this is me being vulnerable and honest... please proceed with caution and care.

why do i care so much of what people think of me?... so much that i'm willing to deny who i am... and what i believe for acceptance.

a few months ago, i sat and listened to close friends of mine discussing what they believed... offering very little. it's always the same routine. i acknowledge what they say... make thoughtful comments... ask a few questions... but offer nothing that's truly from me. everything i say could (and would probably) have been said by another, with totally different beliefs than myself.

i justify this... blaming the bad experiences i had in high school, with people pushing beliefs onto me... and the resentment that followed. i know that's not why i truly don't speak up.

i blame it on my confusion... my own uncertainty. maybe when i "have it all figured out"... then i'll talk. but in reality, i'll probably be dead before i get to that point.

here's what little i have figured out... jesus christ was not just a good man, but god's own son. he died for me and you... for our sins, and then rose again. i believe that he is the only way to heaven. i believe the heavens and earth weren't created by a freak accident of particles floating through space, but from god's own hand. i've studied the evidence for evolution, but i believe that god created me with love, and a plan. call me ignorant... go ahead... say it. but the truth of the matter is, i don't need any more proof than the bible. 

you call god and christianity a crutch. damn straight i have a crutch... i'm broken, and i need help.... my life will tell you that! i need to depend on god to walk. i've tried walking by myself... what a joke that attempt was.

you say that the christian community brainwashes people. i have most definitely been brainwashed... but not by christians. i have been brainwashed by the world screaming that there is no place for religion, or god... not in schools, in textbooks, in workplaces, in the law, in politics... so much so that i really did start to believe that there was no place for religion and god anywhere, even in my heart.

i indulged in sin. i celebrated it... and then justified it with the idea of free will. i can do as i please... i'm my own person... i don't have anyone to answer to, but myself. i succumbed. i chose my desires... my flesh...  i drank excessively, smoked, experimented. i knew i was doing something wrong... but "i'm young" i would say... "this is the time to live it up." i learned to quiet god's voice... and right now, i'm facing the consequences of learning how to do it so well. after so much practice, it has become almost second nature, and effortless...

i've realized that there is no gray (middle) christianity (despite the fact that i lived it for so many years). there is no belief without action... there was no action in my life, because there was no belief.

less than two years ago, i actually told someone i wasn't a christian. i told them that i didn't believe in organized religions because that's not what it's about... it's about a personal relationship with jesus christ. although i do believe that the relationship is what's important... my saying it at the time was a cop out. i said christians everywhere are all about hating, persecuting, judging... full of hypocrisy. although i've come across quite a few people that called themselves christians that were like that... denying my religion was not the way to deal with it. i should've stood up and been a counter-example to the message of judgement they were sending. i did everything in my power to be labeled "another one of those christans" instead of setting a new standard of what "another one of those christians" meant to my friends.

i would loudly proclaim that i was about love, forgiveness, redemption... but only alone, in the quiet of my own room, would i admit that those things were from christ... for christ first loved me, which was why i was able to love others. i used to justify my shame (yes, shame) for christ by saying that it was my shame of christianity... all those "bad christians" out there giving the religion a bad name. "i am christian, but that doesn't mean i have to shout it from the rooftops" i used to say to myself. "i believe, but my friends don't have to believe what i believe... that's what america is all about... freedom to choose." i was wrong. not in the idea that america is about the rights of those around me to believe what they wanted... i was wrong in what i said i believed. because if i truly believed, i would have shouted it from the rooftops out of love for everyone around me... i would tell my friends, because of how much i love them.

it hurts to admit all of this... but i must be honest with myself, and with those around me. enffie made a good analogy a few weeks ago. when you get hurt, you have to clean the wound before putting bandages over it, otherwise the wound will become infected and gross. i guess this is my removing the bandages over those unhealed wounds, and cleaning them off... must face all my demons... must open the closet and confront the skeletons... must unbury the sins; no matter how hard and long... no matter how much easier it seems to just move forward in life without learning from, or even acknowledging my mistakes and pain. and so it begins..