To those that may read this, I would like to express that I live for God, I no longer belong to any religion but believe in God and know that his son was sent to show us the way, his name is Jesus Christ. I also know that so-called Christian churches have forgotten the way. True Christianity is not a religion, it is a way of life. I believe that is what Jesus was trying to teach people. I also believe in Taoism (which by the way means, “THE WAY”) and the fact that a person does not have to be led by a group of people to achieve heaven. You only need to be led by God. Call me New Age, spiritual or even a fanatic if you like. God is… that’s all I need to know.
I read recently that churches are losing people these days. They don’t understand why people would call themselves, “Spiritual and not religious”. I hear it all the time, “If you don’t go to church then you can’t be doing God’s work”. It saddens me to hear these words because I have spent many years in churches and have seen and heard some horrible things come out of those very same places that are supposed to be the home of God.
The first experience I ever had with an Evangelical church was not so bad I suppose, except that they kept predicting the end of the world and you had to dress and look just like them to be able to make it to heaven. The rules there were very strict. You could not watch television, wear pants if you were a girl, never wear makeup or jewelry, show your knees or elbows and several more legalistic rules were applied as well.
I had several girl-friends and a few boyfriends while I was in this situation. I saw several young couples excommunicated from the church because they owned televisions, the eye of Satan, as they would call them.
Later in my youth, I also saw several young lives destroyed here. Both young men and young women. They could not live up to the critical state that church put them in. I saw a girlfriend go completely berserk because her father sexually molested her while she was young and the church merely looked at him when he asked for forgiveness and said, “It’s ok. You confessed, we will find you the help here, within these walls.” What did they do for my girlfriend? Nothing…by that time she had left that church, (I wonder why?) married and divorced and had a child. I remember after the divorce, she remarried a man who gave her a ring. She called me one day from her father’s house. I could hear him blasting viscious words at her, “I am praying God sends a lightning bold to blow that finger off so you can never wear that ring again! What a tool of Satan!”
I thought of his molestings and what she had went through and I cried. I left that church.
After I married, we attended another church. Not evangelical but known throughout the world. Everything seemed fine for quite a while. Then one day we heard from a friend in the church that her children had been molested by the teen youth leader, he had been charged previously to this but nobody ever persued the issue so he had went to another church and it had happened again.
I made the mistake of waiting a year to ask the local police why the molested children had never found help. When they said they had never heard of the case, they persued it further to find that the minister had filed the case through another social service in a town over a hundred miles away. They brought the case to court, he was tried and found guilty and was sentenced to 3 years in prison on a work release program and got the help he needed. The boys also recieved help.
I, on the other hand, was called by an elder of the church and chewed up one side and down the other for not trusting the minister. I was also told that if it had been her grandson they would have pressed charges but these were “just Jackson boys.” (real name is being witheld) I assumed she meant that they were not worthy of receiving help. I left that church as well.
Through some spiritual guidance, I persuaded my husband to attend one more church some years later with our sons. When my son was 16 he was the center of another scheme from a church goer and her daughter. He was accused of things he never did do and we feared the fact that they may even get worse than what they were and become accusing to the point of taking it to the police when nothing happened. The ministers there also accused my son. He was with me the whole night that he had been accused. I knew exactly where he was, he had been helping his father take money at a harvest festival when he wasn’t with me. We drove home together. Fear drove us to the point of leaving there as well.
I was thrown into the most major depression I had ever had in my life. I lived in fear at the fact that the world had gone mad. I was being pulled by the thought that to do God’s will I had to attend a church and how people would look at me and my family if I just left. I cannot even begin to tell you of the guilt I felt due to leaving church but when I thought to return or go to another church, sheer panic struck me and I felt like a wild horse trapped in a corral with no way out. I wanted to bite, rip and tear my way out of the invisible boundary that kept me in its grip. I could not figure out how to overcome this.
Then one day, I spoke to a Native American friend. He awoke every morning at sunrise and went to pray as it rose, thanking the Creator of all things for another day. He also told me that only when it was truly from my heart would any life lived for the Creator do any good. I had to learn how to listen to my heart and quit being brainwashed into following the crowd because it was the thing I was told I must do. He also was a Christian. He told me to believe in Christ, it was only necessary to profess it.
I spent many days praying as he did, I also began searching. I pondered many times what it meant to be Christian or even believe in God. I was sure it didn’t mean being one of these people who were so narrow minded that if someone didn’t act or look like they did or attend the church they did then they were unworthy. Those people not fitting the mold that some man had said their church must conform to were only in their eyes worthy of hell. I knew that to be Christian meant to be Christ-like. I knew Christ did not look at one’s clothes or hair, He looked at the heart. I pondered this for many days.
I knew that Christ was love here on earth. I let go of all I knew other than that. One day, I stood on my back porch watching the sun come up and I just let go and thought of only goodness. Not goodness as a Christian views it, but eternal goodness. I let go of my life. I let go of everything I had ever learned. It sometimes drifts back, but I know that I am a new being. I am a being of God’s. I am following Christ. By following Christ I never ever give anyone else the message that they are not worthy of his love.
Today I saw a man standing on a street corner with “John 3:16″ written on a board. We were at a winter carnival. He stood there and looked for people that he ( the word to look at was HE) deemed worthy of heaven. Those that did not fit his mold he yelled at…”I am not afraid to point out a sinful man, those words you use are a sin! Do you know what happens to those who sin? They go to HELL!”
So sad…how many more souls could he gain by simply smiling at people and telling them how much God loves them? Oh it saddens me so much! I wonder what his own life is like? Does he go home and molest his children? Abuse his wife? Perhaps he is ok…but I will not trust him after what I have been through.
It does not matter to me how one loves God, only that they do. I don’t care what people’s belief of what God is as long as people believe. They could be any religion known to man or no religion at all. That is not what is important. I can imagine God looking down upon us from somewhere in heaven lauging at man’s stupidity. The creator of the world also created the Universe with all its galaxies and stars…He knows more than any of us how small and petty our issues here are. He knows that the way to any form of heaven is love.
I only want peace. I only want love. It is too hard to live without it and it does no good to live with ridicule.
I will always pray for peace among the people of the world.
Remember no matter who you are, God loves you.
Seeking Peace in All Things 