Struggling with Religion: Discovering My Own Truth
I have always had a botched relationship with religion. I was born into a religious family, was baptized, went to church, etc. But as with the metaphorical derailment of my life after my parents divorce, my religious derailment goes hand-in-hand.
Weekends I spent at my mom's house included Sunday mornings in the church pew, and weekends at dad's did not. But at my dad's we said grace before dinner, whereas we didn't at mom's. There were things that occurred at one house that didn't at the other, as you would probably expect from separated households. However, I don't think either parent was right or wrong in their continued pursuits in religion - I do not believe attending church every Sunday automatically makes you a Godly person, but rather how you take God's word and incorporate into your life and and relationships of all calibers - but that is a whole new conversation, so I digress.
An unfortunate obstacle unfortunately completely derailed my religious train car from the tracks: my mom's cancer diagnosis. You may be wondering what exactly that has to do anything, so keep in mind she was a single mother. And if you have never experienced or observed the effects of cancer and treatment, then you can't possibly completely understand, but let's just say it drains a humans body and spirit. So she was in no shape, and had no will, to get up and get out of the house. Us kids were also too young to drive ourselves, so our one weekend of church disappeared.
Not that I would have wanted to attend anyway. I basically graffiti-ed and burned the idea of church and God when my mom got sick. I was only around 12 or 13, so it was such a complicated concept for me to grasp. I spent nights crying myself to sleep, woke up in the dark of the morning from dreams of her funeral, imagined having to pack all of our things in boxes and leave my one stable home and go... where? My teen self understood God's power, His ability to create humans and Earth and life of all shapes and sizes. His ability to take that life away. I blamed him for that entire portion of my life. And then I looked back on my past and blamed him for everything behind me, even before me - my maternal grandpa's cancer, which caused his death, my parent's divorce, my paternal grandpa's cancer, which caused his death, etc.
I have remained in this particular blaming stage until just recently, if I'm being honest. I would only attend the Christmas Eve service at church, or only sit in a pew for weddings. I didn't read the Bible, or really even become a decent, positive human being, let alone a Christian one. All because of this wall I put up between myself and my religion. All because of my quick and cynically placed blame.
It's possible for both good and bad things to exist in life, because just as there is a light in God, there is a darkness in an opposing place. Yin has a yang. There's health and illness. War and peace. Life and death. God is the light, the good. The bad is something else entirely - Satan or Lucifer, the devil, Hades - whatever you may believe. God does so much good in this life, and for humans, first and foremost giving us life, and all of those bad experiences are not His doing. This realization will hopefully start to positively affect the way I live in my hardships while still trusting in Him, because I know he didn't put me there or place those obstacles in my path.
In fact, I believe he actively helps us through, over, or around them and onto our next adventure.
He saved my mother, my paternal grandma, my uncle, two of my aunts, countless other souls. I believe he even saved me. I haven't been the easiest child (of God's or my parents), but that hasn't discouraged me from either of their love.
So in 2019 I pray to start finding God again in the little things - the songs that play through the radio right when I need them to, the friends that stick around, the helping hand of a stranger, the quiet nothingness.
Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, you will have absolutely zero idea why any particular thing is happening in your life. Work on walking through them gently, as if you were walking on ice, doing everything to keep the situation and yourself intact. Take all the time you need to find yourself and your place in His kingdom, or any. No matter how long it has been since your last visit, he will always be there to guide and welcome you.
(Disclaimer: This post is solely my opinion. I am not writing this trying to change people's minds on anything regarding religion, beliefs, morals, opinions, etc. My views may not mirror yours, and I understand and respect that. I only ask that you're all equally as respectful of my own. My only goal with this entire blog is to share my thoughts, feelings, hardships, and successes, among other things, so that maybe someone somewhere realizes that they are not alone. That we can all find something to bond over and discuss.)
Weekends I spent at my mom's house included Sunday mornings in the church pew, and weekends at dad's did not. But at my dad's we said grace before dinner, whereas we didn't at mom's. There were things that occurred at one house that didn't at the other, as you would probably expect from separated households. However, I don't think either parent was right or wrong in their continued pursuits in religion - I do not believe attending church every Sunday automatically makes you a Godly person, but rather how you take God's word and incorporate into your life and and relationships of all calibers - but that is a whole new conversation, so I digress.
An unfortunate obstacle unfortunately completely derailed my religious train car from the tracks: my mom's cancer diagnosis. You may be wondering what exactly that has to do anything, so keep in mind she was a single mother. And if you have never experienced or observed the effects of cancer and treatment, then you can't possibly completely understand, but let's just say it drains a humans body and spirit. So she was in no shape, and had no will, to get up and get out of the house. Us kids were also too young to drive ourselves, so our one weekend of church disappeared.
Not that I would have wanted to attend anyway. I basically graffiti-ed and burned the idea of church and God when my mom got sick. I was only around 12 or 13, so it was such a complicated concept for me to grasp. I spent nights crying myself to sleep, woke up in the dark of the morning from dreams of her funeral, imagined having to pack all of our things in boxes and leave my one stable home and go... where? My teen self understood God's power, His ability to create humans and Earth and life of all shapes and sizes. His ability to take that life away. I blamed him for that entire portion of my life. And then I looked back on my past and blamed him for everything behind me, even before me - my maternal grandpa's cancer, which caused his death, my parent's divorce, my paternal grandpa's cancer, which caused his death, etc.
I have remained in this particular blaming stage until just recently, if I'm being honest. I would only attend the Christmas Eve service at church, or only sit in a pew for weddings. I didn't read the Bible, or really even become a decent, positive human being, let alone a Christian one. All because of this wall I put up between myself and my religion. All because of my quick and cynically placed blame.
It's possible for both good and bad things to exist in life, because just as there is a light in God, there is a darkness in an opposing place. Yin has a yang. There's health and illness. War and peace. Life and death. God is the light, the good. The bad is something else entirely - Satan or Lucifer, the devil, Hades - whatever you may believe. God does so much good in this life, and for humans, first and foremost giving us life, and all of those bad experiences are not His doing. This realization will hopefully start to positively affect the way I live in my hardships while still trusting in Him, because I know he didn't put me there or place those obstacles in my path.
In fact, I believe he actively helps us through, over, or around them and onto our next adventure.
He saved my mother, my paternal grandma, my uncle, two of my aunts, countless other souls. I believe he even saved me. I haven't been the easiest child (of God's or my parents), but that hasn't discouraged me from either of their love.
So in 2019 I pray to start finding God again in the little things - the songs that play through the radio right when I need them to, the friends that stick around, the helping hand of a stranger, the quiet nothingness.
Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, you will have absolutely zero idea why any particular thing is happening in your life. Work on walking through them gently, as if you were walking on ice, doing everything to keep the situation and yourself intact. Take all the time you need to find yourself and your place in His kingdom, or any. No matter how long it has been since your last visit, he will always be there to guide and welcome you.
(Disclaimer: This post is solely my opinion. I am not writing this trying to change people's minds on anything regarding religion, beliefs, morals, opinions, etc. My views may not mirror yours, and I understand and respect that. I only ask that you're all equally as respectful of my own. My only goal with this entire blog is to share my thoughts, feelings, hardships, and successes, among other things, so that maybe someone somewhere realizes that they are not alone. That we can all find something to bond over and discuss.)
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