I…I think I want to want to believe
Posted by: branwynne77 on: October 9, 2008
Sometimes, I think I feel the presence of …. an entity larger than myself. I don’t know if I’d call it God, but the presence feels warm and loving and accepting, not cruel and over bearing as some would say their God is. Maybe it’s all in my head. Maybe I am crazy. Or maybe I just really want to believe. I think I do.
How we treat others is how we treat our own personal Diety, whatever religion you belong to. Think about it. We’re all “God’s” creations and if you dishonor one of them, you’re also disrespecting “God”.
We’re made how we are to be. I grew up, knowing that I wanted (deep, deep down) to be a nun. I’ll never get to be one, my health isn’t that good—I hope it gets better soon. But nothing is going to stop me from seeking out spiritual fulfillment. (That book is helping, Sonja.)
Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.–Philo
4 Responses to "I…I think I want to want to believe"
October 12, 2008 at 7:45 pm
If I could tell people just one thing it’s this: You are only a victim as long as you give people the power over your own thoughts.
What I mean by that is, if you let how other people’s words/ actions dictate how you should live, then you are subconsciously letting yourself be victimized.
October 14, 2008 at 12:03 am
I am so touched by your story, Mr.C. Thank you for sharing it and I apologize for not saying thank you in the previous comment.
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October 11, 2008 at 9:10 pm
I have found so many truths & insights in what little I have read here. None of them, in my humble opinion, are truer or insight-ier
than this post!
For many, many years, as I languished in a darkness at least partly of my own making, I had only my God to whom I could cry out my painfully broken, nearly-barely beating heart. The people who introduced me to the idea of an all-knowing, all-loving Deity who would never leave me seemed all-too-ready to leave me themselves when they discovered my defect. The very people who claimed to seek the heart of God could not find it in themselves to abide mine.
Much pain & much anger accompanied my unceremonious unofficial unspoken excommunication from the Body of Christ. When all you have known to be true & all you have taken as gospel (small “g”) is suddenly smashed to dust, there is barely enough time to catch your breath, much less forgive those who have so gravely wounded you.
I’ve come to realize, as I continue my post-Religion life, that my value as a person–as a child of God–is not dependent on THEIR love, but on God’s love. “They” may have carried the message of God’s everlasting love to a heart so desperately in need of permanency, but “they” didn’t GIVE me anything that was not already mine by virtue of the fact that I simply AM. “They” may want me to believe that the “sin” of being who God made me is what will one day keep me from my Reward, and they may have been successful at making me believe for a while that I was undeserving of something that I’ve never had to earn, but in the healing light of day & truth, I’ve come to see where the problem really lies.
I Know that I am ultimately responsible for my own actions & I am responsible for allowing “them” to lead me on with their hateful words couched in such loving terms, so–inasmuch as I must not deny my own part in the misery which wracked so much of the first three-quarters of my life–these “good people of God” had a willing accomplice/victim.
The problem came when I put my trust in those who claim to speak for God instead of trusting only God. It has taken me so long to understand that very simple idea. It has also taken me so much of my post-closet life to extricate myself from the victim mindset that kept me from moving on with my life.
I have begun to understand & accept & even allow myself permission to feel the genuinely righteous indignation at not just my former faux-family, but at myself, too. As simple-minded as it may sound, I have come to understand that I cannot forgive “them” if I do not forgive myself first. It may sound like a simple game of semantics, but I make a very real distinction between “forgiving” and “excusing”.
I must forgive “them” for the wrongs I perceive they have worked against me, not for them, and not to excuse anything they’ve done in their God’s name. I must forgive “them”, so that I can release all the poison & all the negativity that permeated my life when all I knew to do was to “stew in” the pain. Forgiveness of someone else couldn’t happen unless/until I was ready to forgive myself for falling so completely for their lies.
So, here is where I my life has lead me thus far. I am learning to reconcile the twisted mess that my heart & mind had become in the darkness of my closet, painfully punctuated by a conditional love of people in whom I should never have placed my faith in the first place. I may never be part of a family that never really existed in the first place, but I know that I cannot live the rest of my life holding grudges or wishing that things could have been different.
It’s so difficult to unlearn old habits & creating a new mindset, but it’s not like I have a choice, is it? Going back is just not an option…so, with “only” my faith in God remaining of the bad old days of Christianity, I guess it’s Full Speed Ahead, even if some days, I find it so incredibly hard to put one foot in front of the other.