Post by lexibadger on Apr 16, 2009 15:12:16 GMT -5
Hi! My name is Lexi, and I've been quietly peeking in on the No Longer Quivering blog since I saw a link to it posted on a Live Journal community a couple weeks ago. I'm not fully caught up yet, but I'm working on it!
Anyway, a little bit about myself. I'm 26 years old and I live in Ontario, Canada, though I'm currently engaged to a guy in Michigan and planning to move there once my visa (hopefully) goes through.
I spent most of my life pretty non-religious until I was 14 and my abusive alcoholic mother got "saved" at a Benny Hinn conference (ugh). She basically went from one addiction (alcohol) to another (her religion) and became a very zealous and over the top evangelical Christian, which freaked my family out but we didn't say anything because we knew it was her choice. Unfortunately even though my dad asked her not to push anything on the family, she still did but only when he wasn't around. Despite my discomfort and annoyance with the way she was (I was huuuge into music, especially the Beatles, and she kept telling me that they were ungodly and that John Lennon was in hell, and that I was going to hell, etc.) I still managed to let myself be talked into going to a "play" that one of the local churches were putting on called "Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames". I remember not wanting to go but feeling guilted into it by being told that my mom and her friend only had one ticket left and that it was a big deal and she needed someone to fill the spot. (I later found out that the tickets weren't actual tickets to be let in, they were just little advertisements in the shape of tickets and you could just show up if you wanted. For some reason this didn't upset me when I found that out.) Anyway, even though I didn't want to be there I ended up getting "saved" that night too. It's hard to try and explain that experience and I don't really remember what was going through my head at the time, except that during the "Sinner's Prayer" I ended up crying uncontrollably and that I was shaking and I didn't know why.
At any rate, that was the start of my journey as a Pentecostal Christian. I got pretty heavy duty into it, starting off just going to church on Sundays and the youth group on Fridays. Eventually I joined the choir, helped out with the vacation bible school in the summer, helped out in the nursery during Sunday morning services every few weeks, was elected a leader at the youth group, helped out with the Jr High youth group and played guitar in their worship band, took part in the church's Easter passion play and Christmas nativity play, went on a mission trip to Mexico, and a whole whack of other things. Like I said, I went all out. I believed fully in everything that I was doing, everything that was preached to me. I alienated a lot of people because I was not only encouraged to witness to/evangelize everyone that I knew at all times, but was basically also told that we have to be EXTREME for Jesus and that the only way to please God was to go all out no matter how much it hurt or was embarrassing. Oh, and that if people got pissed at us or countered us in any way it was the devil's work and that Satan was trying to bring us down, which also meant we were doing something right. It was hard to do but I thought I was doing a good thing by living this life and never once questioned it.
Flash forward to me getting my first job around the end of high school. I was no longer young enough to take part in all the cool and fun youth group activities, and my part time job (with full time hours, heh) caused me to miss out on a lot of church. This upset some people and caused others become "concerned" that I was back-sliding. A few people started nagging me about not being in church and a couple friends in particular started judging me for being a hypocrite.
Not too long after all this started going down, a co-worker friend of mine introduced me to her boyfriend's best friend and we hit it off. He was "dark" and "mysterious" and had long hair and was in a band... and he wanted to be my boyfriend. Which had never happened to me before. I was a dork and a nerdly little wallflower that people generally didn't take notice of so I was all over this. Plus, he seemed kinda dorky too and I liked that. He wasn't a Christian, which my mom HATED, but he was nice and actually tried to encourage me to keep going to church even though I was starting to lose my faith, especially in the people I thought were my friends.
Of course, I caught a huuuge amount of shit from my "friends" when they found out I started dating *gasp* a non-Christian! The judgement I got from missing church because of work were nothing compared to this. According to them, I was a hypocrite and a horrible person and HOW DARE I?? So... I got tired of the crap and stopped going all together.
I'm not too sure when it started, but my faith had started wavering at some point before all the cries of "hypocrite!" were being slung at me. I tried clinging to it and talking myself into believing that I still believed for a while. But after everything was said and done and I stopped going to church, I ended up very bitter and angry for quite a while and officially renounced my faith. I tried rebelling in my own way by learning about Wiccans and Buddhists and whatever religion I thought would piss my mom off, but I never did get very far in my quest for knowledge for some reason. (It's still on my to-do list to learn about other religions even though at this point I would probably officially call myself an Atheist. It's still an interesting subject to me.)
So, here I am now. I'm no longer with the boyfriend that my mom still blames for "making" me lose my salvation (as I said, I'm engaged to a Michigander now, lol!) It's been about 6 or 7 years since I've set foot into a church and don't ever plan on going back. And I'm not nearly as bitter and angry as I was for a while, though sometimes it does resurface every now and then. Now, I feel more free than I ever did as a Christian. I'm allowed to listen to the music that I want, I can swear if I want, I can laugh at the jokes that make me laugh without feeling guilty about it if it's "off colour" or not. And I don't have this constant fear hanging over my head that if I don't do what some guy standing up at a pulpit says that he thinks God wants me to do, that I'll upset Him and go to hell for it. I don't think I went through anything nearly as bad as the Quiverfull movement or an abusive marriage during my time in the church, but I think I can sympathize.
Wow, that was a lot longer than I intended. Sorry about that!
Sooo... hi everyone!
Anyway, a little bit about myself. I'm 26 years old and I live in Ontario, Canada, though I'm currently engaged to a guy in Michigan and planning to move there once my visa (hopefully) goes through.
I spent most of my life pretty non-religious until I was 14 and my abusive alcoholic mother got "saved" at a Benny Hinn conference (ugh). She basically went from one addiction (alcohol) to another (her religion) and became a very zealous and over the top evangelical Christian, which freaked my family out but we didn't say anything because we knew it was her choice. Unfortunately even though my dad asked her not to push anything on the family, she still did but only when he wasn't around. Despite my discomfort and annoyance with the way she was (I was huuuge into music, especially the Beatles, and she kept telling me that they were ungodly and that John Lennon was in hell, and that I was going to hell, etc.) I still managed to let myself be talked into going to a "play" that one of the local churches were putting on called "Heaven's Gates and Hell's Flames". I remember not wanting to go but feeling guilted into it by being told that my mom and her friend only had one ticket left and that it was a big deal and she needed someone to fill the spot. (I later found out that the tickets weren't actual tickets to be let in, they were just little advertisements in the shape of tickets and you could just show up if you wanted. For some reason this didn't upset me when I found that out.) Anyway, even though I didn't want to be there I ended up getting "saved" that night too. It's hard to try and explain that experience and I don't really remember what was going through my head at the time, except that during the "Sinner's Prayer" I ended up crying uncontrollably and that I was shaking and I didn't know why.
At any rate, that was the start of my journey as a Pentecostal Christian. I got pretty heavy duty into it, starting off just going to church on Sundays and the youth group on Fridays. Eventually I joined the choir, helped out with the vacation bible school in the summer, helped out in the nursery during Sunday morning services every few weeks, was elected a leader at the youth group, helped out with the Jr High youth group and played guitar in their worship band, took part in the church's Easter passion play and Christmas nativity play, went on a mission trip to Mexico, and a whole whack of other things. Like I said, I went all out. I believed fully in everything that I was doing, everything that was preached to me. I alienated a lot of people because I was not only encouraged to witness to/evangelize everyone that I knew at all times, but was basically also told that we have to be EXTREME for Jesus and that the only way to please God was to go all out no matter how much it hurt or was embarrassing. Oh, and that if people got pissed at us or countered us in any way it was the devil's work and that Satan was trying to bring us down, which also meant we were doing something right. It was hard to do but I thought I was doing a good thing by living this life and never once questioned it.
Flash forward to me getting my first job around the end of high school. I was no longer young enough to take part in all the cool and fun youth group activities, and my part time job (with full time hours, heh) caused me to miss out on a lot of church. This upset some people and caused others become "concerned" that I was back-sliding. A few people started nagging me about not being in church and a couple friends in particular started judging me for being a hypocrite.
Not too long after all this started going down, a co-worker friend of mine introduced me to her boyfriend's best friend and we hit it off. He was "dark" and "mysterious" and had long hair and was in a band... and he wanted to be my boyfriend. Which had never happened to me before. I was a dork and a nerdly little wallflower that people generally didn't take notice of so I was all over this. Plus, he seemed kinda dorky too and I liked that. He wasn't a Christian, which my mom HATED, but he was nice and actually tried to encourage me to keep going to church even though I was starting to lose my faith, especially in the people I thought were my friends.
Of course, I caught a huuuge amount of shit from my "friends" when they found out I started dating *gasp* a non-Christian! The judgement I got from missing church because of work were nothing compared to this. According to them, I was a hypocrite and a horrible person and HOW DARE I?? So... I got tired of the crap and stopped going all together.
I'm not too sure when it started, but my faith had started wavering at some point before all the cries of "hypocrite!" were being slung at me. I tried clinging to it and talking myself into believing that I still believed for a while. But after everything was said and done and I stopped going to church, I ended up very bitter and angry for quite a while and officially renounced my faith. I tried rebelling in my own way by learning about Wiccans and Buddhists and whatever religion I thought would piss my mom off, but I never did get very far in my quest for knowledge for some reason. (It's still on my to-do list to learn about other religions even though at this point I would probably officially call myself an Atheist. It's still an interesting subject to me.)
So, here I am now. I'm no longer with the boyfriend that my mom still blames for "making" me lose my salvation (as I said, I'm engaged to a Michigander now, lol!) It's been about 6 or 7 years since I've set foot into a church and don't ever plan on going back. And I'm not nearly as bitter and angry as I was for a while, though sometimes it does resurface every now and then. Now, I feel more free than I ever did as a Christian. I'm allowed to listen to the music that I want, I can swear if I want, I can laugh at the jokes that make me laugh without feeling guilty about it if it's "off colour" or not. And I don't have this constant fear hanging over my head that if I don't do what some guy standing up at a pulpit says that he thinks God wants me to do, that I'll upset Him and go to hell for it. I don't think I went through anything nearly as bad as the Quiverfull movement or an abusive marriage during my time in the church, but I think I can sympathize.
Wow, that was a lot longer than I intended. Sorry about that!
Sooo... hi everyone!
