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.