"I choose to believe, because I WANT to believe, and that is enough of a reason".
I won't sugar coat this. My faith has been on an absolute roller coaster the last few years. Ever since Covid, I have really struggled with reconciling a belief system that is supposed to be anchored in love with the actions and attitudes that I saw from its followers - who seem to be mostly motivated by "their rights, their money, their freedoms".
I watched the pastor of our church be pushed out, partly, because of his cautious approach to large group meetings and general willingness to follow government guidelines during those challenging months. I saw messages about how church volunteers refused to wear masks while serving in the building because it offended their sense of freedom. I watched hateful speech and actions come from the people who I most trusted to be a group of love, non judgement and acceptance.
So, we stopped going to church. At first, we did church online through sources that were modeling a Christ like response to the pandemic. But then, I continue to disengage. As I would explain to my friends "I still love Jesus, but I really don't like his followers right now". Listen, I'm not saying that everything that the government did in response to Covid was the right thing, but what I am saying is that it was a scary time and I think that the vast majority of people who were following regulations (and creating regulations) were doing the very best they could with the information they had. As I stated in my last post, I know I don't always have it all right. I know I don't ever have it all right. But I want to be around people who say "I probably don't have it all right but I'm doing my best out of love" rather than those who say "Don't Tread On Me".
Anyway, I really, really struggled with my faith, to say the least. And then I became friends with someone who viewed the faith community as a kind of joke. I will readily admit that I let this person influence me far more than I should have. They were so flippant and dismissive of anyone and anything in the faith community that I felt myself drift even further away from Jesus.
Then, as always happens (and I am so grateful) Jesus called me back in a big way. It was the confluence of a natural disaster where my only hope was to call out to God for safety and protection (and the only thing I WANTED to do) along with that relationship imploding** because I made a decision* that the other person disagreed with along with me finally recognizing that my heart longing for the quiet and peace that can only come when I am resting in God.
Listen, do I know exactly where I want to land in all of this? No. I don't. But for right now I know that I am grateful for the comfort of Belinda's copy of Jesus Calling on a chilly morning, time spent in silence in meditation where my soul and mind are soothed in His presence, and conversations with Ryan about our path forward in all of this.
*it was not a good decision, but MY decision nonetheless and one that had nothing to do with this other person
**queue me being super grateful as I realized that this person only wanted to be in relationship with me when they could control me (shoutout to my therapist for that realization)
