Feel free to skip this if you don’t want to read about God, and an f word is involved, and it’s kind of long, and I say and a lot, but this was the prompt I was feeling the most, so suffer through it if you must.
It’s not that I didn’t believe in God. I always have. But I didn’t care for “religion” or an organized group of anybody telling me what I should or should not believe. And I didn’t really “buy” some of the Bible stories. Too out there. People living to be hundreds of years old and moving mountains and water into wine and what not. Unbelievable.
I wasn’t always so skeptical. There was a time when I was told what to believe and I just did. Blind faith. The nuns said Jesus was watching over me and I believed. They said to hold beads and pray and I did. They said to go to church on Sundays and I did.
I had faith.
But my Dad died and it just screwed everything up. I was angry at God and yelled at Him late at night into the safety of my rainbow heart pillow case. I had been warned not to speak to God in such a way and in turn was filled with guilt for even questioning his authority on the matter.
It was a lose lose. So I stopped caring I couldn’t help what I was thinking. I couldn’t help feeling negative and ripped off. I couldn’t fill that chip on my shoulder. So if God wanted to send me to Hell for things I couldn’t help than so be it. I believed in God out of fear, but I didn’t know what was right. And I didn’t care.
For years and years I didn’t care. I was approached by people who wanted to save me. I was in a “dangerous place” they would chant, because I didn’t follow the standards of their religion. And I just laughed. “Fuck you and your dangerous place” I would say, “who are you to judge me?? I’m sure God is thrilled with you asshole.”
Jaded, cynical, sarcastic, dark. Yes. All me. I had to be. But I missed the little girl with the blind faith.
And I would speak with friends who still had it and wonder how? I SO wished I still had it. How wonderful to float through life with such love and faith.
I mean worse case scenario they’re all wrong. And then what? They lived their lives trying to be wonderful people for the sake of being wonderful. How wonderful. “And if they’re right??” I thought, “I’m freaking screwed.”
My best friend and I often talked about what we believed. She was one of the only people I would listen to without guard because she was honest. And she made sense. And she knew how to talk to me.
And then I had a baby (not the moment…it’s coming…). And I just knew…I knew that she was a gift. I knew that someone greater than me had a part in the perfect little bundle that was laid on my chest and in that moment I knew I needed to give back. To be grateful. I needed to try to believe again. So I just kept asking God to show me the way. I’d say “ok, I want to have faith…I really really do…I want to believe…now what??”
I’d go to church and half listen and half check out what the women were wearing and wonder which men had cheated on their wives. I’d curse myself afterwards because here I was all my life not wanting to go to church afraid of being judged by those judgey McJudgeChristians and instead found that’s exactly what I did while there. And then I’d curse myself for cursing.
But I kept talking and thinking and in the late hours of the night when I held that little sweet little girl I knew I was getting close. I knew I was on the right track. I knew it because I just DID.
Little by little that faith grew and became real.
I started closing my eyes at church so that I couldn’t judge people and I started listening. And when I really listened I’d cry. Sometimes for no reason at all. I can’t explain what would come over me, but tears would just stream and I’d self consciously and quickly wipe them away. Why was I crying so much? Why did this always happen to me at church?
And you can call what happened a coincidence or what you will, but I know it for what it was…my God moment. It changed me and strengthened my faith 100%.
Sigh…and I’m gonna have to tell you what happened tomorrow because this is already WAY too long.
Pua says
I always call my husbands family judgey McJudgeysteins….never heard anyone else say something remotely similar. Are you trying to make me fall in love with you??