Lately, I've found myself questioning even further my identification with a particular religion. Currently, I don't really have a label for what I am. People seem to ask me a lot of questions about why I've made the choices I've made lately, and I can't honestly say that I can explain it entirely, but for anyone who cares, this is an explanation of how I've come to this place.
When I was in high school, I was a Christian. I was very devoted and very zealous. I believed what I was taught and accepted what leaders told me was the corrected interpretation of the Bible to be the truth. I also spent A LOT of time struggling and feeling guilty. I cannot tell you how many times I prayed to God for the strength to stand up to temptation, and every time, I ended up giving in and messing around with whoever my boyfriend was at the time, and feeling terrible at it the next Sunday at church. My desire to have a boyfriend who loved me and wanted me and found me attractive was never quenched by God. I think this was the beginning of it: not understanding why God wouldn't take that temptation away from me and why He put guys in my life who could sense how easy it was for me to succumb to that weakness.
I continued to press on, though. I loved God, and I loved my church. My youth leaders, April and Johnny, were great. They cared about us so much, and I knew I could come to April with anything. She was never prone to giving you the easy answers, but she would always give you the honest answers. Not only did they care, but they showed us great respect. They believed we had a voice in the church and that we had the power to make a difference. And we did. Because of our youth group, more and more people started praying with each other at the alter and our church, for a brief time, became a safe place for people to open their hearts.
After a couple of years, though, we got a new youth pastor, Joel. And Joel was fun, and he was nice, but from the first Sunday he took over, that respect we had been privilege to with April and Johnny was thrown out the window. We no longer had any say in what we learned, we were no longer being challenged in lessons, and we were being hidden away in the corner of the church and no one believed we had the power to accomplish anything great anymore. Where the youth group had been fairly homogenous before, cliques started to form because we all began to feel that there were only a few people we could trust. New people came and went, but most of them didn't last very long because the adults weren't making that same effort to connect with them. It was... like being in school, honestly.
There was one time, though, that I opened up to Joel about the fact that I wasn't a virgin, and honestly he took the news all too well for my liking, almost as though he didn't expect anything better from me. After that, Joel seemed to lose all respect for me. The next summer, my youth group went on their first-ever mission trip, and the best word I can use to describe it is disaster. The first half of the trip, we stayed in a church that got all of us sick, including myself and ran a Backyard Bible Camp in a local neighborhood. After that, we spent the next part of the trip camping in the Smokey Mountains. It was supposed to make the youth group stronger, but all it did was make the divides even deeper. While camping, I had an anxiety attack because of all the built-up stress. It was storming, and I don't like storms, and that night it just all came to a boiling point. My boyfriend at the time was on the trip with me, and he was trying to comfort me and make me feel better by putting his arm around me and holding my hand. We got a lecture about PDA when all he was trying to do was make me feel okay again. It was something that I, to this day, still can't understand.
I left for college at the end of that summer. I was going to Huntington University, a Christian school, to study Youth Ministry and Theatre Performance. I expected to be lit on fire again when I was at school, that being in that environment would have to reawaken me, but I was wrong. The group of people I fell in with had a lot of problems that came to the surface within the first few weeks of school. I went to the hospital twice for anxiety attacks. I had never felt so far from God in my life. Basically, it came to the point that I couldn't handle it and dropped out of school and came back home.
When I returned, I expected to be greeted with smiles and encouraging words, but instead I was met with ostracism and whispers. Somehow, word had gotten out that I wasn't a virgin. Also, terrible rumors had gone around the church that I had cheated on the boyfriend I had who went to that church and that I had broken his heart in a cruel and terrible way. Basically, most people in the church had come to believe I was a slut, a bitch, or both. I sat in the pew, though, and kept my head down and took it. One Sunday, though, I went to the alter to pray, and it was the first time no one ever came down to pray with me and support me. That was the day it broke.
I continued to go to church for a bit in my attempts to win my exboyfriend back, but after awhile, I simply couldn't do it anymore. I walked away.
Churches were never intended to be a place for judgment. The function of a church is to provide a safe, welcoming gathering place for believers and those searching. You're supposed to worship together and build each other up. Christians should work together to make this world a better place by showing their love and their desire for peace, but not so they can win souls or witness to people, but just because the world is sick and broken, and it needs some love! This is why I left, and this is why it's hard for me to consider making another venture into the Christian faith.
Love is the most important thing in this world, and yet the people who preach so often about love and what it really is are the ones who won't let their kids be friends with gay people, who spread terrible rumors and gossip, who advocate wars, who tell teenagers they're too young to be in love, who live their lives preaching love and breeding hate.
I know that some people will be offended by this blog, but I have been one of those people I just described. I kicked a best friend out of a leadership role in a Christian club at school because she came out and said she was bi. That decision permanently broke that friendship, and it was never rebuilt to the same height it was before. To me, that seems like the antithesis of what Jesus tried to teach people while He was on Earth.
I believe in love. I believe that we shouldn't place limits on what love is or on who our fellow human beings can love. I believe that we should try to love everyone and that everyone's purpose on Earth is to leave the world a little better than it was when they got here. I believe that war would be unnecessary if people would take responsibility for their part in achieving a better world and if we would learn to respect other cultures and desire their perseverance. I believe there is always hope.
When I was in high school, I was a Christian. I was very devoted and very zealous. I believed what I was taught and accepted what leaders told me was the corrected interpretation of the Bible to be the truth. I also spent A LOT of time struggling and feeling guilty. I cannot tell you how many times I prayed to God for the strength to stand up to temptation, and every time, I ended up giving in and messing around with whoever my boyfriend was at the time, and feeling terrible at it the next Sunday at church. My desire to have a boyfriend who loved me and wanted me and found me attractive was never quenched by God. I think this was the beginning of it: not understanding why God wouldn't take that temptation away from me and why He put guys in my life who could sense how easy it was for me to succumb to that weakness.
I continued to press on, though. I loved God, and I loved my church. My youth leaders, April and Johnny, were great. They cared about us so much, and I knew I could come to April with anything. She was never prone to giving you the easy answers, but she would always give you the honest answers. Not only did they care, but they showed us great respect. They believed we had a voice in the church and that we had the power to make a difference. And we did. Because of our youth group, more and more people started praying with each other at the alter and our church, for a brief time, became a safe place for people to open their hearts.
After a couple of years, though, we got a new youth pastor, Joel. And Joel was fun, and he was nice, but from the first Sunday he took over, that respect we had been privilege to with April and Johnny was thrown out the window. We no longer had any say in what we learned, we were no longer being challenged in lessons, and we were being hidden away in the corner of the church and no one believed we had the power to accomplish anything great anymore. Where the youth group had been fairly homogenous before, cliques started to form because we all began to feel that there were only a few people we could trust. New people came and went, but most of them didn't last very long because the adults weren't making that same effort to connect with them. It was... like being in school, honestly.
There was one time, though, that I opened up to Joel about the fact that I wasn't a virgin, and honestly he took the news all too well for my liking, almost as though he didn't expect anything better from me. After that, Joel seemed to lose all respect for me. The next summer, my youth group went on their first-ever mission trip, and the best word I can use to describe it is disaster. The first half of the trip, we stayed in a church that got all of us sick, including myself and ran a Backyard Bible Camp in a local neighborhood. After that, we spent the next part of the trip camping in the Smokey Mountains. It was supposed to make the youth group stronger, but all it did was make the divides even deeper. While camping, I had an anxiety attack because of all the built-up stress. It was storming, and I don't like storms, and that night it just all came to a boiling point. My boyfriend at the time was on the trip with me, and he was trying to comfort me and make me feel better by putting his arm around me and holding my hand. We got a lecture about PDA when all he was trying to do was make me feel okay again. It was something that I, to this day, still can't understand.
I left for college at the end of that summer. I was going to Huntington University, a Christian school, to study Youth Ministry and Theatre Performance. I expected to be lit on fire again when I was at school, that being in that environment would have to reawaken me, but I was wrong. The group of people I fell in with had a lot of problems that came to the surface within the first few weeks of school. I went to the hospital twice for anxiety attacks. I had never felt so far from God in my life. Basically, it came to the point that I couldn't handle it and dropped out of school and came back home.
When I returned, I expected to be greeted with smiles and encouraging words, but instead I was met with ostracism and whispers. Somehow, word had gotten out that I wasn't a virgin. Also, terrible rumors had gone around the church that I had cheated on the boyfriend I had who went to that church and that I had broken his heart in a cruel and terrible way. Basically, most people in the church had come to believe I was a slut, a bitch, or both. I sat in the pew, though, and kept my head down and took it. One Sunday, though, I went to the alter to pray, and it was the first time no one ever came down to pray with me and support me. That was the day it broke.
I continued to go to church for a bit in my attempts to win my exboyfriend back, but after awhile, I simply couldn't do it anymore. I walked away.
Churches were never intended to be a place for judgment. The function of a church is to provide a safe, welcoming gathering place for believers and those searching. You're supposed to worship together and build each other up. Christians should work together to make this world a better place by showing their love and their desire for peace, but not so they can win souls or witness to people, but just because the world is sick and broken, and it needs some love! This is why I left, and this is why it's hard for me to consider making another venture into the Christian faith.
Love is the most important thing in this world, and yet the people who preach so often about love and what it really is are the ones who won't let their kids be friends with gay people, who spread terrible rumors and gossip, who advocate wars, who tell teenagers they're too young to be in love, who live their lives preaching love and breeding hate.
I know that some people will be offended by this blog, but I have been one of those people I just described. I kicked a best friend out of a leadership role in a Christian club at school because she came out and said she was bi. That decision permanently broke that friendship, and it was never rebuilt to the same height it was before. To me, that seems like the antithesis of what Jesus tried to teach people while He was on Earth.
I believe in love. I believe that we shouldn't place limits on what love is or on who our fellow human beings can love. I believe that we should try to love everyone and that everyone's purpose on Earth is to leave the world a little better than it was when they got here. I believe that war would be unnecessary if people would take responsibility for their part in achieving a better world and if we would learn to respect other cultures and desire their perseverance. I believe there is always hope.
Comments
Post a Comment