In addition to this wedding, another very close friend, who is like my sister, has a son getting married in July. I'm helping coordinate that celebration and the push for that one is on as well! Oh, and my youngest finishes high school in a few weeks with all the parties, and hoopla that entails. I guess I'm a teapot IN a tempest.
All of this, along with job and family, leaves little time for blogging. But, at times, my heart overflows and I feel I must get back to sharing what I'm learning on this journey from guilt to grace. It's not easy, and I trip, and back track, and fail, but the goal is still the same: to serve God and love others.
My return, though late, has to do with something that has been around for a while. Frankly, I thought this matter had been put to rest. But more and more of late, it creeps its ugly way back into my mind as a tool of Satan I'm sure. Here I sit on my computer, a fifty-three year old mother of three, saved since I was five, and I have to fight doubt about my faith. No, I can't believe it either, but there it is. This isn't a question of my salvation. It's much bigger than that.
When I first felt that I must leave my job at a certain Christian University, I had already begun to question why I believed what I did. As that situation grew worse, and my heroes fell from their high places, I began to doubt. Big Time. Call it cynicism if you will, but I began to examine their teachings, and all the things that I had been taught as absolute truth and doctrine since I was born, literally. And in that examination I found many, many, many problems. Much of my fundamentalist training was based on OPINION! Not fact, not even interpretation, but some man's so-called "blessed" of the Holy Spirit; Bible-thumping; say-it-louder-until-these-idiot-sinners-understand; can-I-get-an -amen? brow-wiping OPINION that came to them while driving down the road in their Lincoln town car on the way to another meeting.
Most of us who have left fundamentalism have been labeled as "bitter." And,in all honesty, I have to say I have struggled with it, especially at the start. I looked back at all the guilt I had endured. All the culottes I had sewed and worn, along with the lace my mom sewed on the bottom of a dress to make it "long enough." I thought about the hoops we had to jump through to be "good" Christians, and all the hell-fire-and-brimstone messages I had heard, and I got bitter. Still do, sometimes.
It was at this point, that my faith went out from underneath me. I don't think those around me realized how bleak it was for me. They believed my tears
and upset caused by the loss of a job I had loved, and a way of life I had dreamed about since youth. That was part of it. But, much deeper, it was the loss of my belief that God was in control, and that Godly men had prayed and done His will in all these things. They had not. They couldn't have. A lot of what they had said were virtually lies. They were pompous, egotistical MEN who forced their way into congregations, denominations, and Christian universities. It all became a sham to me. I've studied communications and psychology a long time, and I recognized the spin they had put on their sermons, and rules, and all of their . . . . . um, manure. And, believe me, I was bitter.
In my next post, I'll deal with what had recently brought some of this bitterness back, and how God is helping me to get past it. Here's a news flash: God is AWESOME, ETERNAL, FAIR, AND LOVING. He did not leave me in this dark time. I'll share more next time.
Serve God. Love others!
Teapotjan.
