I remember hearing so many stories throughout my life of how people were saved, often at an intense point in their life they would say a prayer and everything changed.
I don’t remember the first time I prayed and asked Jesus into my heart. He was just always there like a best friend. I could talk to the sky and somehow, he would hear and understand.
Still, the fact that I didn’t remember the day I was saved bothered me.
During the day Jesus was my best friend. I would talk and sing to the air as though he were listening. I’d throw my arms and embrace the wind as though it were a hug.
Alone at night in the dark, the fear set in.
Darkness is the devil’s playground and countless nights as a child, even an adult, I would tremble and cry in my bed begging God to save me.
The wind which embraced me in the day turned against me at night. It angered the trees who cast evil, prowling shadows on my window. If the day’s wind is a hug, than the night brought out his anger.
Storms were God’s fury. Thunder his booming voice and lightening the whip he cracked. As a frightened child I hid beneath my covers and confessed sins I didn’t understand. I begged forgiveness for everything I had done wrong, may have done wrong and would do wrong in the future. Then over and over I asked Jesus into my heart again.
This did not bring me any peace. During every storm I’d tremble and resubmit myself to God. I’d open every door of my heart and beg him to clean whatever mess I couldn’t see.
Nothing changed like you hear about in stories. But my faith grew stronger. I had to believe for fear of death and hell. I held on with all my emotional might and prayed and prayed for my heart to open.
My siblings and I were homeschooled my entire grade school life. The most important and focused topic was the bible. My parent’s said that if all I knew was the bible and how to defend it, that was all that mattered to them.
Every day we spent hours reading and analyzing every word. We accepted the wrong as right. Murder, rape and torture were sin, unless God told you to do it. Families stoned for theft. Cities burned for contrary beliefs.
Every night my father would do the same. We spent hours in prayer, learning the history of our country, (the evangelical history anyway) the bible it was founded on and how scary everything had gotten.
Any moment Jesus would return. While we were sitting there talking, while we slept, the next year. Our hearts had to be ready at any time. America had become corrupt with homosexuality, boys dressing like girls and sex outside of marriage. He compared us to Sodom and Gomora who God wiped out. Surely he will do the same to us.
He preached the evils of the friends and family we had, even the church we attended twice a week. He told us how unhappy he was and all the ways he dreamed of leaving our little town.
He wanted to live in an RV and travel. He wanted to buy a bunch of land so we could live off of it. We’d have a garden and animals to eat.
He said when we came of age we would build our own homes on his property and raise our families there.
The fear of my world being ripped from me was always imminent, but it was for God… my dad said he felt God’s leading. He said one day what he was trying to do would bring him lots of money and we could do whatever we want. Of course, he would also share his money with those in need.
Over the years things did change. My father wasn’t getting what he wanted from our church so he moved us two states away to a new church. That was the first of countless times we would be homeless.
My dad had an evolving story he would bring to every new church about his big, poor family and how the devil was attacking him because God had a will for him. It was confusing to me, because every so often what he was trying to do changed. But I couldn’t question him, only listen to him talk for hours and hours.
It was disrespect to question either of our parents and to do so meant punishment. Of course the bible said not to spare the rod, and it was common for us to be spanked to the point of welts and bruises. As young children they would spank us until our very will was broken. Until submission was our default.
After a short, but endless life of being thrown from city to city and church to church, I learned instability was God’s plan. I learned, even when we didn’t have a place to call home; God was good.
When we were running out of food and didn’t know where we would lay our head; God was good.
When the power was cut off and the only good meal we got was the potluck at Wednesday night bible study; God was good.
When we lived in tents and lost many belongings to them flooding, when we had to sell everything that didn’t fit into our car, when we were mocked by everyone for being loons, even then God was good.
Being hated meant you were in God’s will.
I believed. I had to believe. Sometimes my father would test our faith by asking why we believed in God. The answer couldn’t have to do with our parents. I would be so anxious to get it right and all he would give was a satisfactory nod.
I cried and prayed to God every day. When he didn’t reply, I prayed more. I knew I must be doing something wrong for me to not hear his voice. I learned to rely on my feelings in prayer as his response and my faith grew stronger.
My parents taught us that from the day you’re conceived you have sinned against God, and you’re destined to hell. From birth you are an evil human being. Covered in sackcloth and ashes, you are disgusting, not worth the love of anyone.
Predestination meant that when a baby died in the womb some would be taken to heaven and others to hell without even a chance for salvation. We were sinful, and God accepting even some of us made him good.
When I was less than 12-years-old I told my dad that it would have been better for me to not be born. My reason was I that wouldn’t have to go through the uncertainty of my soul’s salvation. I wouldn’t have to accept the gamble of heaven or hell. I would rather have not existed at all than to live through the fear and torment of religious uncertainty.
When I laid in bed at night I was scared to sleep in fear that God hadn’t chosen me. That no matter how much I prayed, how many acts of good and missions I did, it wouldn’t matter because I wasn’t one of his chosen.
Even our thoughts betrayed us to sin. Anger is just as bad as murder and too much attraction equals adultery. Yes, even as a kid I could betray my future husband by thinking of another.
I had a dream when I was a teenager that a man wanted to kiss me and I turned my head. Even in a dream I could not betray my future husband.
This level of faithfulness was praised by my parents. Still, there was much to be ashamed of.
When someone has done something wrong, (either to you or in your witness) as a child you go and tell your parents. When we approached our mom with concerns, she wouldn’t allow us to speak before saying, “Tell me what you did wrong.”
This taught me to look at every situation as though I had something to feel guilty and ashamed about. It reached a point where I couldn’t articulate or even understand what wrongs were done against me, (though the effects pained me) but I could write books on the many shames I had committed.
“Turn the other cheek” and “forgive 70x7”. This was the way of the bible. This was the way to be Christlike.
The problem with being a person who accepts the blame, others can sense it and will take full advantage.
Still it was good to be mistreated and shunned, this just brought you closer to God. After all, the world mistreated Jesus first.
Suffering=godliness.
Your suffering is also not as bad as you think it is. There was always a worse tale to share no matter what we were going through. Stories of martyrs who were literally tortured and killed for their beliefs. People who starved to death. A woman who was abused by her husband for going to church and left to sleep on the cold porch. These were our childhood heroes.
Every day I prayed to be saved from my hell on earth. Every day I felt the guilt of an ungrateful heart and forced contentment. I’d think of the fact that Jesus died for me when I was a filthy wretch and felt Jesus’ “love slap”. How stupid I was to forget his love no matter what my circumstances.
If you met me, I would always smile. People would talk about how happy of a person I was, and often I would wonder why. Could they not see me crumbling? Were my puffy eyes not obvious? It’s like I was smiling when I thought I was frowning. I felt myself dying away inside, but on the outside I showed happiness in the Lord and gratefulness no matter what my circumstances.
I was always looking for ways to feel closer to God. Hours praying, sleeping with my bible clung to my chest, reading as much of the bible as I could and singing in worship as loud as my voice would go.
When I was a teenager I got in trouble with my youth leader because I was singing the worship songs in the front row at the top of my lungs. I just wanted to be closer to God. I wanted him to hear me, to meet me where I was. I remember looking always to the ceiling, my arms literally reaching. Yes, I was that girl.
My youth leader said God called for “organized worship” and asked me to move back or quiet down.
It bothered me so much. All I wanted was for God to see me, to hear me and meet me. That’s what people in the bible did.
Worship was where I felt God the most. That high of invincibility. It was the closest I felt to heaven and I cried for God to return and let me stay in that moment in his kingdom forever.
When he told me to quiet down and move back it crushed me. I didn’t think he was right, but I took what he said as a leader and a man and quietly moved back. He thanked me at the end of worship and I felt that acknowledgement I so badly craved.
I wanted to be seen, known, understood. I wanted desperately to be loved. I was the one caring for others only to receive little to nothing in return. This was the godly thing to do, but secretly I dreamed of being noticed, being part of the crowd, someone adored by everyone around her. I’d daydream of people adoring me and considering me a dearest friend, only to be swept by the reality that my role in life was to be rejected and hated as Jesus was.
I used to fantasize about dying in front of everyone I wanted to accept me. It was always something where I take a bullet for someone else and in my last breath tell them I love them. That was the greatest form of love as the bible told; lay down your life for another. Perhaps then they would see.
Looking back, it breaks my heart to think that a teenage girl who gave her whole heart to others and her God would feel the only way she could truly be accepted was in death.
Makeup was very frowned upon. I got away with some mascara and chap stick, but more often than not I didn’t wear any. My father was very against it and criticized any woman who wore more than one item. He called it a “mask”.
The only jewelry I had were gifts from others and my purity ring, which I got around 14-years-old. Woman shouldn’t “adorn themselves”. They must cover up their beauty so as not to tempt or distract. We are merely meant to reflect so when people look at us they see God.
I would look at the other girls in church, their hair fixed beautifully, their makeup flawless, their clothes styled and fitting perfectly. I wanted to be one of them, or at least their friend. I envied the way they looked, but wouldn’t admit it.
I’d stand outside their circles smiling and laughing, fooling myself I was in the circle.
But I was outside. I was alone. I didn’t fit. Many acted uncomfortable around me. I’m sure it didn’t help that I didn’t go to school around kids my own age. I spent my days with kids younger than me. I loved them so much, I cared for them. That also meant my social skills were probably that of someone much younger.
I was also making up for the fact that I talked to kids all day and wanted to talk to someone my own age, so it all spilled out. Parents and teachers will understand.
This also got me into trouble with church leaders who saw my “clinginess” as an unhealthy relationship, not realizing how much I was being neglected. Not knowing how badly I needed love, attention and affection.
I smiled, and still I called myself blessed because I had Jesus. Perhaps it was a survival tactic pretending I was accepted, but I acted like I fit in, I convinced myself I was in. Maybe one day I will be…
Your talents and ambitions do not belong to you, they belong to the Lord. Everything you are, everything you want must be put aside. Who you are must not matter, because his path is all that does. And somehow, if you do it right, what he wants will become your desires.
This complicated things. Most of the time it was bad to want things, yet somehow I’m supposed to desire what God wants for me. The message didn’t line up and my prayers answered by emotions only confused me more. You want something, so you pray and accept that’s what God wants from you. Then when it fails you must accept that you were wrong. You focused on your own desires rather than listening to God, even after spending countless hours in prayer and the word.
I would pray that God would take away any desires that were not from him and fill me with those that were. Still, I failed and failed. Things I thought were from him would fall apart. I couldn’t make sense of it and spiraled in a shame cycle of misunderstanding.
My father wanted to be rich. A pastor’s wife even told him she was praying, and God said he would be a millionaire. The idea of us having stability, enough money to do what we wanted and not become homeless every few months gave me a thrill I didn’t dare embrace. I knew the pattern.
I also wondered how this idea of getting everything my father wanted, lined up with eternal suffering and having a hard life because you’re in God’s will. The messages seemed to contradict.
My mind was in a constant battle of trying to think the right thing, believe the right thing, desire only God, stay within his will, try to accept his great promise without falling into greed.
There had to be a balance and I just wasn’t finding it. These were all things I found in the bible, so somehow there must be an answer.
In high school I had a crush on a boy who actually hung out with me. (Unlike 99% of the other boys I would admire from afar.) We hung out in the church youth group for a few weeks, we’d partner up with games and talk in the corner. I remember one day to get him to come along I accidently grabbed his hand and the electric feeling from it shook me to my core. It was like it connected us and caused my stomach to flutter.
It was a short time of dreaming before I was told he came out as gay. This shook my world. Not only did someone I liked not like me, but everything I had been taught told me he would go to hell. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. My friend, just another teenager trying to figure his life out.
He and I started hanging out because he was quietly on the outside. Those were the people I actually connected with, the wallflowers, the ones who didn’t dare sit in the front row like I did, or try to be part of the in-crowd.
This boy had done no one wrong, yet coming out changed everything. He quit coming to church almost immediately. I saw him one day hiding on the side of the room, barely looking up, mardi gras beads around his neck. I regret not speaking to him. Not letting him know I was still his friend no matter what. I was 14 and didn’t know how to handle the situation. I had been taught that homosexuality wasn’t just wrong, but it should be feared.
He was just a kid like me.
I always wondered about him. What happened to him or where he ended up. Wherever he is today, I hope he found happiness.
For my whole life I was a sponge. I wanted to learn, to make sense of it all. I thrived sitting down with pastors and other men of wisdom and knowledge to have deep conversations or ask questions.
Sitting with the men was where the good discussions were. Usually, the woman were not supposed to teach. Most of them stuck to topics of motherhood, being a good wife and gossip.
The men spoke of my favorite book, the bible. They spoke of history and philosophy. They would get deep into conversations that would last for hours. I joined in and impressed them with my knowledge and perspective. It filled me with pride being validated by men, especially my father.
I asked a lot of questions. I remember going back and forth with a pastor on how God could hate but not know hate. With every answer he gave I pushed back contradictions until he shut me down with, “that’s why you have to have faith.”
I felt ashamed like I was in the wrong, a teenage girl questioning a pastor. And another question was buried.
There were other pastors who would laugh at my points against their teaching. “Oh good one,” they might say or just brush me off.
The message taught from church to church or person to person was different and it confused me. In my efforts to obey I was always offending someone in a way I didn’t mean.
Around the time I turned 18 the pastor we were under told a story about his parents coming to visit. I cannot remember which religion they were under, but it wasn’t Christianity. He was a new pastor and excited to show his church to them.
They drove through the bible belt town and saw all the different denominational churches before getting to his. His parents stopped and said they no longer wanted to see his church. Their reason was that in their religion everyone followed the same teaching. They understood. What he had shown them was that Christians were divided and not confident in the biblical teaching.
This shook me.
I had been taught all my life that all other religions were wrong to the point of eternal flames. Even Catholics who taught the bible were wrong and destined to eternal torture. Worse, even other denominations within the evangelical church.
I attended churches of multiple denominations and every one had something bad to say about another. Even pastors turned on pastors.
Not only did it bother me that there wasn’t consistency, but the level of “I’m right, you’re wrong, no question” did not make sense. It didn’t line up with brotherly love.
One of my biggest questions was how people could study the same book and come up with such vastly different answers. And they all could point to the bible for why they believed what they believed, and they’d be correct, but contradict.
Predestination could be backed up along with free will. Blanket salvation vs selective. The need to embrace everyone yet shun certain groups.
You had to just have faith. You should be seeking answers rather than questioning. Reaffirm, not doubt.
Then there was the fear that God hid himself from me because of sin or my own doubting heart. Maybe the things I didn’t understand were my heart’s fault.
At 18 I ran away from home. My parents wanted me to come back, but I feared even stepping foot back in their home would trap my mind again.
I was raised to be a wife and mother, to move from my father’s home to my husband’s. My only “job” training was taking care of kids, which I was burned out on from caring for my siblings my whole life. I was even referred to as the “second mom” at home.
My grandfather showed me how to get a job, a car and handle my finances. This was a game changer, but the rest was up to me.
I had a sham of a diploma, as I’d just heard the same low grade lesson over and over with my younger siblings. I also had zero social skills and the only thing I could easily conversate on was the bible.
This was the time my faith really started to get tested.
You could say, I had to figure out what I believed for myself. Something everyone has to do eventually.
Then, on top of everything else I wasn’t prepared for, there was dating. As my parents had taught me, I was waiting for a man to make that move.
God was still most important to me. If you met me, you knew I was a Christian. People I worked with made fun of my trust level. I’d give away my last dollar to someone who said they needed it in faith it would come back to me.
If you don’t see a monetary blessing come back to you, it’s probably because it came back in a different way; like encouragement from a friend.
I did not stand up for myself in anything, though I was that outspoken Christian who would stand up for God. No matter how unfairly I was treated, I took it all. I accepted it as my Christian cost.
At 19 my friend pushed me to sign up for a dating site. I wanted a husband, but I was very uncomfortable with this idea. Her persistence was unrelenting, and eventually I did it.
My first boyfriend called himself a Christian and went to church. So, he checked all the boxes. He also lived almost 2 hours away and didn’t drive on the highway, so I made all the trips. It didn’t matter though, because it’s good to put in effort and give everything you have to others.
Our first kiss was a disappointment, but it sealed my fate. My body was only to be given to one person, so he must be it.
We went as far as me giving him oral sex. Then I discovered he was cheating and my world collapsed.
No one is ready for their first heartbreak, but especially if it’s pounded in you that you belong to one person from the day you were born and even a thought otherwise is adultery.
My best friend and I pondered over what exactly virginity was. Did me performing oral sex mean my virginity was lost? My purity given away?
Many around me agreed I was very wrong in what I had done. I was tarnished, broken, used. My value had diminished. What good Christian man would want me now? If they did, they’d have a lot to forgive and must be a good Christian to look past my transgressions. I had betrayed God’s temple and my future husband.
While in my heartbreak I was introduced to a debatably single guy who was a friend of my friend.
My body was going through things I didn’t understand. Of course, masturbation was sinful, so I was extremely aroused and didn’t know how to handle it. This guy did.
My self-worth had dropped by a million, not that it was very high to begin with. He pushed my limits where I wasn’t ready to go. He was a sneaky boundary pusher, the kind who would push way too far so that when you stopped him and he did something else too far, but less, it felt better than what he tried before. Next thing you know his hand is in your pants and you don’t know what's happening.
He pushed until he had my virginity. Then he kept pushing to the point of raping me.
When confronted by Christians about my impure relationship I committed I would marry him out of faithfulness to God. After all, even God said if a woman is raped, she must marry her rapist.
The day after my virginity was lost, he removed my purity ring from my finger and put it on his hand, “because I took your purity.” His own symbol that he had taken my innocence from me.
Looking back, I realize how much of a game I was, my ring the trophy he had won.
I gave my body, my heart, my home and he used it to seduce another. But look at Hosea who married a prostitute and kept letting her back in no matter how many times she took other lovers. The stories I’d been told taught me that one day God would convict him and our relationship would become united and beautiful for him.
That was the love of God, the love in me. I took him back over and over, back to the abuse until he was done with me.
Life could not be any worse. I could not be a worse person.
I cut my skin to punish myself and express the pain deep inside. “Broken” “Worthless” “Unwanted” branded into my flesh. That’s what I was. No one wanted me. Most shunned and family disowned. The loving, forgiving bible followers could not be a part of my devil play.
Little did they know I still cried out to God every day. Could he hear me in my sin? See me in the dark pit I couldn’t escape?
I believed my home must be filled with demons because I was so full of lust I didn’t know how to control.
A night at rock bottom I was ready to end my life. I prayed to God if he was there to do something. In that moment a friend texted. It felt like a sign and my faith was renewed.
That weekend I went to the Passion Conference. I was sick with a fever, but when Chris Tomlin (who was my favorite Christian artist) started playing, I began singing with everything I had.
In a room of 22,000 people, you can shout out and sing with all your might, no one will stop you. I screamed and raised my arms to the sky. It was like I found heaven and was singing with the angels.
After that trip I felt strength to go on.
When I returned home I became homeless for 10 days. I would sit on my trunk during the day and read my bible. I blasted “Our God” through my speakers over and over.
A few months later I found out I was pregnant with someone I had just broken up with. This changed everything.
The place I was staying kicked me out, friends and family pulled even further away; I was alone. The church came around enough to make sure I didn’t have an abortion, but to be a part of the church would have required a public apology.
It’s a sucky place to be in, clinging to God but not in the way people like. The expectation is to not make mistakes. The standard is put on you by those who did, but somehow you shouldn’t.
A few months in, me and my baby’s father got back together. I was told I shouldn’t move in with him by all the people who didn’t want anything to do with me. All the church goers who sat in their homes which God blessed them with.
It’s so easy to judge from a place of privilege.
But what about me? Was I so messed up? Was I still paying for the sins of my father?
My relationship with church was up and down. Being pregnant I had to raise my son in the church, so it became consistent again.
I loved singing in the choir. Really, I had always wanted to sing solos, but didn’t have any training and was not confident to ask. I also struggled with how badly I craved the spotlight, because seeking attention for myself was wrong. I tried to convince myself that my desire for the spotlight was just to give God glory. I wanted that to be it. But I craved center stage and that standing ovation.
When my son was older I moved back to the place I called home. By this time I had married my baby’s father and we were now separated.
That year brought a lot of growth and trial for me. I sought medical help for my self-harm and was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and PTSD from the trauma I had experienced.
Growing up my parents didn’t take us to the doctor. They even cut a cyst out of my back at home with an x-acto knife to avoid the medical bill.
Me taking this step was taking care of me and it changed so much. I was put on medication and felt more like myself again.
My separated husband was dating so, perhaps a little out of spite, I did the same. This took me back to an all too familiar feeling; shame.
At the time I had joined the church praise band. I felt another level of responsibility to be good because I was, on a small scale, a leader.
Back and forth I went between hooking up and crying in church because I felt guilty.
I would hear Christians talk about the “bar on Saturday, church to confess on Sunday” type of attitude and that made me feel even worse. I was honestly struggling with what was right, what was wrong and even trying to figure out who I was. This was the first time in my life where I wasn’t in a relationship, living on my own and able to really make my own choices.
I met someone new on the dating app, he was a good Christian guy, but far from judgmental. He was a virgin saving himself for love. We talked for hours, fell asleep on the phone together, when he visited he actually wanted to spend time with me. We had similar silly interests like the Disney channel, but also had deep conversations about God, the church and the bible.
Our lives were being pulled in two different directions so we didn’t date for long, but he left me with a greater love for myself. With hope. I saw myself in new eyes, I believed I was worth love and respect no matter what my past looked like.
A year after separation, my husband and I began to work on healing our relationship. It took some time but out of that year we became closer and stronger than ever before.
I was in the church praise band for over 2 years. It started as a “come play your guitar” and I basically became a backup singer and guitarist.
There wasn’t a ton of structure which made it easy to get started. But as with anything I wanted to grow, and honestly, I wanted more mic time.
When I started in the band I was a single mom who worked full time. Giving time to the praise team took so much out of me, but I wanted it. I wasn’t getting paid and there wasn’t any talk about how official I was. They just wanted a fuller band and I wanted to sing.
I felt closest to God during worship. But I struggled with my pride and selfishness because I wanted more.
Sometimes it felt like I was getting more musical opportunities, then I would get pushed right back. Any efforts I made were shut down by the female soloist. There were weeks I would be the only female singer at practice, but then she would show up Sunday and take back the solos or sing over me. So I’d show up for work but she would get the praise.
She would also say many hurtful things and I would often come home crying.
The problem is, you’re supposed to love your neighbor and even those who hurt you. As someone helping lead worship I felt even more weight over my mindset and heart. If I was feeling a certain way to someone in the band it could affect the atmosphere for the congregation.
I liked going to that church because the pastor gave information to make you think. He was far more open to my endless questioning than others had been. I didn’t think I was getting many answers, but the questioning was more welcome.
As far as the praise band went, anytime I sought help it was put on me. After all, you are responsible for your own church experience.
This idea of “church experience” was another struggle for me. It felt more like a cop-out. Basically every church said the same thing, “You get out of it what you put into it.”
After all the volunteering, cleaning up trash, helping out in Sunday school, showing up, praying, engaging, opening my heart till it bled on the floor, all of it was somehow not enough. In fact, the more I engaged in the church the less close to God and more confused I felt.
I started seeing how prayer requests were mostly righteous gossip. Arguments were had by everyone believing they knew the right way to run a church. One person’s worship experience demonized by another who felt God in a different way. The amount of talk led by no action. The judgement by those who “sin differently.”
I wondered how those who follow an almighty God could pour out so much hate. How an almighty, all powerful God could produce so little salvation.
People told stories of the holy spirit moving in others, but always during special events of heightened emotions. Who was living the Christ like life they preached?
I was bothered by how much church members preached of what others should do. Calling athletes and celebrities to donate their millions as they sat there with the latest cell phone and fancy clothes and couldn’t even be bothered to go out and serve the homeless. Somehow Christian charity is dependent on how much you make. If you’re not a millionaire, you’re off the hook.
But of course, that is people. Maybe some people just get it wrong, but God has it right.
I settled in the reality that I’d have to die to get the answers. When I stood before God I would have him explain everything.
If everyone is so sure they are right with views that completely contradict, is everyone actually wrong and only God has the hidden answer? But why doesn’t he share? Why does he leave people desperate to serve him with words that cause so much division?
The person causing problems for me in the band got into a disagreement with the leadership and left the church. I was now the female vocalist. The worship leader and I had a rhythm going and I soaked up every opportunity.
One day, without any communication or warning, the church leaders brought in some new band members. They were seeing if the guy could become their worship leader and his wife a vocalist as well.
I held myself together as best as I could, but this wrecked me. I put my heart and soul into the band, even the church for nothing in return. Not even recognition. Instead, I was disrespected and walked all over.
This couple was the type that came in with their own ideas and just told people how it would be. I was sung over, things I brought were taken and used without request, but what was I to say? Leadership acknowledged the problems and did nothing.
I was returned to the background. Ignored and pushed aside. I prayed and tried to just show up for God. That’s who it was really about, and I had to let my selfish desires go.
Eventually it was too much and I quit the band. Some comments were made about “missing me up there” but nothing changed.
There was so much toxicity in the worship team. The group meant to lead a congregation in worship to an almighty God. I couldn’t wrap my head around it.
But it is the personal relationship with God that matters most, no matter what the people around me said. So when an opportunity came to do a deep dive study into the bible, I was there.
Just like with everything else studying only brought more questions and confusion. I was told by my pastor that the more confused I was the more I was getting it. How? Isn’t God not a God of confusion, yet all his people cannot be on the same page?
I started comparing bibles I owned, some older, some newer, some of different translations. Of course people couldn’t get on the same page when every new bible was a little different. After thousands of years of these, how much had it changed?
I’d watched teachers in church hop from one bible to the next depending on which translation matched their message. I’d heard breakdowns in translations and how words changed over the years.
Bible translations were as divided as church denominations. No wonder everyone fought and couldn’t get on the same page.
My salvation doubts were bubbling higher to the surface. I’d asked Jesus into my heart countless times, poured every corner of my heart out, but I didn’t have that moment people spoke of where I said the prayer and felt Jesus enter me.
When I brought this fear up with my pastor he was unfazed and assured me I was saved.
I’d heard this so many times over the years, “I see God in you.” But how can they see my heart, my soul? What did they see beyond a bright-eyed girl talking about what she had been told and clung to for her own safety?
I believed it with every part of me but it had not been enough. I put blame and burden on myself for my experience and that wasn’t enough. I cried and begged God to save me, change me, and everything continued to fall apart. I watched good Christian people trust in a God who destroyed the lives around them. I watched cancer and hate win more battles than the God we all prayed to for help.
My belief was crumbling. Again I sat down with my pastor to try to make sense of the one core thing that held everything together; the bible. Why are those words the only truth we hold? How are we certain these words are God inspired?
The answer shattered everything.
Put simply, the bible was written by different men over two thousand years. A group of men collected these and other records, studied and found what they believed went together. These writings were determined the holy words of God himself. They were then translated and tweaked over and over until we reached the bibles we have today.
I don’t know what answer I expected, but this was not it. For me it sounded like a 4,000 yearlong game of telephone. The bible was what a certain group believed to be true. A book which divided families and denominations. Divine words which caused so much confusion.
Why would a God who walked the earth and spoke directly to people in bible times settle with being a “feeling” or “stirring” in modern times? Why would a God who sees and hears every thought and tear be willing to sit back and watch his own book destroy families, lives and nations?
I didn’t go back to church for a while. I struggled. Though my faith crumbled I couldn’t admit it even to myself because I was terrified.
There is a reason you don’t question God. Because if you do and get it wrong, you land alone in eternal torture. Not even thrown out to just die, no. Flames to consume you, burn your flesh and your bones but never give you the relief of death. I couldn’t fully face my doubts no matter how little it made sense because I was terrified. To face my doubts would be to open the gates of hell itself and walk right in.
Many assumed my struggles were due to the fact that my brother was gay or my feelings were hurt over the way I was treated in the church band. These were surface level. The questions and breakdowns I struggled over were years in the making. Every question shrugged off by a pastor or leader piled into a mountain I could no longer see over.
I struggled with how people viewed me, just another rebellious young adult wanting to run from church.
One Sunday I felt the need to just try. Go to church, see if God would meet me, give me some answers or even reassurance.
I snuck into the back pew and became as invisible as possible. I didn’t want people to see me but I needed God to see me. I needed hope, an answer.
Instead I had a panic attack through the entire service, cried and ran out the moment it was over.
In the next year I began to face some of my realities. So much of the fear I had left was from what people thought and expected of me. Most people who knew me admired the fact that I was a believer. Most every other thing about me was alien or rejected by family, friends and strangers. Being in a Christian family in the middle of the bible belt, nothing else was even slightly acceptable.
My greatest fear was no longer hell, but people.
I couldn’t help but wonder, how can someone who lives the worst life go to heaven for a prayer, while someone who lives a moral life be sent to hell to be tortured because they didn’t?
A man rapes children his whole life and repents right before death, he will go to heaven to worship God next to his victims.
A detective spends his life catching predators, loves and cares for his family, but lands in eternal torture because he didn’t have enough evidence to believe there was a God out there.
When does the punishment not fit the crime? Even for God who makes his own rules, at what point is the debt of not glorifying someone who leaves so much mystery become mere cruelty?
We are told the fact that the world is so complex is proof there must be a God. But “I don’t know how it happened” doesn’t automatically equal “God.” It means we don’t know.
And even if “I don’t know” did equal “God”, how can you be sure it’s the God of the bible?
When Adam and Eve ate the fruit, why not just start over? Why torture something you created because you didn’t make it do what you wanted? Why not just throw out the pot and start again?
But the devil caused all the bad stuff. Okay, if that is accurate then the devil must be as powerful as God, but he is only an angel. Yet this one angel is the scape goat for everything bad that happens under “God’s” holy watch.
Outside of the church the worst thing you can become is an atheist. You shouldn’t even talk to them because they hate God and everything good.
Well, God is the most powerful, right? If you ask God into your heart then not even demons can touch you, so why be afraid of people who believe differently?
There is a very big reason why you don’t open yourself to others or question your belief. It has to be reinforced daily, so you don’t lose it. So you don’t start seeing things differently. Because once you stop pounding the bible into your head you might start to think… to see.
The most important question in the universe; is God really out there? The most dangerous question to answer wrong, yet we are left with a bible we can’t agree on and faith in our own feelings to receive answers through prayer.
The bible tells us that he walked the earth and spoke to people. All these thousands of years later we are still supposed to wait.
I lost my faith in my desperate attempt to keep it. For 27 plus years I begged God to speak to me, fill me, change me. All I felt were emotional highs and guesses at his answers.
I tried believing independently, away from the toxicity I found in church, but God still wasn’t there. I tried spirituality but again there were only emotional moments.
So many religions have similar stories and beliefs to Christianity, which was another confusing thing since I’d been taught there was nothing like Christianity.
I learned a lot of the wonders of the universe were slowly getting explained by science. So many of the things I was taught to be true were not.
Why should we put blind faith into a book written by men? How do we know they were inspired by a creator when countless others claimed the same?
My heart is not stone. I still enjoy good, deep conversation, but I no longer settle for an answer just because it’s said in church or from the bible.
Call me “Doubting Thomas” if you want, he was the most rational character in the bible stories. He wasn’t going to believe a dead man was alive unless he saw it.
The reality of an almighty God should not be a mystery.
My questions remain unanswered. Finally letting go was trauma on top of trauma. Yet, I made it through un-scorched.
I have not found the evidence I need to believe God is real or the message of the bible is true.
Perhaps there is some creator or perhaps scientists will find all the answers to the earth in the decades to come. But “perhaps” is not enough to base my life on.
So until I learn or am given reason to believe otherwise, I am an atheist. This just means that I do not have enough evidence to believe a God is real.
I understand why people believe. I’ve lived the fear that drives faith. I’ve also known some beautiful Christian people who just want to love those around them with what they believe to be Christ-like love.
I still have respect for many of the pastors I sat under. I also believe that most of us are just doing the best we can with the tools we have been given.
Atheism does not mean close minded or angry, though understandably some are.
Most of my relationships are Christian people who I love. I do not want to lose or change those relationships. I’m still me, I just have some different views.
My greatest fear is losing or being shunned by those I love, but I cannot hide or lie about what I believe.
As I love you as a fellow beautiful human, I hope you can love me as you believe Christ would.
YouTube Interview: https://youtu.be/iLkVg3QWuks?si=vreQLAIr1gv-dtxr
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikasamss/
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