Let's Talk About Faith, Baby. Let's Talk About God and Me. Let's Talk About All The Good Things and The Bad Things That May Be.

I think it's only a little blasphemous to parody a Salt-n-Pepa song about fornication for the title of this post, but I think God has a sense of humor and is laughing with me...

I know some of you never thought that I would ever talk religion or faith. Some of you probably thought I had none, others know what I think, and the rest of you had never really thought about what I thought about faith- probably the vast majority of you. Nevertheless, I am going to be talking God. 

Let me preface this with telling you what I have come to believe. Then, I will go into how I got here. If I start at the start, it might scare you away. But, in order to understand me now, you may need to know how I got here.  

I believe in God. 

I am not a Christian.

Try not to let that last part make your head spin. It seems to blow some people's minds- like belief in God is synonymous with Christianity. I said this to my mother and she felt like she failed me. I assured her that there are many non-Christians in this world who are living just fine.

I believe that He created the universe. And only through personal experience do I believe he has direct influence in our everyday lives. 

Now, before all of the staunch atheists and other non-believers write me off as crazy, it needs to be understood that I was you. I know that you will never believe unless you experience it yourselves. And, that's okay. 

Because I also believe you're right.

I believe, wholeheartedly, in the very core of my being that you, too, are correct in your faith.

We are all right.

I believe that the God (because I have no other name for him) that created the universe, all man, time, space, himself, will not let us down. Not a single one of us will get to his feet and hear "Ooh, sorry, the correct answer is 'What is Mormonism?' Minus eternity points." (Because I imagine God has a sense of humor would greet us all with Jeopardy-style questions). 

Let me elaborate. I believe that when my consciousness, my soul, leaves this body and is launched into the next dimension, realm, life, what-have-you, my soul will be greeted by a presence. Not an old white man with a big white beard sitting, waiting; but my soul will be overcome with the sense of a presence who will instill in me a feeling of contentment, happiness, warmth, and just enough of "in your face, I was right" feeling to carry me through to the next vessel in which my consciousness will exist. What that means, I have no idea.

I also believe that when your consciousness leaves your body and is launched into the next dimension, realm, life, what-have-you, that you will be greeted with whatever it is that you expect to be greeted with. Whether that means that you are reincarnated into another being, or your get your wings and fly up through the clouds to heaven to sit and sing with your loved ones for eternity, or nothing. There is always that option; which is the favorite of the atheists. That's cool. I dig it. And to the religious oppressors, I ask that you stop trying to save them. They believe in nothing, and there's nothing to fear in nothing. It is nothing. 

Which brings me to my next point: Either, I'm right, or I'm wrong. There is no in between. Either there is a consciousness beyond life as we know it, or there isn't. Then there would be nothing. What is there to fear in nothing? Nothing. You won't know that you are experiencing nothingness, because your consciousness will no longer exist. Nothingness. It's really not that scary if you think about it. There is nothing to fear in nothing. Okay. You get it. Enough with the nothing. 

So, back to my faith. In summation, I believe whatever you believe will happen to you. The Mormons will be greeted by a god who is gracious and caring. Those who practice Judaism will be greeted with a God who welcomes them with open arms and praises them for their devotion. Those who follow faiths that believe in many gods, reincarnation, Enoch, etc. will all be greeted with that reality. And those who believe in nothing, will be greeted with the warm nothing they expected. 

That is what I believe.

I could not, would not, cannot believe (and this is just me) that a God that created such diversity in beings that aren't diverse at all in structure, chemistry, DNA, proximity would punish or disappoint, even, the masses of people who find (or don't find) Him in the short span of their consciousness in this thing we call Life.

Now that you know what I believe, you can dismiss my beliefs as you see fit. But, please keep your saving and your mockery to yourselves. Those who are out to save me, know that I am saved. Those who are out to mock me, do it behind my back like a decent human being. 

So, how did I get here; to this sort of omni-theistic belief in a higher power?

I started out like many children, spending my Sundays coloring in some bearded, toga'd, white guy with his palms open and the sun shining behind his head with a lamb, or 12 other dudes by his side; maybe the baby version of him in a manger with some hay and more sheep. We went to a "Nondenominational" church in BFE Illinois where my aunts and uncles and granny and grampy and ma and pa all went on Sundays. It was the church my parents got married in; it was the church my cousins were baptized in; it was the church I drank my first kneeling 1.5oz of grape juice in. We had some history there. 

I got turned off by a few things as I got older. The skirts had to be to your ankles. We weren't supposed to cut our hair. Granny told my I disappointed God when I donated my hair once. The gossip spread like wildfire and there was a lot of finger pointing and damning going on. My immediate family left the church unofficially and we all moved on.

I spent a few years with little spiritual guidance other than what I already knew and the couple of visits a year to granny's house where I mastered the eye roll and the whispered dismissal of what my blossoming preteen mind considered crazy people talk. 

Just in time, I met up with some middle school friends who went to a super trendy, super fun, super laid-back, rock-music playing Wednesday-night kind of place. I made my dad drive me. I guess I still knew that faith was important and I wanted it to be a part of my life. 

The only problem was, I was still skeptical of religion. And the more I went, the more it felt like they were trying to brainwash me with flashing lights and catchy choruses and I felt shook down every time they asked for 10% of an allowance I wasn't getting (I was a little spoiled and just got whatever it was I wanted). It didn't feel like God was there. It felt like pop culture and the church accountants were in charge, not God. Nevertheless, I tried to go for the faith of it. But, the more I went, the more the testimonials sounded rehearsed and the witnessing, an opportunity to be the center of attention for attention-hungry tweens. I couldn't keep going.

The next several years proved turbulent for my faith. I was forced to go to Catholic mass on every scouting event- despite my best arguments for why I shouldn't go and a few attempts to be dismissed from mass (e.g. whispering "Chug. Chug. Chug" and fist bumping as the priest finished the sacramental wine). Of the countless times I was asked (forced, dragged, demanded) to go to mass by my scout leaders, I got out of it successfully twice. Once, to stay and take care of a fellow scout who was not feeling well while we were all on retreat, and the second time when the only other non-Catholic (actually Lutheran) member of the troop requested she not have to go because it wasn't her faith either. We both felt creeped out and guilty sitting in Catholic mass. Is that how even Catholics feel? I guess that's not the point of this. 

I tried Evangelical churches, Pentecostal churches, Lutheran churches. I tried on a whole dressing room full of churches. None of it made sense to me. I chalked it up to me being an agnostic. I couldn't put my finger on what I didn't like about organized religion as a whole, but it was something different in each. Either they were too much about money, or too synchronized, or too much about Jesus and not enough about God for me. Nothing made sense to me.  

I don't mean to belittle any other religions with this. I am merely recapping the progression and digression of my faith over the years. 

So by this point, I was 18, rather disenchanted with any organized religion I had encountered (which were all Christian) and rather faithless. I hit a point in my life, where if you have read my previous post, you know I was struggling with loving myself. I fell out of religion entirely and denounced any God. How could something who "loves me" let me hate myself so much? I struggled with meaning in life. If there was none, how could I even keep pressing onward, trudging through an existence where my pain and suffering meant nothing. And I couldn't imagine if God existed he would let me suffer the worst kind of pain; the inescapable writhing of self-loathing. Hating myself was a reality with no purpose but for me to hate myself day in and day out. There is no pain like that. There exists no circle of any hell that one can imagine that hurts as much as hating yourself for who you are from the inside out- or the outside in; I never knew which direction the hate flowed.  

Talk about dark times. To write it now, even I want to make a mockery of it. To laugh at it and dismiss those feelings as hormonal teen feelings. But I remember the pain and I wrote about it so I couldn't forget how real it was. Sometimes the further away we get from something like that, the easier it is to belittle the experience and hush the the severity. But I made myself remember. I wanted to remember. I'm so glad I remember. I appreciate so much now that I didn't have the capacity to appreciate then. But, I always thank the old me for wanting to remember the pain so I never take for granted the goodness I feel now. 

It didn't happen all at once. I didn't wake up with an epiphany and hallelujah. Frankly, I woke up in sleep paralysis from the same nightmare at 3a for three nights in a row and just didn't sleep well for months. When the feeling the dreams gave me had kept me awake for long enough, I returned to a long-lost friend, prayer. 

Laying in the guest room of my grandparents' house where I learned so many nighttime prayers and old family values where praying should have felt right, it felt awkward and clumsy and ridiculous. But, it also felt good. I remember a feeling of terror just before I started to pray; inexplicably, terror for my own safety. Safely tucked in bed, I was afraid of the darkness- that's all there was to be afraid of. 

I started it out the only way I knew how- which felt a little like a lie since the addressee was no longer in the realm of my belief system but I continued on. I didn't pray for my safety, even though, for whatever reason I felt it was in jeopardy. I prayed generically for my family. And one thought led to another and I prayed more specifically for my brother- very specifically for my brother, and specific things in my brother's life. I ended it with an amen and my phone rang. I wish I were a good enough writer to make this up, but talk about instant gratification. If I'm lying I'm dying.

It was a mutual friend of mine and my brother's calling me in the middle of the night to ask about my brother and make sure he was okay because last he heard (as of 10 minutes prior) he was in a heap of trouble- which I had known nothing about when I was praying for him. I was compelled by nothing to pray for a nonissue; I was compelled to ask someone I wasn't sure was there to fix a problem I wasn't sure was a problem that was now a problem just minutes later.

A long (and unbelievable) story later, my prayers were literally, and I mean literally, answered as I spoke them. I instantly knew and that was enough proof for me. There was no way  it was coincidence or chance. I cannot believe it was anything other than God. Dismiss it how you will. You don't have to believe me. 

Since then, without a church, without a title, without anyone telling me how to believe; I have found my way and found my real faith. I have found the one thing that makes sense to me. I have found a God who listens, who answers, who acts and is there. I have found reason and peace with the way things were, the way things are, and the way things will be. I have never felt more comfort, truth, or love before this. 

This is my faith. My God who is helping me, teaching me, guiding me; holding me, carrying me, giving me the strength I need- because without Him I am lost. Without Him my life would be meaningless and all of my pain and all of my suffering would be the result of random happenings and any lessons learned would be moot because without God in my life there would be no method to the madness and the madness would once again consume me.

Please, believe as you will. But believe with all your heart. Believe with all the faith you can muster in anything. Just find what makes sense to you  and believe it. Whether that is God or NO God or a flying spaghetti monster or many Gods with many appendages. Find what you believe and believe it. Life will make so much more sense and you wont be roaming around aimlessly searching for nothing. You will be so much more fulfilled when you find meaning in your life- a reason to be here- to make everything of this life because all that lies beyond is nothing or to make everything of this life because it will take you to a better one beyond this existence. Just find your reason to be here. Because there is one. 

Mine is Him.

<3          

 

Now you know. And I'm not asking for your approval. I'm not asking for your admonishment. I am not asking for anything. You were just curious enough to know. So, thank you. 

I hope to hear other people's stories. I hope this inspires you to stand up and exclaim whatever it is you believe with the strictest confidence. Because no matter what, we are all right. 

Love always,

Sarah