This is Me... 100% Honest.

Sometimes being honest about how you feel and what you think is one of the hardest things. For me, it makes me wonder who will view me differently, think I'm crazy, or be unable to relate.
But... this isn't really for other people. It's for me. It is me. I've been caught up in this confusion and doubt for quite awhile now - these frustrations and questions are just adding up. So, finally, I sat down to write about it. Below is what came out - it's lengthy, to be sure, but it really conveys the twisted path I've been on. The waters I've been holding my head up in. I'm sorry if you disagree or feel offended. My aim is just to find TRUTH.

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I’ll be the first to admit that sometimes Christianity emerges as an image in my mind of the sullen dulling of a colored pencil. The pencil, some off-shaded pastel color has smooth round edges and offers no resistance to being used.

It’s stored safely in the right-hand side of a pencil box, securely tucked in the third drawer of a soft oak cabinet in a tired, musty sitting room. A room where only men and women with the color drawn from their hair will sit and watch the clock on the wall above the cabinet tick away the small amount of time they have left.

I’ll admit to you that at times it seems like the vessel that sucks the very lifeblood from its participators. Old churches. Dusty books. The monotonous tone of weary choir voices. All in coop with rules and regulations that take no account of the ways and demands of today’s society.
Despite the harrowing feeling of being fastened to a life-long stiff board that would sometimes rise within, I always followed religiously. I followed because all my stock was in the system; all my security and purpose and hope, all my friends and conversations and dreams. From a young age, I had morphed into a girl who couldn’t stand on her own two feet if Jesus didn’t will it. I felt safe in that range and shunned those who clearly weren’t on the path of righteousness.

Doubts were never an issue because my proof was in the bag; I had been told that those who didn’t follow were leading themselves into death and I wasn’t going to take that route. I had been told a lot. In retrospect, I will admit, I blindly followed without question. They got me at my most vulnerable age and clenched me up until my sensible, truth-demanding personality could stand it no longer. They told me everything they believed because someone else had told them because their parents raised them that way. And I began to see that that’s all it was. A weathered meal ticket of reassurance desperately passed down from generation to generation.
On my path to deep breaths and freedom en route of unclenching the thick, desperate Christian grip around my neck, I entered into four distinct phases of questioning; each, in my opinion, a bit more dramatic than the previous. The first phase, and most inevitable for the emotionally-laden and truth-seeking rejecter of palpable lies, was my questioning of the validity of the Catholic Church.

Sixteen years of dry priests, sacraments, mass and holy water and I couldn’t take it anymore.

I found it to be a hideous system that only trumps its competitors by being the longest standing extension of Christ’s work and the owner of the most exquisitely architected buildings filled with yawners.
I found they work against the goal of archaeology; the dirt that gets dug up against them is quietly shoveled back into the hole by the defenders of this ‘universal church.’ They triumph over their long-standing traditions while their eyes glaze over the historical abuses of the Body of Christ.
Rather than staring at truth of the Word of God with open eyes, they stare at ancient, yellowed documents to find their answers from men who were more confused than themselves. They answer questions with the same old, redundant responses just with renewed confidence and vigor. Each time, for the sake of dramatic persuasion, the truth gets stretched and twisted a bit more and fake connections are made between biblical passages to prove false points.

If you are trying to follow a linear, sensible faith that doesn’t hang you on barbs every time you make a mistake or hold you to senseless, enervative requirements, you will inevitably meander away from Catholic Church attendance.

I found myself choking in a bath of confessionals and hymnals and it didn’t line up with my dreams of fairness, joy and hope. I walked out of the Catholic Church and into the hip, new movement of shaking your ass when you worship. How refreshing to chat with people who weren’t stiff and rigid; people who didn’t choke on their dentures anytime you dared raise a valid point against their doctrine; people who didn’t walk around with a catechism or sit for three hours at a time in a moldy, adoration chapel. How freeing to take off that Catholic shirt. No one was having it, though, that I didn’t have a denomination. Even to have claimed to be ‘non-denominational’ would’ve satisfied their tastes better than me admitting, “I’m just not sure where I belong.” I came to realize that choosing a Christian denomination to call home is like choosing from fifty aisles of black socks. The only differences you may find about some of them are in the fine print that you haven’t got time to read. I started looking for a black sock that was manufactured and endorsed by God and found myself waist-deep with questions about theology, doctrines and how I like my coffee on Sunday mornings.

I threw my hands up as I quickly entered my second phase of questioning. Helped along by my go-against-the-grain hippie friend, I narrowed my eyes at the system and labels that Christianity was becoming. I took a step back to see the spectrum of silliness all these Christ-followers were creating. I started to see each denomination as its own little scheme-holder that was trying to get something out of you. Every pastor seemed to have a “Sunday smile” smeared across his face; every label wanted to tie me to something I didn’t desire; every expectation present could be traced back to a former day when it was relevant and useful for something other than the glory of God. I’ve never been a hippie, but even I could see the way politics were quickly seeping their way in through stained glass windows and forming their agenda there. I didn’t want to be a mindless clone of a Christian who sought to convert, conquer and destroy and I didn’t want to end up one of those seemingly-perfect Christian moms who doesn’t let their kids watch anything beyond the scope of Veggie Tales and the Virgin Mary story on Christmas Eve. I didn’t want to give money to a church so they could rebuild their steeple or buy a new flat screen TV for the oh-so-necessary second viewing room.

It was at that point that I became a real Christian-faith-free-lancer. I decided to do my own thing with JC. I would go to a church where the worship sounded good and the pastor had something relevant to say. I would focus on being the Body of Christ outside of the church because it irritated me that so many Christians wasted all their time in freshly-carpeted church buildings overanalyzing their lives and praying for the lost that never had an opportunity to be witnessed to by sheltered Christians such as themselves.

It was shortly after this point in time that things got a bit sketchy. The Christian school I attend, which is flooded with the most disciplined group of young adults you’d ever care to meet, created its own movement from God. It’s a movement I would call “Reject Authority and Roll on the Floor for Jesus.” There was a group of prophets, healers, tongue-speakers, and angel-dust-finders that would meet together to change the course of the world with their fancy, biblically-encouraged words. They smacked demons out of people, met to lay sweaty hands on each other for hours each day and were, essentially, the glorified image of the church. So guess what the rest of us were labeled? Fakers. Losers. Lazy. Lacking spiritual significance.

At one point, and for whatever reason, I decided it wise to address the “spiritual head honcho” of this campus movement with a theology question that had been festering within. He spoke with an elegance that suggested he just came out of a well-scripted 1800’s film and provided answers with evidence to anything that came out of my mouth ending in a question mark. The young chap wasn’t satisfied with just answering my questions, however. Apparently his spiritual authority gave him the rights to set his holy eyes on any Christ-following-young-lady he wanted. So, unfortunately for my faith in genuine men, he chose me. Revealing to me that he had been given visions about our future together, he told me that he could also see my heart and he was “undone” by it. My reaction: utter fear. I wanted to drop everything and hide. Not only was I not interested in this British-proper, pale man who had hair longer than mine (oh, and God forbid, my Christian eyes were unable to look past my sheer lack of attraction), I was royally pissed and confused that God had trapped me into the corner of “my own future.” I wanted to suspend myself in time so I wouldn’t have to lose my independence to a man such as this. For a few days I gritted my teeth and tried, impossibly, to see myself with him and to consider God’s will above my own. The guy had even ‘encouraged’ me by sharing a story about a man and a woman who had fallen in love only after they got married. I’m not sure how that could offer any consolation to a girl who loves love and can’t wait for a passionate wedding night. A couple weeks passed by and I realized the crock of the situation I was in. There’s no way in hell I would marry a smooth-talker based on some fancy vision that God had given only to him. I would like to participate in the creating of my own future, thankyouverymuch.

And so, I entered my third phase of questioning. Although, perhaps it was more like a batter of questions, doubts, and undiluted disgust. In my heart, but rarely verbally, I began to reject the claims of a moving Holy Spirit and felt goose bumps form on my arms when people claimed to have felt “led by God” into a certain direction. If any of us could define what being ‘led by God’ or ‘hearing from God’ meant in concrete, rational, logical terms (and trust me, I’m not even an overly-logical girl) I would be more apt to let it linger on my ears. From experience, however, these phrases are used as a means of self-justification and as a way to puff yourself up in front of spiritual advisors who keep their ‘right track’ tabs on you.

Not wanting to be a lifelong doubter, I sincerely pressed into God and asked him to heal me with faith. I wanted to know him and experience him just as much as the next Bible reader. I had this unmovable wave of doubt and skepticism hovering over me that seemed to get heavier and heavier.

If shallow words from faithful friends don’t aid your belief, maybe a trip across the world will. I went to Tanzania really intending to press in to God and grow immensely in my relationship with him. I’m not sure how much farther from home and comfort I could get and I knew it would increase both my independence and dependence on God.

What I didn’t know, however, is how much of the world I hadn’t seen or experienced up until that point. I had never given thought to the devotion men and women of other religions have for their gods. I had never noticed the rolling of eyes and ‘just wait it out’ mentality non-Christians have when they are seated at a table with a proud faith-professing Christ-lover. I never really noticed that some everyday people who aren’t Christian have reasons other than selfishness or rebelliousness. Some of them have thought it through. I noticed something significant about the things we Christians say and the decisions we make. It is as if we are incapable of making our own choices and following a strong, educated, passionate path if we don’t hear a crash from heaven telling us to go in that direction. Is that how God really works? Dictating our every step and getting upset at our traveling south when he voicelessly asks us to go north?

I feel like there’s a laundry list of crap I never signed up for when I professed belief in a creative God who wanted to redeem his fallen people. I feel like there are more and more cracks and fewer, lasting, crazy glue solutions. I feel utterly confused about what I believe and henceforth, who I am. Because everything I am and have been for years is embedded in the menial puzzle pieces of Christianity.

So what, besides ripping hair out in confusion and shame, does one to turn to with doubts like this?
I have no choice. This is my path – I have dedicated my life to it. I have professed belief in it and even if I am painstakingly sick of the cliché words and tendencies of Christians, I will not walk away.

I was born with a conviction. I was born with an overactive conscience that leaves me in guilty tears every time I make a morally wrong decision. I know there is truth buried deep beneath the ruble. Down underneath the surface of sinless smiles, overused phrases and the overly-spiritual Matthew’s and Mary’s. I need to get down there – I need to dig deep so I can breathe in the clear air of the pure, undefiled, Spirit of God. The Spirit that I’m coming to realize I have hardly met.