Is it you, God, or what?

I can commiserate with Heidi and Ted Cruz, on their knees for two hours. As they sought God’s will. Okay, I wasn’t on my knees that long, nor was I seeking God’s will. I was simply trying to clean the drawer beneath the oven. Condo closing is March 1st and even though the real estate agency’s sending a cleaning crew in, I’m embarrassed to leave the grime I found when I opened the drawer to remove baking pans.

Anyway, there I was, kneeling, scrubbing gunk that wouldn’t budge, and I said, “Lord, what a friggin’ mess.”

And, whoa, I heard a Voice. It was powerful. “Seek God’s face, not God’s hand.”

I wanted the hand.

I needed a hand.

Yet I wept. As if “a cloud of the holy spirit” began to fill that place, the space where all the determined detritus lurked. I said, “Lord, here am I, use me. I surrender to you, whatever you want.” I felt there was a “green light to move forward,” and I left the hardened whatever to whomever.

Backstory: If you’ve been reading my articles, maybe you remember that I put my apartment on the market, didn’t want to be tethered to a deed. No destination determined. When neighbors ask where I want to live, I say, “Nowhere.” I’m sure people think I’m a nutter, or depressed.

But something’s working in mysterious ways. And I assure you I was using no chemicals when I tried to clean that drawer. Just elbow grease and a moist paper towel. Yet, yet, yet. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . .. . . . . there was something else. Energy. Which reminds me—recently, when a friend asked how I’m progressing with ridding my life of stuff, I said, “It’s like Jesus, distributing the fish and loaves. The more I give away, seems the more there is to give away.”

Back to that Voice: It generated an epiphany—that I should announce my candidacy for the highest office in the land. Like Ted Cruz when God told his wife Heidi, as they were on their knees for two hours, “Seek God’s face, not God’s hand.”

I now understand why I made the decision to sell my place without having a destination. Plus, there’s the “nowhere” response that could express the temporary, four or eight years, one or two terms. Everything’s aligning seamlessly, the potential journey that could take me to the White House and in this particular house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.

OMG.

Next, I’ll be speaking in tongues.

Am I’m putting too much faith in all this, like Heidi and Ted? When perhaps there’s something irregular about these signs? That I’ve received one and they have as well?

Recall that George Bush claimed God spoke to him, said God directed him to fight the terrorists in Afghanistan, to invade Iraq. Look how that turned out. It was and forever will be a catastrophe.

Moreover, I have one of those little, my-personal-world dilemmas. Called vanity. I’ve noticed the swiftness with which the presidency ages its titleholders. Excuse me a sec. I am naked without lipstick. Be right back.

Soooooo, after loads of consideration and some uncertainty regarding the source of the inspiration, that really could’ve been the exhaust fan or magical thinking, I decline.

Disgusting that Ted Cruz won’t.

And equally loathsome that gullible voters are bamboozled by this bullshit.

Missy Comley Beattie has written for National Public Radio and Nashville Life Magazine. She was an instructor of memoirs writing at Johns Hopkins’ Osher Lifelong Learning Institute in Baltimore. Email: missybeat@gmail.com.