Can you imagine a place without God?

            This was my first thought when I woke up this morning.  Strange, I guess – but this is fairly normal for me – having deep thought type questions wake me up at 6:34 on Saturday mornings.  This one connects to Psalm 139:7-8 “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I run from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there.  If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” 

                So, can I imagine a place far from God?  I have to remember times when I felt far from God to get at this one.  I feel far from God when I am in the wrong kind of relationships. I dated a kid in college who was the wrong kind of person: more charisma than good sense, manipulative, gauged his self worth by how many people followed his lead of getting coffee and dessert after eating out at the restaurant…you know – a real winner (or so I thought at that time).  I very consciously turned my back on a lot of things that made me “me” to keep him.  I felt very far from God in that relationship. 

                I feel far from God when I hit this rock-bottom thought: “What am I gonna do?”  This is usually accompanied by rubbing of the forehead with both hands and a sense of deep panic that I feel even now just because I’m writing about it.  When I hit this thought, it has usually been triggered by some thought about the future, uncertainty about my present array of choices, or feeling like I’ve aged out of the dating market. This is a question that comes from a place of desperation, a place where I feel like all of the things I’m doing and have done have led me to a dead end and I only have bad options to choose from. I feel very far from God when I feel like I don't have any good options.

                So imagining a place far from God is for me about feeling like I’ve been painted into a corner where I have to deal with my own choices.  Being far from God feels cold and panicky to me, so should feeling close to God feel the opposite?  Should feeling close to God be warm and certain, planned and logical? 

                I am facing the most precipitous of moments less than two weeks from today: graduation.  In these times, it is a dangerous cliff indeed.  I feel like I’m being pushed toward it by the flow of time.  The closer it gets, the more panicky I feel about my future prospects.  I would love to be in a place where I could be in the right kinds of relationships and not have the question “What am I gonna do?” hang over my head.  It’s difficult for me to think that I could make these choices anywhere I am.  I guess it brings a sense of calmness to think about the prospect of new relationships and new options to choose from that God will still be there, no matter where I am or how I’m feeling about where I am.  That said, I would sure love to stay close to my support system of people I know and love.  I also would love to have a satisfactory answer to "What am I gonna do?"  I think that is the bigger issue for me -