No One is Alone

http://www.internetismyreligion.com/
Today we watched the above testimony in my DMin Class at McCormick Theological Seminary (Gospel and Global Media Cultures).
When we reflected afterward, I shared my immediate feelings out loud (as most extroverts do!).  I was vascilating between being deeply moved and inspired by his speech and also wary of what seemed to be a veneration of the created, rather than of the Creator.  In other words, I was drawn to his description of God, and the ways in which he experienced God through the utterly selfless gifts of the humans who made his life possible, and at the same time, my dogmatic and theological mind wondered if this was merely a statement of the ways in which humanity was god, which would mean that there is no God at all.
This evening, while making dinner, Hannah and I listened to what is now our favorite musical, Into the Woods.  In particular, we listened to "No One is Alone," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-3YJijA5Rw
As we listened, I was reminded of Jim Gilliam's reflection, and especially his description of the days when he was near death and only had the promise of a button which he would press to gain momentary relief from his pain.  As he desribed this harrowing experience, the only point of connection I could conjure up from my experience was from when I suffered from extreme post-partum depression after my daughter was born.  This does seem to (and it does!) pale in comparison to his experience, and yet it is the time in my life when I experienced what theologians call "the absence of God."  In those months, I did not know and could not access God.  In many ways, I have never been so alone as I was in that experience.  In the two and half years since then, my faith has been slowly repaired...and as I reflect back upon its reparation, this has mostly happened through the ways in which God has worked through humanity. 
God does not work only through humanity, but surely, it is (and has been) through humanity that God works in many beautiful and incarnational ways.
I am grateful for Jim Gilliam's witness.