Sunday, 8 February 2009

Judgement Day

I've been reading a lot about Judgement Day lately.

One of my professors developed a really interesting and appealing new vision about Judgement Day: according to him it is all going to be about relationships. It will be our turn to ask God where He was, why He let all the suffering in history happen, why He let creation be the way it is with the possibility of evil (couldn't He have created a world without evil in which we still could have had free will?), after all, He is almighty, so why, God, did you allow us to suffer? It will be up to God to show us His answer, His reason for the world to be as it is, before He will be the judge over us. And when it comes to judging us we will be separated (according to the biblical prophecy) into those who suffered and those who made others suffer. Each of us will be at both sides at some point, for there might be some who almost only suffered but at the same time there is no sinless one. God's judgement won't be about who goes to hell and who goes to heaven. No, those who allow themselves to be judged will suffer such pain of repentance that their repenting suffering will be the same as the suffering they inflicted upon others, and by sharing the pain they will bear the wounds with which they themselves injured others. This pain will be our purgatory - those who go through judgement (and the pain of repentence) will be reconciled with God and with their victims. Only those who do not allow themselves to undergo judgement will be lost, for it is them who deny God's offer of reconciling love.

As much as I love this vision of reconciling judgement, I can only see part of myself in this picture. I can see my suffering as a child of divorce, I can see my guilt of when I have hurt others and God.

But somehow this vision does not give room for the kind of guilty suffering which is my ED.
The trouble here is that it is such ambivalent suffering and such ambivalent guilt. I didn't choose to get an ED, I am sure about this. But in all the suffering that comes with it there is the guilt of my daily choice to eat or not to eat. There is the guilt of letting myself starve (and I am no less guilty here than those responsible for the concentration camps in WW2 were who let others starve!) which is at the same time terrible suffering (for I am starving). There is guilt and suffering in the very same thing, the very same decision, the very same me.
Where am I to be in this vision of Judgement Day? Neither the guilt nor the suffering of my ED seem to find a place here.

Can there be reconciliation and salvation for those who hate themselves? Is is possible for me to see God with all my self-inflicted wounds? How can those wounds ever be glorified when there is no one who could forgive me and no one whom I could forgive? I am thinking about whether it's possible to be reconciled with myself, but this is the part where my ED kicks in - it is not solely my choice but an illness and an addiction at the same time: even if I wanted to find reconciliation (which I think I do) it is not my choice anymore.

Oh God, I need you so much, I am desperate for your saving love!
In your almighty power I pray to you to find a way to save me, despite myself with myself as I am, not just part of me but all of me, body and soul, heart and mind, in sickness and health, with all that I am.
Please, please, hear my prayer, listen to me, remember me! You know I love you even though I cannot love myself, so please don't give up on me, I implore you.
You are my love, my life, my God, there is nothing to me were it not for you!

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