This post isn't necessarily easy to make, but it isn't difficult either.
I feel as if I have been having this conversation with myself for years now.
If you disagree, you are entitled to your opinion in the same way I am entitled to mine.
The thing is there are plenty of people who identify in specific religions. I have always identified as a Christian and this isn't changing.
However, post high school I started to realize that no matter how many sermons I heard about God not wanting us to be perfect but just be driven by our love for him, I had always found my worth in how "good" I could be. How much I could follow the rules, how little could I curse, how perfect I could "make" my boyfriend (which is a whole other post).. I'd striven for perfection because that was what I was praised for all my life.
I was the kid who didn't mess up, who was involved in church, who found joy in the things of the Lord. And believe me, I really think that I did. What I didn't find joy in, however, is the micro-aggressive and uncomfortable environment I was always placed in at the church I attended. I always felt like I had to put my blackness on the back burner in so many instances. How I moved through the world, the things that I wanted to do, how I interacted with others, it was all different. I went to public schools, I was closer with my friends at school than those at church, and I didn't go on mission trips every other year because I couldn't afford it or have enough connections with the old white people at the church to save the money. I felt isolated yet I kept striving.
And this isn't a rant on the problems of attending a white church as a Black believer or that the faith is dead to me now because of my experiences.
I still believe in God, and I still want to serve him, it's just the idea that has always been perpetuated to me unconsciously that if you keep screwing up, you're straying further from God and in the eyes of the faith, at around 19 years old, I started screwing up big time.
At 18, I went into college as the literal visual description of bright eyed and bushy tailed. I signed up for a church on day 1. I made "friends" within the church, or at least tried to. I had real interests however in doing a lot of the things that freshman in college do. I wanted to go out, I wanted to hang out with new people and try new things, but I didn't want to be a bad person. The problem is I had become accustomed to equating wanting to do sinful things with being a bad person and genuinely, I do not think that is the point of Christianity at all.
But all the people around me led me to believe that I was right in my thinking. To the point where going to Ybor City on a Saturday night to go eat at a drag restaurant warranted a call from a Bible study leader to try to talk you out of it (this actually happened to a good friend of mine).
One thing I have learned is that my morality isn't to be controlled by other people, especially when I didn't ask for it.
I get the concept of accountability partners and wanting people who can help you not give into temptation, but for me, it almost felt like I had extra parents telling me to keep my chin up and keep grinding out that perfection.
I think just not knowing how to believe what I knew I believed led me into a lot of things throughout my college career I wish I didn't have to experience. I still wanted friends that were Christians but it was almost like they can't be "too Christian" because then they would make me feel bad about myself.
And the problem wasn't that I didn't want to be convicted or "change my ways" at first. The problem was that I had no idea how. I didn't know how to be perfect anymore or even just be a faithful believer because I had let my view of myself become so low that it almost felt pointless to try and have a relationship with God.
Additionally, there were always thing I resented about the faith. I had my issues with the roots of Christianity being used to control people of color but knew that the way white people perverted a faith didn't mean the entire faith was tainted. I am proud to say that I have evolved into a person that is an ally for LGBTQ+ folx instead of someone who stayed quiet in the name of "not knowing how to navigate it". I was never homophobic, I jusst was uneducated and quiet, never speaking up for those within the community. I also never was pro-life and always pro-choice because I had formed that opinion early on, but experience has taught me that I have the greatest disdain for those who shame women trying to make a choice for their lives. Especially when we operate in a political and social system that disproportionately harms Black and brown children and yet no pro-lifer has any protest to that.
So I want to say that I'm a Christian. I want to feel as close to God as I did in high school. But I really don't think I'll ever get back to that because it was never based on faith but it was always rooted in fear, no matter how hard I tried. Fear of not being enough. Fear of falling out of favor with the Lord. Fear of disappointing everyone who was proud of me, including myself. So next time you see me doing something that a Christian normally wouldn't, just know I'm not a hypocrite. I'm trying to figure out who I am and how to do this.
If you have ever felt like this, please shoot me a message. The only reason I embrace these vulnerable things about me is because I know there are other people out there who are going through the same things I am. I also know not everyone is ready to hear the fabulous story about how the person came out the other side. Sometimes you just need to know that there are other people still in the struggle with you.
Cover art by Stormy Mae Nesbit (@_stormae on Instagram)
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