Christians and the church

As I mentioned earlier, I will never again go to church.  The only reason I went in the first place was because of a guy I met. He was an acquaintance of a friend who I for a while seemed to be around quite a lot. We became friends, then good friends and I quite fancied him. The feeling seemed to be mutual and we started hanging together. He is a Christian and it seemed important to him to introduce me to Christianity, I thought it wouldn't hurt to find out more so I went to his church with an open mind and a willing heart.

It was ok to start with but people started going on about as humans we are broken, we are sinners, we need Gods love and grace. People kept telling me I was broken and only God could heal me. Jesus died because of our sins. I didn't realise at first that this was starting to affect me. I was starting to feel guilty, responsible for Jesus death. I was told I needed to feel loved and that only God could give me the love I needed. I slowly went from being a strong, happy and confident young woman who enjoyed life to believing I wasn't good enough, I was ashamed of the fact that Jesus died for me because of my sin and this made me feel that I needed to give my life to Jesus in return. I had to love him back because he first loved me and died for me. I felt I owed him big time and nothing I could do would ever be enough to repay him for what he did. They had me hook line and sinker. What about the guy ? Well, he was never really interested in me romantically. It turned out he was only really interested in evangelising. The church was apparently encouraging its younger members to befriend and invite people to church. I was just part of that campaign. People were friendly for a couple of weeks but soon lost interest in me when other people started introducing more newcomers. We were all latest flavour of the week until the next person came along. I wouldn't have minded so much but I had become rather down, I was feeling miserable, unloved, worthless and useless. I had never felt so bad in my whole life as I did after a few months of Christian preaching and going to church. For some unknown reason I was becoming hooked and believed I needed God to heal me. They said to put my life in Gods hands and I did. I fell further and further down. After two years I was lonely, miserable and depressed.

Fortunately an old friend had become worried about me and stepped in. She insisted on taking me out, spending time with me, cheering me up, slowly got me involved in other things again and introduced me to meditation. She praised me and reminded me of the things I was good at and questioned why I believed I was broken and asked what sins I had committed that were so bad that Jesus needed to dye for me. I started to realise I wasn't an evil sinner and that I was already loved. I started to question Christianity for myself. People at the church didn't want to know me by this time.  I was just their latest conquest. My questions were seen as disruptive and unwanted. I had attended the place every week for two years, volunteered here and there, joined a house group. When I became miserable and stopped going, not one person ever contacted me to ask if I was ok and why wasn't I there. Did anyone even notice my absence ? No one noticed, no one cared.

It's all in the past now. I'm fortunate to still have my old friends and a few new ones. I know the value of true friendship and what its like to be loved by people who really care because I have that. I'm very fortunate to be much loved by some pretty awesome people. None in the name of God. Is there a God, I doubt it very much and I don't really care. I don't like how he makes people feel and I don't care much for his people. I didn't find any love in him or his people. I found all the love I need in family and friends. I found the love I needed in people.

The rise of the Phoenix 

Despite the problematic teenage years sprinkled with a couple of failed suicide attempts, the closest I got to success was being in a coma for three days, I remember at one stage during that time having a weird experience where I felt there was some sort do decision to be made about life/death and having to go one way or another. I didn't fully understand exactly what the decision was or what it would lead to except it was related to death and going somewhere. I didn't consciously make a decision or choice, just went with the flow and drifted. Was it some sort deep dream like state I was in during my coma ? Who knows what our mind is capable of ! I made my way into young adulthood (sort of)

I drifted....  I moved from one cheap flat/bedsit to another. One town, one job to another. I would rent a place for six months and when the contract was up I moved on to the next place. I traveled light, if it fitted into my car it came with me, if it didn't, it stayed behind. That included relationships, friends, people. Nothing was stable, nothing lasted. No roots, no security, no planning. Life was lived on a day to day basis. I lived in the poorest part of town in bedsit land. My neighbours died of aids, sold themselves to support their drug habits, were unemployed creatures of the night. If people were good to me they were friends, didn't matter who or what they were. We all had our stories to tell about what made us who we were and how we ended up where we were. 

We were all lonely souls drifting through life, gravitating towards each other like moths attracted to the warmth and light of a flame that will burn them. This life sucked people deeper and deeper into a black hole without them realising. The further down we went, the less conscious we became of our dark surroundings. We became accustomed to the pain of loneliness.  We loosely shared our beds with each other for the feeling of warmth and affection being close to another body temporarily gave us. There was some kind of unspoken understanding between us. It would have been too painful to share with another being the pain and desperation growing inside us, it didn't need to be said, it could be felt, we recognised in others what was in us. It was just accepted.

I never made a conscious decision to escape this life, I guess I was just lucky. I few twists and turns in the labyrinth that was my life slowly lead to better things. Physically I'm far away from there but emotionally I have to watch out for the pitfalls as there are sinkholes that can suck me down to those dark places if I'm not careful. If I allow myself to be pulled far enough down I loose my will even to start the lonely, arduous battle to pull myself out and back to the security of firm ground. Fortunately I've learnt to recognise and avoid them. I've also found a slightly easier way out.

I've learnt the art of affirmation meditation and a touch of Buddhism.

I'm mot proud of all I've done and everything I am but I can now sit comfortably with myself. I've stopped beating myself up and criticising myself for not being good enough (some of the time) I recognise that I'm not weak, just had a much heavier load than most to carry around for a long time. The struggle tired me out so I'm taking a little time to rest and build myself up. Just because this made me a late starter doesn't mean I have nothing worth while inside me. On the contrary, I have a wealth of valuable experience and a gift of instinctively recognising and feeling the hurt inside others, a kind of coming together of souls recognising the hurt inside each other. I struggled with this fir a while as I didn't fully understand it and what to do with it. I'm much better at just sitting with it now. Perhaps now I'm more at ease it will eventually be something of value I can use. 

Have I been attracting hurt to me because of the hurt that's been inside me or is it there for a reason and something of value to be used. Not sure yet, haven't quite figured that one out, but I'm getting there. Im on my way up and getting ready to fly.

My life should reflect me

I have finally realised that, as this is my life it should reflect me....

Of course this is blatantly obvious to most people but I have spent my life trying to please others in one way or another in order to try to fit in or to feel accepted. There were brief moments where I knew what I wanted and went for it, or I would fight someone else's course. I'm quite good at fighting others battles and joining there course but rarely see myself as someone worth fighting for. I'm good at putting the needs of others before my own but fail to even know what my own wants and needs are. At least I'm now at a stage in my life where I recognise this and am wanting to do something about it, not just wanting but also willing. (I think)

It's been so long since I did anything for myself that I don't really know what I want, my passions seem to have died somewhere along the way. Nothing inspires me anymore, my enthusiasm for life has gone, my get up and go, got up and went. I read a little while ago that this happens when people have suffered deep hurt in their lives. Feelings and emotions get switched off to protect them from further damage. I'm my case its not just the hurt and disappointment that's being avoided, its being judged, analysed, scrutinised by observers ready to condemn, criticise, try to mould me into what they think I should be with no consideration of who I actually am, where I'm coming from or where I'm going. People who compare me to themselves, their neat, safe lives and think I should fit their interpretation of how life should. People who avoid bothering to actually take part in my life but think they have a right to dictate how I live it. These people have no idea who I am but want to change me. 

I had a bad experience a few years ago with a church community. Church was a whole new experience for me, one I will never repeat again. When I first attended I was a happy confident person. Life was good, busy, happy. I felt strong and life had direction. That changed dramatically. After a couple of ears being told I was broken, needed healing, only in Gods strength, but for the grace of God, we are sinners undeserving of Gods mighty grace, Jesus saves and I needed saving.

It didn't take long for all this to make me start feeling like the dirty wretch that was being raped and abuses week after week by a family member as a child. It all came flooding back to me. The nightmares returned, the feelings of helplessness, shame, guilt, worthlessness. My health crashed both physically and mentally. I was in counselling and suicidal. Church turned out to be extremely bad for my health and is a place I shall never return to. The existence of a God is something I can no longer believe in. The knowledge that God couldn't give me what I needed made me question his existence and the answer I came up with is that we invented him and the only power he has is that which we allow him in the subconscious of our minds..

What's it all about ?

Just when I start to think I'm making sense of what life's about, something comes along and makes me think I haven't got the faintest clue. Why can't I just be happy accepting life at face value, why do I have to spoil it all by thinking there's something deeper, something more to life. why do i have almost a need to make life count.  I like to think I'm quite a spiritual person. Is that true or is it just wishful thinking, who knows, perhaps one day I shall find out.

Standing back and looking at my life from a distance I have nothing to complain about, its only when I scratch the surface and look a little deeper that I start to feel there should be more, I should be more than I am. What ?  What more should I be, I have limited capability so will never be the person I would like to be. I also have low self esteem, I guess you could say I'm my own worst enemy, I hold myself back far more than anyone else ever could. Am I still looking for my thing in life. Something that will light a passion inside me strong enough to drive me to make me succeed at something worthwhile. I'm doing some soul searching, I'm hoping to rebuild my self esteem enough to take on life and face a few of its challenges. Life nearly beat me a few times, child abuse lead to low self esteem which at times spills over into depression. It's under control at the moment but experience has taught me some of the cracks are fragile and I need to be mindful of anything that hurts or brings me down.
It's not so bad, life could be a whole lot worse. I had some lucky breaks that I was intelligent enough to recognise and grab with both hands and hold on to. So in many ways life is good. Everyone gets a little down sometimes and I'm no exception. The trick is to know how to climb back up, fortunately I have learnt those tricks. I pride myself in recovering from severe depression where I was at the point of suicide not once but three times in my life. Each time I did it almost totally unsupported without the help of family, friends, doctors or medication. I'm not proud of the fact that I sunk so low in the first place but I can sit with the fact that the severe sexual abuse I received as a child played a huge part in why I suffered in the first place and the knowledge that anyone going through what I did would have the same problems. I guess the phrase " it's not that my arms are weak but that my load is heavy" comes to mind. I don't want that to be an excuse though, rather an explanation.

I'm at a point in life where I want to take the next step, do I settle for the comfort of what I have, or am I capable of pushing myself to be more ???