Sunday, May 31, 2009

Home safe.

Today was the first time I ever did anything remotely religious on a date. After walking aimlessly for hours in the woods (I just kept choosing the path that went the most "up"), we ended up at the cross on top of the mountain. Even though he's not a believer, I easily talked him into going up there, and while we were up there, he got a small taste of what I've been dealing with as one of two city workers who passed us made disrespectful comments in my general direction. In a way, I think the experience gave him more respect for the religion in my life.

Regardless, my pictures turned out pretty awesome, I think.







God is in the most infinitely amazing way. :)

Friday, May 29, 2009

Lamentation.

Lamentations, Chapter 3:
19 Remember my affliction and roaming,
The wormwood and the gall.

20 My soul still remembers
And sinks within me.

21 This I recall to my mind,
Therefore I have hope.

Verses 20 and 21 are my favorite Bible passage so far.

On a day when I'm thrust into a world of attempted suicide, layoffs, terminal illness, and complete and utter disloyalty along with broken memories (all within the same day- today), I love that passage even more. To be reminded of what we have overcome is to have hope for the future. No individual event we might face in the future could ever be as bad as the culmination of horrible events in our past, if we have overcome a past which is adverse.

22 Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.

I hope that's true.

Really.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Sex or something like it.

I suppose I should warn that I'm an open book and this post might get a little explicit? Just so you know. *shrug*

Since dating the Christian guy, my views on sex have changed significantly. I was raised in an environment and society where abstinence wasn't even on the radar. It just wasn't an option. We'd hear about it in a sort of condescending way in the media sometimes, like when the pope with try to push it or when a Republican president tried to push our neighbors to the south to abstain instead of handing out condoms in schools. We'd all laugh at the idea and see it as old school and ridiculous.

"Times have changed. Get with it."

When I was in high school, they changed the laws such that at fourteen, girls could get free abortions without their parents finding out. And recently, they changed the laws so that pharmacists could distribute the morning after pill, so girls could get it without ever seeing a doctor.

At ten, my nearly-always absent mom told me to go on the pill, "just in case". Of course, I didn't because I had no idea what she was talking about.

By fifteen, I was well aware of all things relating to sex, even if, for some reason unbeknownst to me, I wasn't actually having sex. I have no idea why not. My dad traveled a ton for work, leaving my brothers and I home alone most of the time. We'd have parties that lasted days. I was constantly surrounded by a ton of boys and I probably wasn't sober very often either. And at that time, I certainly didn't have any sort of religious affiliations to even consider either.

I was fine with being single all through high school. I had absolutely no issue with it, probably because I felt entirely unlovable, but that's a different story for a different day. :D

At nineteen, I met a boy who I thought cared about me a great deal. He was passionate and seemed to be spiritual, but not religious, and he strongly encouraged me to travel and things. He helped me get over my fears around it, and as a result, I went to live in Ireland for a while. While I was there, he wrote me letters every week. When I got back, he was leaving for the summer and was throwing a party. I won't get into all of the details, but this guy I considered a great friend and trusted as much as my person at the time could trust assaulted me in a terrible way. I managed to get away though, but still, that event changed a lot of my perception of myself and of sex.

After a brief recovery, I developed the mindset that I was worthless. If one of my best friends could throw me away just to get sex out of me, then maybe that's all I was good for. Maybe that was the only value my person had in this world.

So I gave it up. I lost my virginity on a one night stand and it started a trend in my life. Sex was meaningless except for the perceived power it brought me. Somehow, I ended up in a long term relationship, the details I won't get into right now either, :D, but that kind of put me on hold for six years, which in spite of the relationship being fairly abusive, was probably a good thing.

I got out of the relationship and met the Christian guy. In the beginning, he judged me pretty harshly for sleeping with people I didn't care about, even though he'd slept with the same number of people as I had and hadn't been in a long term relationship either.

Being with him taught me a lot about what sex meant, even if coming from him, the words were awesomely hypocritical. When I slept with him, I already loved him. I wanted to marry him. I wanted to spend my life with him. For the first time in my entire life, the sex meant something to me. While he was teaching me that I had value, that the intimacy of sex was something not to be thrown around, I was living it all in a way I never even knew existed. I really did give up my soul. I loved him with all of my being.

It turned out that he didn't love me and was just using me, and while his words meant the world to me and changed me, they were just words that he'd learned growing up in the south, without ever understanding the meaning of them.

And that's where I am now. I'm free to live whichever sexual life I choose. But which do I choose?

Having experienced it both ways- the meaningless kind and the "one flesh" kind- obviously I prefer the more profound and meaningful of the two. But I've also grown cynical towards it. How can a girl be sure? How can a girl be intimate in a godly way if there is a possibility that the other person might be dragging her along, unknowingly headed for the betrayal to end all betrayals? It's far easier to have the meaningless kind and put all emotion and God things aside. There's no immediate, tangible risk to the soul that way.

Obviously, what God wants for me is to redeem my past and for me to marry a godly man. But after all I've been through, being used and abused and assaulted, how do I convince myself I'm entitled to that? I just can't. I don't see myself as worthy of such devotion and loyalty. I'm not good enough for that. I can't fathom abstaining from sex because I'm waiting for some Prince Charming on a white horse to suddenly appear and love and cherish me the way God intended. I'm far, far too cynical for that.

On the other hand, I am worthy to God. I'm a child of God. God loves me and loves my body and my soul just the way I am. And I have to protect this body He created for me. I've been battered and bruised and scarred and sick and broken, but I'm still ok. God made sure of it. And the least I can do is appreciate it. The least I can do is stop throwing my body around and letting completely unworthy men use me. That's the least I can do. I can acknowledge my value in the eyes of God. I am more valuable than meaningless sex. My person deserves a better kind of love than that.

And so, for now, the sexual life I choose is a non-issue. I'm going to appreciate the freedom, the redemption and the love that God is giving me. I'm going to learn the value that is within me and love my body the way it should be loved. I'm going to grow with God and learn to never let myself be used and abused again.

And if, one day, He chooses to send a godly man my way, I'll be far more prepared.

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I can't say 'Jesus' anymore.

I can't do it alone. I've been learning and reading and listening for months now, and everywhere I turn, I'm faced with conflict. Everything I say is religious even when it has nothing to do with religion. I've been categorized by the people closest to me, and every word is taken as a statement of religion. And honestly, my faith is not strong enough to stay standing after all the pushing.

I said it myself, every word and every action from a Christian is a mission statement. It's a statement as a missionary. But I don't think even I understood the implications of that. Every single word out of my mouth (or out of my fingers in the case of IMs and blog posts) is taken with a religious undertone that I don't even put there.

I'm a communicator. That's an overly long word to say I'm chatty. I am. Very. But to feel stifled simply because I opened a book a year ago is wearing me out.

Somebody told me today that they would never date anybody religious. So I started talking to a different friend about it and I said, "I wouldn't date a religious person either. But I do want a godly man." That's when the misunderstandings started.

My intention:
godly: supremely good

Simple as that. Can you be a godly man without believing in God? For sure. You can have a great heart without feeling the love of God. Believing in God is not a prerequisite for being a good person, just as people of "faith" might not be good people.

Religion aside for a half a second, I want a guy with a good heart. I want a guy who is generous with his mind, body and spirit. I want a guy who is supremely good. I want a guy so good that I can admire him and strive to be his equal in that aspect. God has nothing to do with that part of what I'm seeking, except He does...

The only way to misunderstand "godly" is to not know who God is. Saying I want a man "like God", or saying I want a man who is "supremely good" should be interchangeable. But they aren't.

Why not?

Because some people hate God. Because some people dissociate God from good. And really, religious or not, that should not happen. Ever. When I use the word "godly", it should not provoke a negative reaction.

But it does.

Would I have used the word "godly" before learning about Christianity? Never. I didn't know what it meant back then. Now, it fits perfectly. A godly man has his priorities straight. In his list of priorities, the only self that ends up there is his spiritual self. The only self he puts first is that which makes him a whole person, a better person and a person who works hard to spread the love, forgiveness and generosity that has been bestowed upon him, either by God or by fortune or whatever else he attributes it to. A godly man is about reciprocation rather than selfishness. A godly man is honorable and has only the purest of intentions. A godly man is outside himself, his constant needs, desires and personal achievements.

A godly man is like* God.

If God is everything good, and a non-believer is supremely good, then whether he believes it or not, God is working within him. The good is spreading through this person, even if they don't believe the source might be God. Therefore, a godly man does not, in my opinion, have to be a believer.

So many sermons I've listened to have mentioned the fact that Christians should not marry non-believers. When I was a non-believer dating a Christian, I challenged that belief fervently. I was so offended by it because nobody in the history of this man ever challenged him to believe more than I did. He had to teach me and in watching me grow through my passion for learning about it, he was challenged by his own lack of faith. Through my inexperience, I helped him be a better Christian.

But now that I'm on the other side, would I date a non-Christian?

It's a hard question. I would like to give non-Christians the same opportunity I wanted, but the problem is, they keep shutting me down. They keep telling me not to talk about religion in any way. And as a chatty person who overanalyzes everything, I just can't do that. I need to talk about it. I need to be able to have the communication pathways open for whatever subject I want to discuss, even if it's loaded or hard or depressing or unpleasant. I need to be able to speak my mind in an environment that's tolerant.

When I started dating the Christian, I was closed-minded to religion. Completely. But I still wanted to learn what he saw in it, even if I had no intention of adopting any of it. It was such a fundamental part of his past and his person that to not touch the subject was to not know him. I was open to knowing him.

That's what makes getting shut down so frustrating. They're not open to knowing me. So why bother? Why bother learn about my past, learn about my habits and likes and dislikes? Why bother diving into my person when you don't want to get to the core? Why bother pursue me when you have no respect for what's important to me?

I suppose that having a problem with religion is fine. But this is me. This is my perception of religion. If you don't like or rather don't tolerate or even allow me to express my perception of the basic principles of living, how can you even see a potential for being with me?

Can a person put aside their faith, keep it private and introverted in order to maintain a pleasant interfaith relationship? For sure. But then they were never truly Christian to begin with. They have no passion for it. They have no love of it. They aren't moved and changed by it every single day.

If you're passionate about mountains, chances are one day you'll bring your significant other to the mountains just to experience it with them. To feel their love and your passion for them merge with the emotions elicited by the awesomeness of the mountains is really amazing. Substitute mountains for anything a person might be very passionate about and nobody can deny there's power there. There's life there.

So why would a person passionate about God, passionate about Jesus, passionate about love and forgiveness and community and all the rest that is involved with being a passionate and learning Christian put it aside?

Why should they have to? Because it makes people uncomfortable?

I won't stop talking about God just because you have issues with religion and the Bible. I won't. I won't force you to believe what I believe- never. But when I talk about God, I do expect you to reciprocate. I do expect you to not only share your beliefs openly, but also challenge my beliefs with knowledge, wisdom and courage [as I will yours if you are comfortable enough in them]. Above all else, if we do talk about God and our individual beliefs, I do expect you to be open enough to listen. Because this is me. This is important to me. This is my passion at the moment, and who knows how long this moment will last, but in the meantime, it really is important to me.

And really, when the only challenges I face are questioned intentions and motives, it breaks my spirit. You know who I am. Why is it when it comes to religion, you suddenly assume I'm somebody else? You know my intentions as your friend. Why would I turn on you over a word? Why would you assume I lack that significant respect? It breaks my spirit. Your defense mechanisms about religion stab me in the heart and you don't even realize.

I'm just me. I'm always me. Whether I'm talking about animal welfare, biology, cars, the weather or religion, I'm always me. And if you question my intentions about any of it, you probably don't know me as well as you think you do, and you're probably not open to changing your mind.

See? I know. I said, "changing your mind" and some of you reading it who question my intentions probably jumped to the conclusion that I meant, "[eventually] changing your mind about religion". I meant me. And really, if you did read this and did jump to that conclusion, I hope it was a wake up call of sorts as to how easily provoked your defenses are.

Anyway, all that to say, the jabs at my soul take the fight out of me. It's all fine and good trying to write and speak about what I'm learning in hopes that other people might learn or just be challenged to share their perception, but sometimes, a girl needs a little spiritual guidance too. Sometimes a girl needs a little bit of a faith pick-me-up, you know?

A bandaid for the broken spirit.

Because I just can't keep fighting the constant confrontation alone on ground that's so shaky to begin with.


* "like" being used as "closer to God's ways than most" rather than directly comparing the man with God because no matter how good he is, he can't come close.

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Hateful Christians?

(In an ideal world, that'd be an oxymoron.)

What do we call ourselves?

We humans so like categories. We're so afraid of uncertainty that we strive for any sort of label both for ourselves and for those around us such that we all might be in neat and tidy little boxes where predictability reigns and cynicism overwhelms discreetly.

As I've blogged before, the minute I cracked open the Bible, my coworkers and friends labeled me. Suddenly, I was a gay hating, abortion clinic protesting, irrational person. It's far easier to categorize me that way than to wonder if maybe this girl who overanalyzes and overthinks to death might have fallen in love with it for a rational, reasonable reason.

If atheism and agnosticism are based on science and reason, how is it possible for an agnostic biologist to read the Bible and its outrageous stories and not only enjoy it as a potential work of fiction, but pursue it as a strong possibility of truth?

And with all of the Christians we know being so broken and hypocritical, how could she seek the truth in theirs, of all people?

So I was talking to one of my very, very few Christian friends, a guy I've known for at least ten years, but also haven't seen in probably just as long, and the subject hit Christianity. "Are you a Christian?" I asked. I know he is, but I meant, "Do you tell people openly that you're a Christian?"

He is strongest in his faith of all the people I know personally. He lives it. He's been all over the world, ministering and spreading the Gospel. And his soul is just amazing. He is lovable in the most intense and pure way. He is by far the most Christian in the real sense of the word and the true meaning behind it. He's a beautiful, generous and soft soul.

And he hesitated.

We talked about it, and how his calling as a youth pastor in New York scared him a little, simply because of the category he was getting boxed into. "I'm going into ministry- I couldn't believe it," he said and repeated, "I'm a pastor," in a sort of shy disbelief.

I'm not an open Christian. Not at all. I hide it. "I'm a Christian" has such a terrible stigma attached to it. I don't want to be one of those... But as my friend and I kept talking, we both realized that in not saying we were Christians, in not being openly Christian and not attributing our goodness to Jesus, we're not helping change the tarnished view of what it means to be Christian.

But what if we blow it? What if we proclaim to be Christian and totally mess up? What if we contribute to the bad image society has of Christianity? Or what if we just don't give enough of ourselves?

Then, I guess, if we're humble, we can point out that we're flawed but also show the world around us what it is to repent, and show them the power of God's grace, and our continual growth in Christ, towards Christ.

I heard a sermon today about how we should be generous beyond our level of comfort because even at that extent, it's the bare minimum to worship God in a meaningful and powerful way considering the gifts we've been given, and I have to say that the whole concept is pretty terrifying. My biggest flaw (for today anyway :D) is that I'm lazy. The thought of giving my spare money is easy, even if it makes my life tougher on a daily basis, but the thought of devoting my time and energy is harder for me. If I'm needed, I'll serve wherever I'm needed with all of my capacity, but to actively seek out a need to fulfill is another story.

My laziness makes it hard for me to feel as though I come even remotely close to my potential as a Christian and as an example of a good Christian to others around me. On any other day, you could easily substitute "laziness" with something else... Anything else- judgment, cynicism, anger, spite- just general brokenness, really. All of my flaws make me a terrible example of what it means to be a Christian.

But I do try. I try to get better every day. I try to change my attitude and make choices in the moment that reflect Jesus more clearly and more obviously. I try to substitute love and support where my judgment, anger, spite and cynicism tend to be. I try to grow in generosity. I try to forgive. I try to change for the better, let go of the things I idolize and the things I spend my time on that don't make a difference and don't impact the kingdom of God in a great way. I try to learn, and absorb as much as I can. But all that while maintaining my freedom from religion and religiosity. I do it because I love it and (as hard as it is for me to openly say,) because I love Jesus. I do it to become a more loving person so that people can experience it too.

I try.

I guess that's what I believe ultimately sets me apart from the nominal Christians who taint the word: I don't rest on my Christianity. I try. I really hope I never let go of that, but honestly, I doubt I will because I'm not sure I'll ever feel like I have it down. I doubt I will ever feel entitled or even worthy. And I know for sure I'll never have it all figured out.

But what's the point? Why bother trying to be an example of what it is to follow Jesus?

Ever since I started learning about Christianity, I realized that every word and every action from a Christian is a mission. Even the simplest of discussions are ministry. That's not to say we should only talk about Jesusy things, but that when our behavior goes against Jesus' teachings, we're unintentionally turning people away from Jesus. When we inadvertently mock God and Jesus and the Bible, without realizing, we're driving people further away from Jesus. We're appealing to their doubts. We're validating their fears and stereotypes of religion and of Christians. We're affecting their personal relationship with God in a negative way.

That's why we have to strive to be an example of a follower of Jesus in everything we do. We have to show people, believers and non, the Gospel. We have to lift Jesus up so He can be known, and it's not through preaching or Bible thumping but through small every day acts of kindness, support and love. Basically, we'll only successfully show people what Jesus is all about through following Jesus every day.

Nobody who has learned about Jesus can possibly say He was a bad guy. But what if we took that idea a step further and showed how He can drastically change our lives? What if we let Jesus change our heart and guide us in such a way that our lives completely reflect Him? What kind of world would we live in?

And if all the Christians did that, if they all were true followers of Jesus in every possible sense, would you hesitate to declare yourself among them?

Friday, May 22, 2009

Believing in God is the easy way out.

I don't know how many times I said that in my life. So many. When I was battered and bruised emotionally and sometimes physically, I'd resent Christians for having a supportive, loving God with a plan to lean on to get them through everything. It was easier to believe in God because all of your questions are answered and there's no uncertainty.

But then why didn't I believe?

It was hard for me to believe. I'm not sure I've ever worked on anything so hard in all of my life.

When you study something, not only do you learn the material, but you also learn a method of studying for that particular realm of information. In CEGEP ("collège d'études générales et professionels"-- school between high school and university here), I did natural sciences and my best friend did social sciences. She was a year or two ahead of me and in my second year, she switched over to science and had the hardest time at it. She'd been trained to learn social science, which is a study of the big picture, and switching to science meant learning to grasp the tiny details instead. She had to relearn how to learn.

I've been scientific my whole life. If life was a university, I'd have gotten a major in science and a minor in fiddling with mechanical things. Religion is an entirely different realm of learning. It's a big picture thing, a tiny details thing, a literary thing and a metaphysical thing... among many, many other things. To learn religion successfully requires a strong emotional component to the learning process, and when you're repressing anger towards religion, that emotional "ability" is completely shut down. It becomes next to impossible to let religion in, to learn it without prejudice and resentment. It basically becomes impossible to fall in love with God.

And really, if it becomes impossible to fall in love with God, believing in God suddenly seems like the hardest thing to do. Without looking at those around you, just focusing on your own beliefs, values, and experiences, if you don't believe already, would it be easy for you to believe in God? And if you do, would it be easy for you to let go of your beliefs?

Neither is easy.

I'm still in between. I know what it's like to feel as though religion is easy, but I've also learned that in a lot of ways, being agnostic was way easier than believing. Being agnostic gives you far more control over your beliefs and your life, and it also is far less ridiculous than believing in God.

As an agnostic, I didn't know what would happen if I died, where my soul would go, if anywhere, and I was ok with that. I have never been afraid of death, and the few Christians I knew found that bizarre since my afterlife was void of any certainty. I always found it way more scary to face the uncertainty of all the potential living years ahead of me than to face death and the possibility of it all being completely over. I was just ok with not knowing the answers to the huge life questions.

On the other hand, as a Christian, I don't have any control over all of that. It may not seem like a control thing, but it is. If there is a God and a heaven and a hell, then those are the only options. It's kind of like being a chef versus being served. When you're the chef, you have the opportunity to feed and eat any possible food in the world. You decide what the food will be. When you're served, you eat whatever you're given. Sure, you can turn down the sweet potato, but you're still only limited to whatever else is on the table. And for a picky person or a person plagued with food intolerances or IBS, that can become quite a stressful situation. It's a control thing. You control the menu or you don't.

If I choose to be a Christian, I'm choosing to sit at the table with God and Jesus and eat what they choose to feed me. And while the perspective mentioned above in the food analogy can be stressful and restrictive, and the perspective of religion the same, it really isn't. I'm restricted to what God and Jesus provide, but most of the time, the restrictions are freeing rather than oppressive.

I say, "most of the time" because I do remember the freedom from responsibility I had as an agnostic. Sure, I was as nice a person as I could be. I tried to be supportive of those around me, tried to help people who needed help, tried my best to be a good person and to possibly leave a legacy that was positive in the world. But I wasn't accountable for it. I did it because I was empathetic and it was the right thing to do by whatever standards I'd set for myself. Being a Christian has different standards and goals. Still, they are not set in stone- there is no set doctrine to follow to be a good person, even if religion says otherwise. But there's an accountability partner there that was not there when I was an agnostic. There is a God who loves me.

You know how it is, right? You meet somebody amazing and fall in love with them, and nothing you do for them seems like work and nothing seems like it's enough. You'd go to the ends of the world to get them whatever they needed simply because you love them with all your soul and your being.

Now imagine that this person not only is beautiful, kind, loving and lights up your soul, but they also gave you life, breathed air into your spirit and provided you with everything you needed to survive. What kind of love would you return?

That's where the accountability comes in. It's not a punishment kind of accountability but a sacrificial love. God gave me life, gave me the strength to make it to this point in my life and gave me everything I needed- even if I spent most of my life till now rejecting Him. How am I going to acknowledge the significance of that today?

If every person (and I believe every creature as well) is a child of God, a brother or sister in Christ, then how will I acknowledge God in them today? Every person we treat badly throughout our lives is a child of God. As God has provided for me, He has provided for everybody else too. He loves every one of them equally and particularly. They each have value, and technically, equal value.

How easy is it to acknowledge that all of us have equal value?

I'm as judgmental as it gets. I know it's not easy to see other people as my equals. They're either better than me or worse than me, but very few people are my equals. But in rating them, judging them, I'm failing to see them as God's loves and as important to God's plan as I am or as anybody else is. And by slipping myself in there too somewhere near the middle, I'm basically telling God He didn't make me as perfect as others. I'm telling Him that He failed in some aspects of my being.

We all have different skill sets and abilities. There's no doubt about that. But what if our package of abilities and skills is exactly what God needs for His plan?

What if me being terrible at physics is part of what makes me perfect? Being terrible at physics led me into a different direction in school. The first program I had applied to in university was mechanical engineering. Had I been great at physics, I wouldn't have hesitated. But I knew I would not succeed. I knew physics was my Achilles heel, and going into a program based on it when the foundation I was starting from was so shaky was setting myself up for a massive failure, so my life path changed. In God's plan, maybe my lack of physics comprehension curves my puzzle piece in such a way that it fits perfectly. Maybe.

Or maybe I took the easy way out and I'm totally on the wrong path... :D

Only God knows...

Speaking of which, I was listening to a sermon from Mars Hill Church where Pastor Mark Driscoll talked about anxiety being a sin and that instead of treating it as a psychological thing, maybe we should treat it with repentance. In spite of growing up highly anxious, I saw his point. Anxiety attacks are provoked by the uncertainty and by our predictions of the future. It's not having any faith in God, really. We want to be in control of our future, to know what will happen and to be completely prepared for it. We analyze all possible scenarios and try to predict our reactions and action plans... As he said, we try to be God. We try to be omniscient and sovereign.

In a way, knowing that doesn't help because I still am terrified of what scariness might be in the future sometimes, but on the other hand, it kind of points out how useless it is to control stuff you have no concept or grasp of. And to form plans and set goals to avoid anxiety just overrides the natural sway of your life. Obviously, some plans are ok, but to set plans in such a way that your entire future is written in stone leaves no room for the Holy Spirit to move you. It leaves no room for passionate spontaneity. It leaves no room for accidental living.

Accidental living is the best.

I was telling my cousins last night about the time I got totally lost in Banff (which has, like, two streets), and I ended up taking a wrong turn into the woods. I kept walking (I'm smart that way), and ended up coming out of the woods to the edge of a massive cliff. There I stood, with a deep, dense forested valley in front of me and on the other side of the valley was Mount Rundle, my favorite mountain so far. I was face to face with it. It was truly amazing and I only ended up there because I was completely lost and yet somehow couldn't stop putting one foot in front of the other.

Of course, back then I had no perception of God, so it was just nature and I having a moment together while God watched, waiting patiently for me to be ready to acknowledge that there might be more, that maybe nature and I were part of a much larger team.

I remember it so clearly. I remember the way the air felt. The way the sky looked. The way the silence seemed to echo.

It was easy.

It was just me and nature. I was taking advantage of the wonders of the world, appreciating every moment, soaking it all in until my heart was full.

But I never said thank you.

It took me twenty-eight years to say thank you.

It was probably one of the most difficult things I've ever done.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Initiative, leadership and courage...

They say that being a pastor's wife is incredibly hard. I suppose that between the commitment to the community, the intensity of responsibility and the pressures that result, being a pastor's wife and dealing with all of the side-effects of marrying a man at the head of such a messed up congregation would be trying to say the least. But I've heard so many sermons where the pastor talks about his wife and the way they each speak totally honors their wife and makes me crave it anyway.

I think the statistic was if the women knew what they were getting into, 85% wouldn't have married a pastor or pastor-to-be. Maybe that's completely wrong, but that's the number I have in my memory and if it is wrong, the number is strikingly high and that's the important point.

Why would I crave something that so many women wish they could get out of?

Because the good pastors seem to have their priorities straight- first comes God and Jesus, then their wife, then their kids and then everything else. Or in the case of a pastor, first after the kids comes the church. But the wife is first among the worldly things and I crave that importance.

I listened to a part of the Q&A section of a sermon Mark Driscoll gave about whether or not a woman should pursue a man. His answer was no. "If you chase a man, you'll chase him for the rest of your life." I know that all too well. :D He goes on to say that Christian men lack courage and so many non-Christian men step in and appeal simply because they demonstrate initiative, leadership, and courage.

Christian or not, the guys I have dated have never pursued me. In my quest for importance, acknowledgment and love, I never realized their complete lack of initiative, leadership and courage. In other words, in all my pursuing and all my efforts, I never sought a real man. What kind of man lacks those three fundamentals?

I have those three fundamentals (even if my employee evaluation may say otherwise :D) and I always assumed that being a strong person deterred or intimidated men to the point where even if they did have an interest in me, they would not pursue it.

But even if I'm a strong woman, shouldn't I expect the man in my life to be stronger than me?

If strong relationships are built on respect and admiration (among other things), how can I achieve that when the beginning is already the first proof that I'm the stronger one in the couple? How can I admire a man knowing he wasn't courageous enough to step up while he still had nothing to lose? How can I raise him up in the long term when he has started off at rock bottom?

And so, here are these pastors speaking publicly, with their reputation hanging on their shoulders, saddled with the pressures that come with being empathetic to an entire congregation along with those outside the congregation, and even though they're in a respected position of authority, they lift their wives up even higher.

I can't even imagine being worthy of such an honor. I can't imagine being worthy of such open devotion.

Maybe that's why God created dogs: to always remind us doubting ladies (and maybe doubting men too) that no matter what we do, we are worthy. Every time I come home from anywhere, I'm greeted with wagging tails and irrepressible barks of excitement, and my dogs know my core person. They know who I am and where my heart is and still love me and respect me. How is it unreasonable to expect the same from another person?

Maybe Mark Driscoll is right in this case. If part of being a man is being strong enough to face rejection and to face failure, then why would I expect anything less than somebody who is man enough to be vulnerable?

And without any intention of condescension, to any men reading this: if you're ever in a situation where you're not man enough to step up, maybe it's time to re-evaluate what your priorities are. Nowhere on the list, among God, wife, kids and church, is "myself". If you're at the top of your own list of priorities, maybe it's time to fix that before you damage any more women. And that's the truth- you are damaging them. I would imagine that somewhere in your heart (the cynical part of me wants to slip in "amongst all the hollow, black and charred places", but I won't. :D), you don't want to leave behind a legacy of pain.

In the meantime, at the very least, I'm going to relinquish a little bit of the control and stop pursuing. For how can a guy be grateful to have me around if he didn't earn me?

Exactly.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Fear and loving...

I was listening for the traffic on the radio the other day and a show caught my attention. It was some guy (I kind of don't want to endorse him too much because I don't know all that much about him), who was talking about talking to ghosts... Anyway, that's not the important part. The important part was my interpretation of two things he said... I have no idea if he actually said them or if I just heard what I wanted to hear or needed to hear. (Things are always clearer in text when you can review them with a different mindset later on...)

The first was that we walk through life as though we're bodies with a spirit, rather than as spirits temporarily inhabiting a body. It's like our body is the main focus of our existence, when really, if our spirit is eternal, it should be the center of our being. And I don't mean "being" as in organism, I mean it as in living. We should do our best to nourish our spirit and encourage it to grow and flourish.

His take on it involved reincarnation, where we keep re-living in different situations in order to become a sort of whole, perfect soul. As an agnostic, I had a similar idea. I thought there was a possibility that the sum of all of the souls in the world was God. God branched Himself out to feel everything there was to feel from every possible vantage point.

In one lifetime, I could be me, and in the next, I could be a friend of mine, or somebody from the past or future. Time is irrelevant, which would explain why some people way back when were so far ahead of their time. They had experienced more lives than the rest of us. But it'd be so circular. Say a person learns about electricity in this age, and in the next life is born into an age where electricity hasn't been invented yet and therefore makes strides towards more modern technology in that area. He would effectively alter the historical timeline of electricity, right? So what if in every incarnation, history is different? In my current perspective's history, particular people invented particular things, but in my perspective of history in a different incarnation, different people may have invented those same things?

Yeah, it becomes kind of circular.

Unless you throw in God's plan... If He knows what you'll do before you do it, you're just a piece of a puzzle, the picture of which has long since been decided.

Anyway, all that to say while the guy on the radio related it to benefiting your next incarnation and moving you along your path to wholeness as a spirit, I think incarnation is too much of a reward for good behavior. It's like it gives second and third (and millionth?) chances. Why not just better the soul just for the benefit of bettering the soul? Spiritual growth doesn't need to be rewarded.

I was thinking about the possibility of bouncing around, and I thought, "What about my grandfather?" If I bounced from this life into my grandfather's, from my perspective here today, I'd see it as a regression. He was cold, unloving and unforgiving. My life so far has been a quest to learn to overcome those things as much as possible. But in my internal discussion about it, I realized how judgmental and condescending I am. Obviously, I have plenty of room to grow still in this lifetime, regardless of where I bounce, if I bounce. I am by far not a perfect whole soul.

The show also brought up the idea that all of our decisions are made based on either fear or love, and because of our self-protection mechanisms, we tend to lean towards fear.

I look at my life and that is so true. I've made the decision not to forgive the people who have wronged me the most because I am afraid that they'll come back into my life somehow. I'm afraid that letting down those strong barriers that are held up with anger, resentment and pride for even a second will get me hurt again.

If I approached the same decision basing it on love... I'd be an entirely different person. A better person.

Realizing that made me come so close to forgiveness. But I'm still far too afraid.

I'm not perfect.

But from now on, now that I'm aware, I can make decisions in such a way that my soul will be strengthened simply because I will be more conscious of the motivations behind them. Nobody wants to be driven by fear. We are, but we don't want to be.

You know how it goes, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also"? I tried to figure out where my heart is.

50% of my income goes to my house.
27% of my income goes to my car and the gas to get me to work.
9% of my income goes to my dogs.
5% of my income pays student loans from my BSc in biology.
5% of my income pays for communication with the outside world (internet and phone).
And the remaining 4% is what I have left over for me, which includes food, medication, clothes, along with any emergency things (like car repairs or sick doggies).

I tried to figure out where my heart is because, really, I don't have a "latte factor". I don't have anything that is an obvious expensive luxury or hobby. I don't even have a cell phone. My car is nice, but since I live so far out of town because I needed a house for the dogs because apartments in the city don't allow big dogs, I needed a reliable car so I would keep my job.

My dogs? They could be a luxury. Not for me, but for some people... But they keep me alive. And that's when I figured it out. My heart is in security. Independent security. I have a roof over my head. I have freedom in the driveway. I have doggies to ensure my mental health and happiness. I have a degree to supposedly give me a foundation to open doors. And I have means by which to reach out to the world if I am ever in need. Through my money, I have created my own security.

At first, it doesn't seem like such a terrible thing, but after looking at it a little while longer, I realized it doesn't give much room for God to move, does it? The only place God can move is in the food department, and even though I've lost a ton of weight in the recent past, there is always food. There really is.

One day, I had used all of my 4% and had nothing left to buy food with, but I was hungry. I decided to "splurge" because of the weight loss and get some grocery store fast food (even though the food blows, they let you pay with a credit card...). I got the cheapest possible chicken meal and the guy behind the counter added a drumstick and a thigh to my order when I wasn't looking. I got to my car and opened the thingy and inside was an actual meal.

And I can't even count the number of times family has unknowingly bailed me out of a caloric crisis by showing up here with some extra salad or extra sausages or an extra bag of veg (yey for unreasonable costco-sized packages that promote sharing).

In that particular aspect of my life, I can't doubt that God has moved and God has been good. I haven't gone without. I always manage to get what I need. I just have to learn how to let go of all the other stuff a little, to stop feeling like I'm constantly drowning.

It seems I base all of my budgetary decisions on fear too.

I guess I have to take way better care of my spirit, have more confidence that it will endure and also have more confidence in the world around me. I have to have more confidence that I will be provided for in whichever way best serves my person- my eternal spiritual person.

Really, I have to have more confidence in God.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Get a grip.

I've been neglecting God lately. I mean, I still do the praying thing throughout my day, but my Bibley learnin's and book readin's have slowed down. It's not for a lack of passion about it, so much as a lack of entitlement. Today, I listened to a sermon about anger and heard this:

23 "Therefore if you bring your gift to the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you,
24 "leave your gift there before the altar, and go your way. First be reconciled to your brother, and then come and offer your gift.

From Matthew, chapter 5.

That's one reason why I stopped reading and stopped learning. These days, my heart is full of anger and I can't forgive the root(s) of it.

Sometimes, when my anger makes me generally irritable without realizing the cause, I write an "I'm mad at" list. I write and I write until I run out of things to be angry at.

These days, my anger is tangible, but it causes underlying angers to seep to the surface also, resulting in that general irritability again.

Still in chapter five:
44 "But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
45 "that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

I recently finished reading "The Shack" by William P Young, and in it, there is a discussion about forgiveness. The main character, Mack, asks how he's supposed to forgive when he can't forget, and one of the God characters answers that forgiving doesn't necessarily mean forgetting. All it means is loosening your grip on the other person's throat.

I have no idea what forgiveness really means, but I do know my grip is still tight. I got hurt, sure, but the things I've found out since I got hurt are what made me most angry. The lies, deceit, manipulation and just plain horribleness I endured without realizing keep emerging bit by bit and my grip tightens in consequence.

To pick up the Good Book, or any book relating to God things in any way would be hypocritical at this time. My heart can't be open to learning- it's too full of anger and wrath. It's preoccupied with a deep, seething hatred.

The rain does fall on the just as it falls on the unjust. Whether it's by believing in Karma or that God will make all things right in the afterlife, we all crave justice. When we are wronged to the utmost degree, the desire for immediate justice can be overwhelming.

But what it comes down to is independence and control. Even if the saying says something like, "Good Karma might take a lifetime to find you but bad Karma will hunt you down", and/or Jesus promises redemption at the end of all this, I don't want to wait for either Karma or God to react. I want justice now. I want things made right now.

What if what is wrong to me is not wrong to God? What if there is no retribution? Same goes for Karma. What if the bad Karma I'm hoping for will never come because in the grand scheme of things, there is no need for it?

And I know that the longer I stay angry, wrathy and hope for bad Karma on somebody else, the more likely Karma will get me instead.

So I crave independence and a little power over the situation. I don't want to trust in God to handle it because I feel like that is probably what got me to this place to begin with. I want to take back the control that I used to have as an agnostic. I want to say, "This is how it's done, God. This is how you make people pay in the here and now."

In my head, it's not even a revenge thing so much as a justice thing. Revenge tends to escalate. Justice evens out.

Either way, I can't pray for God to intervene when I spend my day pretending I'm independent of Him. It's just not right. You can't have both. You can't have both God's justice and your own. Well, in theory you can, but God's justice will fall on you too if you do that.

Each action is independent of past actions because each new action requires a decision to occur. He chose to hurt me brutally. That decision has been made. The choice becomes either hurting him back or carrying resentment and hostility towards him or forgiving him and letting it go. Either way, it's a new decision independent of the last one, no matter how hurt and broken I am from it. And the only option that turns to God is the last one. The other two do not.

I believe that when faced with a balanced moral dilemma, the hardest option is usually the right option. By "balanced", I mean each option has a strong pull towards it, even if the option seems terrible. For example, hurting somebody deliberately because they hurt you is obviously wrong, but we're still so driven by anger and spite to do it anyway. Forgiving them and moving past it with humility is by far the hardest option and clearly the most morally virtuous.

All that to say that obviously it is in my best interest, both emotionally and spiritually, to forgive in this situation, but my hands just can't let go of his throat and until I can release a little bit, I won't be right with God. My heart will be closed with anger, a destructive and unhealthy anger.

I know all that.

And I also know that trying to get to that place of healing without God kind of goes against everything written in the Bible, but I just feel that I need forgive myself and work on myself alone first.

A long time ago, Dr Phil said that being angry makes you a victim. If you're mad at somebody, you're a victim of something they did. You're angry because you feel they've wronged you. If you really humbly think about it, it's true. I hate that. As a girl who was abandoned by her mom, who has dealt with sexual assault in some form twice, who has endured years of emotional abuse that escalated to physical abuse, and who has ultimately survived it all, feeling like a victim of anything is just irritating.

I know I'm a strong person. I know I've lived through a lot. I know I can handle this. But the betrayal revives sometimes, either through conversation or through indirect more accidental discoveries, and it just slaps me back down again and the only way I can get back up again, even if only temporarily, is by clutching his throat until my metaphoric knuckles turn white.

I'm not a perfect person. I'm as broken as it gets. But I'm just so used to having nobody to rely on or to lean on.

A Christian who knew a lot of my stories asked me how, through everything I went through, could I never turn to God. He just wasn't there. The times when a person might need God the most are the times when they feel the most abandoned by God. How can a person find God when they're so alone? In the times of joy, when there's so much to be thankful for, it's easy to praise God. In those moments, it's easy to say, "God is good."

I think that's why I worked so hard last year. Things were good. I was happy. I worked relentlessly to learn about God and Christianity because somehow in my heart, I knew it wasn't going to last forever and this was my only chance. My heart was open to it, but I also was at a point in my life where I really didn't need anybody to rely on. I wanted to learn about God for God, not as a potential support system in a time of need, and I always believed that was the only way.

But now, I've learned enough to know that independence from God is not possible. You can fight for your independence all you want, but at the end of the day, you're still a child of God. You can go your own way, but in the end, you'll get somewhere where you're supposed to be anyway.

How do I let go of all of the survival mechanisms that have gotten me to this point? How to I stay open and forgiving when my person feels so attacked? How do I quit fighting?

The only way is to give it up to God, but I'm just not ready to do that yet.

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

A reason so many people hate Christians.

One of the people who wronged me the most in all my life, a lifelong Christian, emailed me today and said, "God has forgiven me for what I did to you and has lifted the burden off my shoulders."

Ok, so yes, Jesus taught that God is forgiving. But He also taught that burdens would not be lifted off shoulders. You are supposed to carry your own and help carry the burdens of others too. That's the ideal anyway. Jesus lived knowing His death would be painful and horrible and heartbreaking, and He never once saddled it onto those around Him, nor did He give it up to God. He asked God to let His will be done without ever asking for the pain to be removed from His own body. Not only that, but while He died His horribly painful death, He took on all of the burdens of the people of the world too.

When you tell somebody you have wronged so badly that God has lifted the burden off your shoulders, all it does is place the burden on your victim, on top of the burden they already carry because of your brokenness.

God might be forgiving, but be humble about it. Don't assume you're right with God. Accept the gifts from God with grace and humility, not with certainty and arrogance. Don't use God to absolve yourself of your burdens, especially not those which you created through your own horribleness.

How are you supposed to learn and grow from anything if you constantly absolve yourself from it? How are you supposed to repent when you are free from your wrongdoings?

Please don't tell the victim of your terribleness that your burden has lifted. That makes God's forgiveness a terrible thing, and that is terrible ministry.

If you're the betrayer and you feel your burden has been lifted while the person you inflicted yourself onto still suffers regularly as a result of your wrongness, you are obviously not helping carry their burdens. And if you are the betrayer and you feel forgiveness from God for what you've done, don't accept it right away. Instead, pray that that forgiveness be redirected to the person you've wronged. Pray that the love, support and forgiveness from God fall on the person whom you have left too broken to forgive.

And above all else, don't tell them you've been forgiven when they haven't even begun the process yet.

God does forgive, but quickly accepting the forgiveness of the One who always will love you and will always forgive you is a cop out. All is not right with the world if you accept the forgiveness and rest on it.

Luke Ch 6:37-
Forgive, and you will be forgiven.

It's not the other way around. And imagine the burden on the person you've wronged. They have to forgive first to be forgiven too. And they feel it far more than you also. They feel the weight of the resentment and of the grudge every day. They are constantly aware of their shortcomings when it comes to forgiveness. Constantly. And it gets to a point where they have to forgive themselves first, before even beginning to forgive the terrible acts committed to them. The betrayed has to go through so many levels of forgiveness before even considering the forgiveness of God and to feel worthy of it, and even if one achieves all the levels of forgiveness, they will forever carry a burden in consequence of the whole series of events and betrayals.

So please, before you consider reminding somebody you've betrayed that God has forgiven you, make sure they feel completely forgiven first. Otherwise, you're just using religion, Christianity in particular, to wash the blood off your hands.

And that's not Jesusy. Not even a little bit.

It's actually super disgraceful, if you think about it.

It's Pontius Pilatey. (Matthew 27:24)

But really, that's one of the strongest arguments against Christians being good people- if you're constantly forgiven, what makes you actively seek out the forgiveness of those you wrong? People with no religion have to live with their sins. They have no automatic forgiveness and therefore won't feel it, in theory, unless they actively seek it out from the person or people whom they have wronged so terribly. Having no God while having a strong conscience makes you a good person because you're stuck righting all of your wrongs here and now, in this world, alone.

Even in the absence of Jesus, that approach is far more Christian in my opinion.

To me, real Christians will strive for anything empathetic and selfless, not jump on the first Biblical explanation that absolves them and clears their conscience. Real Christians would be a little less selfish and arrogant, and a lot more Jesusy.

What is the point of being a follower of Christ if you're not following Jesus? Sounds redundant, but really, more Christians should take it to heart.

Please.

The heart of the matter...

Sometimes, I can look back to the worst parts of my life and see where I might have been helped without realizing it. And I come out stronger and more whole.

Actually, I'll paste part of the story I blogged about earlier- the story I sent to the people who deleted my posts, my one last story of generosity (actually, kind of two).

April 27th, 2001, I was snowboarding in Whistler's terrain park. It was raining off and on and the snow was terrible. Back then, I was aiming at the Olympics in halfpipe, which was making its official debut as a medal sport in 2002 in Salt Lake City. But it was spring, and the halfpipe was gone and all I was left with were kickers (i.e. giant jumps) to play with. I attempted a front flip and as I fell, my knee hit my nose and broke it, but I kept going. I did another huge air, and because I landed successfully and aced the jump, I hiked back up to do it again. As I strapped in, I started to get woozy from the nose break, so I thought, "I'd better hurry," for some reason, and took the jump way harder than I anticipated, got probably at least thirty feet of air, and landed badly and broke myself. My athletic therapist would tell me later on after analyzing my helmet and the impact dent my head had made within it, that had I not been wearing my helmet, I would have died.

Two days later, I drove home (64 hour drive), and less than a week after that, I lost nearly all of my eyesight and my eyes became completely bloodshot, on top of the serious head pain I had been experiencing since the fall.

When I got home, nobody seemed to care that I'd returned. I was basically a useless cadaver of a person for a while, and the security guard of my dad's building caught me as I went to my car for a load of stuff. He was on the second floor (which was an open balcony-type thing), and he dropped down a waterlily, and said, "I'm glad you're back." I'd never gotten a flower from a boy before.

Within a month, things turned badly between my dad and I and I ended up moving in with the security guard into an apartment in a suburb of Montreal (where 97% of the people were French). Within four months, things became abusive. He started small, with things like, "Everybody believes in you except me," and gradually moved on to worse emotional abuse and then physical abuse (although, that part was pretty minor in comparison...).

Anyway, very late one night in 2004, things had gotten so bad that I just didn't want to live anymore. I told him I was done with this life, and he said, "Go for it. Just do it so I can have some peace." I threw on whatever coat I had lying around, which ended up being a useless, thin corduroy coat, and I ran down to my car, unsure of where I was going to go, but sure that something bad was going to happen.

Of course, it was winter, and my car had a layer of ice on it... There was nobody around, and I started scraping, trying to be quick about it so I could get on with it.

Out of nowhere, this guy walked up to me and asked, "Are you ok? Do you need help?" and started helping me scrape off my car. Obviously, I said I was fine, and he replied, "Are you sure you're ok?"

It was like 2AM, and here's this guy, who not only comes out of nowhere to help, but was English too? The odds of that happening were so slim. 3% tops, if you go by the census statistics.

In saying I was fine, I kind of made a promise to him that I would stay fine. I try to be honest, even about the little things, and to have said I was fine and then go hurt myself would have been deceitful in the worst way. The thought had crossed my mind that if this guy ever found out that he helped me die more quickly, a piece of his good heart probably would have died with me. So I kept my promise.

But really, what was that about? Where did this guy come from? What made him help me, especially at that hour of the night?

And about the first half, how did I survive that at all? My body was mangled. I slammed into the hard packed snow over and over from such a crazy height and at a tremendous speed. Sure, I wore a helmet, but the threshold of helmets isn't all that high.

Looking back, it makes me wonder if that was God and/or Jesus helping me get through some of the falls that hurt the most.

But then fairly recently, I got emotionally pounded. I got hurt like I don't remember being hurt before. I've endured all sorts of abuse and this series of events just broke me. But this time I had God and I had Jesus... But I couldn't feel them at all. How come in hindsight they're there, but in the moment when a girl needs the support, they're MIA?

I grew angry, but I never stopped learning. There had to be an answer. There had to be a reason I wasn't feeling it.

And then one day, I was standing in the shower (my thinking place, lol) and I realized why God wasn't there, why He wasn't helping me. I wasn't falling. I was getting back up again. I was past the mangled part and already into the healing part. The worst was over, and I had already handled it.

Somebody I know projected religious stereotypes onto me one night, and I told him, "What if God is the strength that gets you through things? What if that drive to survive that you see as independent strength is really God pushing you and helping you to stand back up again? What if He's working from the inside out? What if God is your heartbeat?"

Through all the manglings, physical and emotional, I've always healed eventually and more importantly, through it all, my heart has never stopped beating.

Monday, May 4, 2009

Lost.

I'm still getting my sea legs for this blog. I was all excited about it and I started blogging and it was all good and passionate until somebody hit my blog by following my profile. Since my other blog is private, anybody who clicks onto my profile will probably end up here, and I had to come to terms with that. For the first time in my entire life, somebody's first impression of me would be based on my religious views and thoughts on the subject and that made me really uncomfortable.

I have a hard time being an open Christian. I think if push came to shove, I'd probably say I wasn't one. The people I started to learn about Christianity from started to resent my learning to the point where I felt I had to hide it. One would ask me flat out if I believed in God and I'd answer with an “I don't know,” when I really did know... I also hid it from my atheist friends who judged me and I hid it from my family who I thought would lose respect for me. I hid it from everybody and that's not an easy thing to undo. Plus, since my main blog (with around 1,800 posts so far) had to go underground, I kind of got used to my thoughts and ideas not being so public, even though they were kind of public anyway.

But the hiding's not the only reason. I don't like the connotation that being a Christian brings- the eye rolls, the judgment, the prejudice. I might believe in Jesus' teachings, but I'm so not one of “them”. That alone is a judgment on my part, and a pretty harsh one at that. I could easily blame it on my age- after twenty-eight years of mocking religion and its followers, it's hard to break the stereotypes I had even if I understand the other side now. But that's a cop out, really. They aren't my stereotypes.

The truth is, for one of the first times I can remember, I actually worry about what people think.

I was never that girl. I was the shy girl who would surprise everybody by making a total ass of herself in public all of a sudden and without even blushing. I was the girl who showed up for a French oral presentation on Yugoslavia in high school wearing a Santa suit. I was the girl who would walk downtown when it was super crowded, throw her arms up and yell “WOO!” for no reason. I am so not easily embarrassed.

Until now.

Religion embarrasses me. It does. I'm sorry, God and Jesus, but it's true. Then again, I'm not sorry, God and Jesus, because I somehow think religion embarrasses You too.

I don't want to be lumped into a category with gay-haters and abortion clinic bombers. I don't want to be lumped into a category with people who use religion to wrongly justify hate. I don't want to be lumped into a category with people who don't ever question their beliefs and what they stand for.

I just want to be me.

And me is a girl who is coming to grips with her past, which some might say is less than perfect (ok, fine, far, far less than perfect, but I'm not here to whine), but seeing it with new eyes- eyes that see that maybe there is a God who actually was there all those years when I thought I was completely and entirely alone. I finally was shown a perspective of God that I could relate to, and in learning about it, I realized how closed-minded my former self was toward religion.

But I still am. I still have huge issues with the church and with Christians as a whole. I think my base, my foundation based on Jesus and his teachings in the Bible, is fairly solid and is getting stronger the more I learn, but religion teaches that without church, you're just not making the sacrifices you should as a believer.

My mom left when I was two, and that set the tone for a lot of my life. In my teenage years, I was so angry and bitter and hurt a lot of people, but I also sacrificed a ton for a select few. When I got sick a few years ago, my heart changed completely and I realized how many people need help. If I went to the store, anybody would have thought I was just a regular girl in her mid-twenties, but I wasn't. I was on so many pills every day to fight an autoimmune disorder, all while going through the regular life of a full-time biology student and of a girl in a situation of domestic abuse. I was a disaster and I didn't really tell anybody. Instead, I tried to be useful in any way I could, and that was by being supportive and helpful. My ex would put me down for all of my volunteery efforts, saying I was a doormat, but really, it gave me purpose.

How many people were like me- ordinary on the outside and completely and totally broken and alone on the inside? Probably everybody.

When I gradually got better (I still refuse to use the word "remission"), I went back to work and lost that free time to help people. I felt far more useful as a volunteer than I did (and still do) in my job, in spite of the paycheck. I'm not helping anybody. I'm just crunching numbers in a cyclic fashion.

But in the end, it all comes down to the fact that I constantly work so hard to be loved and to be lovable. And so, even though my reasons are selfish, I do understand Jesus pretty easily. The forgiveness, the sacrifice, the love- I understand it. I understand the need the world has for less selfishness. I understand that human nature goes against selflessness, but that it should be something we strive for. All of the "niceness" Jesus preached I already had down without ever reading the Bible, just hoping to be lovable enough to be worthwhile.

I was a good girl without being a Christian (or even really knowing anything real about Christianity) and I was always as inclusive as possible. And inclusiveness and Christianity as Jesus taught it go hand in hand, but in reality, they're far apart in so many ways. I've already blogged about being rejected by the church a couple of times, but the lack of inclusiveness goes the other way too. For example, if I'm a Christian, right away people assume I exclude homosexual people. It's as though I'm supposed to look down on a lot of people for what they do that is unChristian. But I don't. I mean, sure, I'm judgmental in a lot of ways, but not for personal sin things. It's not for me to decide what's a sin and what isn't. There are obviously some things that harm other individuals that we really should not do. As John Stuart Mill said in On Liberty, "The liberty of the individual must be thus far limited; he must not make himself a nuisance to other people." Your freedom ends where mine begins and vice versa. If you kill me or somebody related to me in some way, you're obviously affecting me and my freedom too. But between consenting adults, how does who you are attracted to affect my freedom? Really, in this girl's opinion, it doesn't. And therefore, whether or not it is a sin is between you and God.

Abortion is a little different as it involves the rights of an unborn child. Without going into too much depth (this post wasn't supposed to be about abortion...), being anti-abortion in a way puts the fetus' rights above the mother's even though for quite a bit of pregnancy, its viability relies heavily on her, and while I do agree that it is a pretty horrible process, I also believe that without access to abortion clinics, the babies will still be aborted, but through more brutal DIY means, which, apparently, were quite common back in the day. The doctors aren't the ones deciding the zygote/fetus/baby is unwanted. They're just providing a safer process for people who have already decided. Legalizing abortion protects women, even if, as usual, the system is abused by so many.

Anyway, moving on...

My point is that all of these things in this post and in this blog in its entirety, past and future, are core beliefs and broadcasting those on the internet is a challenge to say the least. I'm used to being open online, even about terrible things, but nobody will react in a fit of hateful rage toward the writer of a story of domestic violence or of sexual assault. Religion things, on the other hand and abortion especially- that can lead to scary stuff.

If you feel a strong desire to get scary on me, just try to remember what your goal is. Is it to spread anger and hate in Jesus' name? Would your effort better directed towards loving the people involved before they get to the point of what you call "sinning" and forgiving them and still loving them even if it's too late?

I'm not a protesty advocate. Nor am I a hardcore fundamentalist Christian. I'm just a girl trying to figure stuff out.

Even if this blog post seems jumbly and whatnot, I really don't think I've ever written anything that took so much out of me. Trying to word things as "unidirectionally" as possible so as to not be misunderstood in these things is so difficult. :D I know in my regular blog, my readers have been following me forever and know my intentions, but this blog is so new, and people are hitting me out of nowhere that it's hard to imagine any of you who stumble upon this by accident know what my intentions are or even remotely who I am.

It's hard to jump into writing a blog post without having the years of back up posts to hide it amongst. :D

Anyway, all that to say, this blog is a little scarier for me than I originally anticipated. But I'm the kind of person who, when I wake up and have the worst hair day ever and feel so self-conscious about it, if I tell one person, "Man, my hair sucks today!" I can walk through the rest of my day without caring about the tangled web that I'm carrying around on my skully parts. So I'm hoping that's what this post will do- take away my self-consciousness and shrink my inhibitions back to their normal state of nanoness.

It'll all work out in the end.

Right?

Right.