An old friend facebookmailed me today, saying she'd read my blog and wondered how my faith 'came to be.' I started writing back to her, then thought this is gunna be a long facebookmail, I haven't blogged in a while, maybe someone else would like to know too, i'll just answer her there.
Yes, I was raised in a Christian household. My eighth grade journal is filled with prayers wanting to be better and please God more and make more people Christians. In ninth grade, I started going to a youth group called Fusion. The kids there played emo music, wore really tight pants and cool tee shirts, liked to break dance, and a couple had leopard-print hair*. They were also older than me and liked me, so I thought they were the coolest thing in the world. What was important, though, is that they talked about loving God, and caring about people like God does. In their case, that usually meant taking them to punk shows at the Legion or getting them to help leave a dead mouse in the youth pastor's freezer. Their philosophy on life reminds me alot of the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller (which i would recommend to... anyone). I learned, I guess, that loving God isn't about being good enough, its about your intent. And it doesn't have to be really hard; it can actually be fun.
Then later in high school, I'm not sure why it happened, but I decided not to care as much. It started out with me counting how many times people in my bible study would say "oh Lord" and "God I just pray that..." while they prayed. In certain Christian circles, the amount can be overwhelming. I guess I felt they were saying words to sound emotional... without substance. At the same time, I wouldn't eat very much for times, and hated when my Christian friends told me they were worried about how skinny I looked. And I was tired of feeling like an outsider at my school. I wanted to go to the parties that everyone else did and have fun. All the coolest emo guys had graduated, and I started dating guys with dubious morals... or none. Eventually I decided that I didn't know if I believed in God or not, and I wasn't going to think about it.
Then my freshman year of college I was pretty lonely, so I started going to different church-groups. I hated them all, but less and less each time. Then one night in October I think, I was sitting on a sofa in the basement of a church, tuning out whatever the pastor was saying, and I realized I still believed in God. I believed he existed, and I believed that if I trusted him, he would make my life good.
I pretty much hated life at the time, and though I knew that life would get better, I knew it would also always get worse again, and probably even worse than it was before. Like, I'd probably get married and have a few kids, and my life would become driving around little people with annoying voices while forgetting about the laundry and a husband working late and getting tired of me, more interested in the sexy woman at the office. Or maybe he'd die. Or, worst of all,maybe life would just be boring. I couldn't leave that up to chance. I guess someone might say, well its your own responsibility to make your life good. I guess I didn't think of that at the time. But, now I believe that's true even when you're living for the Lord, but you have the bonus of his promise to make you successful wherever you go (Joshua 1:7).
So, from that day, I changed my life. I broke up with the guy I was dating. I started going to church. I stopped hanging out with my pot-smoking friends (this does not mean I don't think Christians should hang out with people who smoke pot, it was just what I needed to do at the time). I started caring about the people who cared about me. I started praying and reading the bible everyday. I moved dorm rooms (okay, that was unrelated to God... but it was a nice symbol of a new start). I told God I would eat three meals a day, even if it meant I would get really fat (I actually thought I might, but turns out I didn't). Eating is still one of the hardest things for me, frustratingly.
That's 'how it all started,' more or less. This summer I've been starting to remember how important glorifying the Lord is. After all, that's why he made us. That's what he wants from us. That seems pretty vague, that is, if you're not used to "glorifying." But the best way to start is to pray and read the Bible. Pray and read the Bible. That's how God chooses to talk to us, and if you ask him he'll let you understand what he's saying. Maybe not right when you want him to, but eventually. God answers almost all of my prayers, but almost never when I want him to. Speaking of which, Lord, it would be nice if I could get command sponsorship...now. Or, you know, tomorrow would be okay too. But pleeeaaaase let me get over there with my husband soon!
*The crazy thing is, I went back to Fusion a few years ago and the kids still play emo music and wear tight pants.
