill your emotions with joy.” I understand what he meant. There are seasons of my life that were devastating in real time and joyful in retrospect. I believe that may be true here too.

But right now, I am in the not good part.

I’m trying to believe He’s not done.

After I finished yelling in my car, I looked up and saw a billboard that read:

“Don’t stop now. You are almost there.” —God

I don’t know that God and I agree on what almost means. And we don’t agree on much right now. But there is one thing I am deeply grateful for:

God can handle my anger.

He can handle my disappointment.
My distrust.
My doubt.

He can carry my accusations and my selfish prayers. He can listen while I refuse to. He can hold the version of me that argues with every truth spoken over my life.

Courage, I’m learning, is not resolving the relationship.

Courage is staying in it.

We are stuck.
But I am still here.

And that, somehow, feels like faith.