I am not making you up

• Absolutely rational, incomplete answers to my questions about Scripture, evil, miracles, goodness, betrayal, resurrection, Reality exist
• Barb would be dead without the protective anger borne of my oath to you
• The Middle Passage would have endured
• Your story through-lined with humility, resurrection, beauty, tangible hope resonates with my deepest longings until I’m breathless and wanting more
• Agape and koinonia in your presence and with my family and your followers started warming me in childhood with no signs of stopping

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​I am making you up

Doubt calls

• The mocking certainty of enemies makes me insecure
• The anthropologist’s compelling explanations of human experience without you confuse me
• The failings and betrayals of Jesus-following friends wound me
• The secret horrors people endure from hands claiming your name repel and shame me 
• When people I love reject your truth and beauty and hope I cry out in helplessness

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God’s Prism

Some making up in this not-yet-recreated-universe is inevitable, rightly impossible to avoid

• I can’t see you completely, so sometimes I guess at who you are. Help me see you more clearly
• We, your body, misrepresent, anger, sadden, disgust you. Forgive us when we wrap you in heresies
• I make myself up, and others, too, boxing ourselves in incomplete categories. Keep me from pouring so much of your love in the weeds 

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​But you, the ultimate truth, love, and mystery: you exist

​You still make me laugh and smile and dream and mourn
Regardless of me, of us: I am not making you up.