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.

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.