A Story

Hope you all like the new design! Here's a story i wrote during the time that i was still in my old church, but in the midst of deciding to leave. Well, it's not really fiction. It's me describing a beautiful moment that i will hold dear for the rest of my life:

Photo by XxLifeIsOursxX

Yesterday was a hard day. It's kind of been a hard week. one of those weeks when life is heaver then usual. I felt covered in it. Gunked up by the steps the last few days had brought me. It was poring rain outside. It was already dark and i still had a two hour drive ahead of me before i reached home, but the pull was too much. I pulled my car onto a side road hidden by tall trees and got out. The rain ran down the road and pooled around my feet and soaked through my clothing. I closed my eyes and drank it in. I leaned against my car and begged the rain to wash it all away. It's so strange. To think something so physical could reach something so deep. But i begged it still and let it pour into my soul. I breathed in the wet and let it fill my lungs, and then i waited. The water wet my hair and pooled down my face. It rushed down the bank of the pavement and curled against my shoes. My clothes pulled in the rain and let it run down my arms and back. I faced the heavens and closed my eyes and was enveloped by the rain.

The storm slowed to a drizzle and i breathed a sad sigh. I couldn't really expect the rain to wash away the years. I couldn't expect it to wipe away all my mistakes and heal my life. I wanted it to. I wanted it to keep raining until everything was washed away. To leave everything at the side of the bank. I can still smell it. The earth and the mist. The wet air that filled my lungs and made my hair cling to my neck. It smelled like redemption. But it didn't fill. It didn't wash me clean like it promised. It cleansed my skin and soaked my soul, but it couldn't reach deep enough. It couldn't reach down to the core of who i am. Of who i didn't want to be.

The Shack's god

I finally talked to my mom about how i feel about the bible's god (see the post "Why I'm screwed with the bible's god"). I cried so hard when i finally admitted all it out loud.

A few months ago my Mom had read me a book called The Shack. In it, god was portrayed as someone whom i wanted so badly to be real. He was the person i ached for. I longed for. This god would have loved and accepted me no matter what i was, what i did, or if i never got it right. And i bitterly hated that book. I hated that someone would lie to me. That someone would tell me that god was everything I so desperately wanted, when i didn't see him at all in the bible's god.

I guess i can see the few passages about god's unconditional (unconditional = no matter what you do) love correspond with the god of the shack. But what about all those verses about stipulations, holy judgment and righteous vengeance in the new testament? What about the killing and punishment and genocide that god carried out in the old testament? That is not the god of the Shack. And this fact broke me, because i wanted the shack's god to be real. i needed to believe in that kind of god. It gave me life, it gave me peace, it gave me much needed hope. But it wasn't real.

I cried all this to my mom with all my depression and pain poring out. I hate doing that to my mom because i know she feels the weight of it all and i know it wears on her even though she says it's ok and always treats me with love and understanding. i love her so much.

After i had finished bleeding my heart out, she asked me if i would just forget about the bible. forget about heaven, forget about hell. What if all i knew was that some guy died for me because he loved me. She asked me what kind of man really would do that for me? What kind of god would really create the beauty of nature? What would happen if i just went from there and tried to know that god? And honestly, before men put the bible together, that's all people had to go off of. What kind of god would begin to show its self if i only took that?

Then she took me upstairs and read me Galatians from the message. She was right. it wasn't law. it wasn't written by the hand of god. it was just a story from a humble man. I recognized so many verses in that letter that had been taken completely out of context and skewed to pour guilt on to the members of our old church and to support the pastors agenda, to make laws, and to keep us in line. Actually when you think about it, when god wanted a written record of laws, he wrote them himself on stone tablets

So, I'm no longer reading the bible, or letting myself recall verses from it. Honestly, I really doubt that the bible is holy. It's not law. It's stories. It's men's opinions. And while it's true they were men that walked with Jesus, and when their letters are taken with a grain of salt and as a whole and not just as individual verses, there is probably some helpful advice in them. I'm just not going to be able to read it for a very long time. I don't want to be bound or hurt anymore by men's opinions.

I wonder what will happen now. i don't have words written in stone on what to believe and what to do to gain god's good will. all i know is that someone died for me because he loved me so very much. And that thought is one that makes me want to cry because i feel so very loved, and it starts to fill the emptiness of my heart. I wonder if i will every truly begin to believe that the shack's god exists.

Wounded

Abut 2 weeks ago i was feeling better about everything. The anger at my old pastor and the congregation wasn't very strong that day, and it was a beautiful early morning as i drove up to my favorite lookout feeling free from pain and depression for a few precious hours. It was like i could feel my wounds healed over. The scars still remained, but they didn't bleed. And at that moment, I felt a love for god. So after debating it for a while, i decided to tell him that i liked him today.

What i felt in return was a bitter, "Oh sure, NOW you love me." said with a bitter scowl. And the wound over my heart ripped open again as if freshly stabbed. I wouldn't blame him for not wanting to come rushing back to me after i had spent so many months hating him. But even though i deserved it, i hated him for it. I tried to tell myself that that wasn't god. That it was just the enemy. That the devil was trying to trick me. But i didn't really believe that. At my core i really believed it was from the bible's god, my old church's god, and i hated that he would hurt me like that.

My Back Story

My story begins with a need to feel accepted and loved.

I went to church almost every Sunday up until two years ago. If you were sick on Sunday, it was just the devil trying to keep you from "god's gift" for you that Sunday. You could either persevere though it and drag yourself to church, or stay at home with the heaping guilt wondering if this was the week god was finally going to answer your prayers, but you were to lazy to go receive it. Way to miss it because of a little stomach ache.

Looking back now, I realize just how well i knew the system at my old church. In Sunday school I knew that standing at the back of the line and looking just self-sacrificing enough would get you moved to the front as a praised example of how "the last shall be first". Even at an early age i was told by my peers that i was wise and had great insight into spiritual workings. Comments that would be seen as snippy and judgmental in any other setting were always praised. In my teen years pronouncing that someone had a "sexual spirit" (aka: any girl that got more attention then the pastor's daughter) was encouraged and rewarded with a smile and a pat on the back from the leaders, and the knowledge that you might have just proved yourself worthy to be invited to that next exclusive prayer and worship session (provided that you shunned and talked bad about all the right people). I'm shocked even now that i didn't realize how messed up and manipulative it all was. How manipulative and mean i was being. I thought that's how god wanted me to act. I thought i was doing what was right.

Even though i was good at the game, i didn't have enough to offer to be part of the "in crowed" at church (i shall call them the "Poplars"). I didn't play and instrument, and couldn't sing very well, so i was no use to the worship teem or a band that would increase their hip status. My parents didn't have a lot of money so they didn't need me that way. Bottom line is that i didn't have anything to offer the poplars, so i was always on the outskirts of the "undesirables" (the people who were deemed spiritually unhealthy), but since i was unquestioningly loyal, i was kept close enough incase they ever needed to use me for their means. which they did, and to my shame, i carried out zealously.

But it wasn't enough for me to just serve them. I wanted to be accepted by them. i became desperate to fix any perceived flaws in myself. I took every message the paster preached as laws that i had to become perfect in applying to my life. I became paranoid of having any sin in me, but could never make myself good enough. I could always feel my shortcomings like broken bones that would never heal. I couldn't purge myself of my sin nature. i didn't even have to actually sin, the impulses alone was enough to remind me of the depth of my brokenness and i would instantly be reminded of why i wasn't good enough to hang out with my leaders.

I meet with the pastors wife to express my feelings of exclusion, and to ask what i had done that made me unworthy. She told me that i couldn't expect friendship from my leaders, and that i was there to serve them. So i went home broken, embarrassed, ashamed, and with the pain of rejection carving its self deeper into my being.

When i finally came to realize that i would never be accepted by my peers, and allowed myself to see all the people i had hurt and shunned in the name of "Holiness", i left the church. Sounds like an obvious thing to do, but it was so scary because the paster always told horror stories about what happens to people after they leave the "covering" of their Apostle. Cars crash, people die, they are possessed by spirits that tormented them and their children. Basically, if you left the church, you chose to leave God's blessings and were no longer protected from the arrows of the enemy. You can imagine how bad things had to be for me to choose the devils wrath over what i was experiencing at church.

Fortunately my decision to leave coincided with an internship 2 hours away, so for the next year and a half i had a convenient excuse to miss a lot of services. However, in a new town with no friends i spent the majority of my weekends at home. Despite my pleading, my dad set the rule that if i was at home, i had to attend their church. So for most Sundays out of the next 19 months i would arrive late, spent two tormented hours sitting in the back while trying to hide from people, all the while feeling guilty that i had turned my back on god and the pastor, as the painful memories of rejection burned themselves deeper into my already open wounds.

8 months ago my family decided to leave the church. There was a church wide meeting to "pass judgment" on us. My parents had been mentors to many of the members and the pastor didn't want "confusion" to break out in the congregation. As a result we were shunned. Despite my previous decision to leave, this cut deeper then any event to date. I had attended this church from the time i was 5 (i was now 22), and friends that had helped raised me, and their kids whom i had in turn watched grow up, now wouldn't even speak to me or my family.

8 months later, i still bleed from it all. I am question every thing i learned or experienced about god, life, grace, freedom, hell, relationships, politics, redemption, healing, acceptance, friendship, forgiveness, and so much more. This is a record of my journey as i try to sort out what is truth, what is lies, and what simply cannot be known. It is a place where i can come and bleed, rant, vent, whine, muse, and ponder. And all of this i send out for anyone who will listen to my story.