Ok, so I'd like to begin by telling my life story in a nut shell. "Help, I'm in a nut shell!" Sorry, I can't get that scene from Austin Powers out of my head when someone uses that phrase. Anyway, I'd like to begin by giving a brief summary of my life and my faith.
I guess you could say I always believed in God from the time I was a small child. But as a child, God was just this being I couldn't see and I didn't think was really involved in my life and was just kind of...there. I don't imagine many small children think too deeply about God anyway. Fast forward a few years. I remember when I was a pre-teen, one of my friends told me I had to make a public confession and accept Jesus as my Lord and savior in order to get to heaven. Those words he told me kind of stuck with me, even though I wasn't totally convinced.
I went to California one summer to visit my aunt and uncle. I was just about to turn thirteen. We did a lot of fun things, but then my aunt told me we were going to a Greg Laurie concert one night. I asked her about it and to me it just sounded like going to church, I was less than thrilled. I think the words that came out of my mouth were "I don't want to go to a stupid church concert" So, we got there and I was bored, bored, bored. I eventually fell asleep. After a little while I woke up and we were still there, I must not have been out long enough, or so I thought. Anyway, whoever was on stage speaking was inviting people to come forward and accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. The words my friend told me rang in my ears. To this day I can't explain it, but I looked at my uncle and the words "I want to go down there with everyone" came out of my mouth. What?! What did I just say?! Go down there? What am I doing? I guess I figured if I was going to do this thing, this was a pretty public place to do it with the hundreds of people at this thing. So I did it, I prayed the sinners prayer and asked Jesus into my heart. Next thing I know, I'm sitting with someone and they're explaining to me what I just did and what the next steps to take would be. They gave me a packet of things I should read. I remember the ride back to my aunt and uncle's apartment. Perhaps I was delirious and tired from being out so late, but I remember having a great sense of joy, I was at peace, calm, even a little giddy.
I flew back home to Pennsylvania and I was ready to get into the packet I was given. There was a devotional I was supposed to read every day and that lasted for about a week or so. I did feel kind of guilty for not finishing it. Actually, I felt really guilty, so guilty in fact that I thought I was going to hell for not finishing it. I got over it though.
The next few years went by from middle school to high school. I just went through life believing in God, but just kind of feeling like he was just kind of there...again. Not really involved. I did start reading the Bible though. Not because I wanted to, but because I figured if I was going to get into heaven, I'd better make sure I check everything off the checklist that will surely get me into the pearly gates. I figured reading the Bible would earn me a pretty good chunk of points with the Big Guy up there. Here are a few items that were on my checklist. Accept Jesus as my savior, get baptized, read the Bible, go to church most weeks, don't smoke or drink, don't swear, help old ladies across the street....and so on.
I thought I would get an early start on reading the Bible because once I read it all the way through one time, I would never have to read it again...because I already read it, duh! So I read through the Old Testament, forgetting the next day what I had just read. Then I got into the New Testament and things got interesting. I had never realized who this Jesus was. All of a sudden, reading the Bible became exciting.
I started thinking more about God on a daily basis. I started becoming more aware of my surroundings and of certain situations and how I was handling those things. I went to a church camp the summer after I graduated from high school. It was going to be my last year there, so I was already pretty emotional about that. I remember watching a skit the girls at the camp performed about the crucifixion. It was during this skit, that something seemed to click in my mind and all of a sudden I just started weeping. I didn't know what came over me exactly, but it was like I became more aware of God somehow. I'm not sure how else to explain it.
So, over the next ten, eleven, twelve years or so I pretty much did what the typical Christian did. Went to church every week, read my Bible, did devotionals, helped out with community activities the church was involved in. I listened to Christian music and that's the only type of music I listened to. Within this time I felt pretty solid in my beliefs and I felt confident that I was living a Godly lifestyle, even though I knew I wasn't perfect.
When I was in my mid to late twenties, I started dating a girl that one of my friends introduced me to. I won't say too much about our relationship, but for the most part we believed the same things. Then one day she told me about this party she wanted to go to in which there was going to be drinking and some other things that I did not approve of at that time in my life. I told her that I didn't want to go, and she was fine with that until I tried to convince her not to go. I pretty much told her that if she goes, then it would damage our relationship and that she would have to change her ways if we were going to be together. That's not exactly how I worded it, but that's how it came out. I thought that I was so right. In fact, I thought that I was so right that eventually she would have seen the light and told me I was absolutely right all along. Yea, never happened.
Needless to say, she ended up breaking up with me a couple weeks later. I didn't think it at the time, but I had handled the situation all wrong. I had not created any room for grace. I had become so narrow-minded that I pretty much believed that if someone didn't believe the same exact things that I believed, then they were in the wrong. I had never meant to become this way. It was time to just step back from who I had become. It was around this time that I decided to re-examine my life. Like I said in the introduction, If I was a building, then there was a time in my life when I had to be torn down. This was that time in my life.
After finally graduating from college at the age of 28, I stayed in touch with one of the girls from my class. She was quite a bit different from the girl I had dated the previous year. She was kind of a punk rocker, an anarchist, a rebel. We became pretty good friends. We traveled to different places together, checking out art galleries mostly. It was quite an experience. She knew I believed in God but didn't reject me even though she was far from being sold on the whole Christian lifestyle, but I didn't let it bother me this time and we had some interesting conversations. I had thrown my judgmental ways out the window a long time ago. If I had judged her from the get go I never would have become her friend and found out that she had a good heart. She loved photography, Diane Arbus was an inspiration to her. She used her photography skills as a way to meet new people and get to know them. She once photographed elderly people with mental disabilities at the nursing home in which they lived. She didn't just photograph them, she got to talk with them and got to know them. It was a fun summer getting to know her and it was a life changing experience. She moved away towards the end of that summer and we haven't really kept in touch, but I will always remember her as a good friend.
I know I said I would give a brief summary, I lied. Sorry. I wasn't expecting to type so much, and there is still so much more I could say. I'll save it for future posts. I guess a brief summary would have sounded more like this:
Early Childhood: Believed in God, but didn't really think about him too much
Early Teen: Started becoming more aware of God, accepted Jesus as my Savior, but only did it to satisfy my "spiritual checklist"
Later Teens: Started reading the Bible so I could mark it off my checklist. Once I got into the New Testament, Jesus became interesting to me.
Early to Mid Twenties: Thought I was living the way God wanted me to be, but had become so set in my ways that if someone else didn't believe what I did, then I believed they were wrong.
Late Twenties: My world fell apart and realized I had been wrong about so many things. Re-evaluated my faith and what I believed.
Late Twenties to present: Every day is a new day to learn new and exciting things about God. I have accepted the fact that I don't know it all.
I'll leave you by saying this. I feel free. I feel free because I allow myself to doubt and I allow myself to ask questions. I feel free when I don't know the answers because it is much better than when I used to pretend I knew all the answers and locked myself inside the prison of thinking my way was the only and right way.
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