The last thing I want to preface is that I am completely open to any and all opinions that seem logical and could counter any point I describe within this essay. I am only seeking truth and understanding and would love to see how others have come to understand the world. Recently, as I have questioned my own beliefs based in the Southern Christian doctrine, I have spoken to more and more people about my confusion. Somehow, because I have been unsure, this has allowed me to appear more open and perhaps even more loving to others. I have bonded with others over our shared confusion, anger towards God, joy for his creation, and uncertainty in human power. I would love nothing more than to hear your thoughts as well. Just know that I would love to listen, debate, or learn.

Let’s begin.

I grew up in a Christian home and oh how I hate that statement. Something about it gives off one of two impressions. The first comes from someone who too ‘grew up in a Christian home.’ This statement lets them know that, “Ah, they must share the same beliefs as I. We must be the same. They must have learned the exact truths my mind has come to understand, they are off the hook for convicting, and have given all concerns to this Jesus.” ‘I grew up in a Christian home’ means that their life was seemingly boring, there was no conflict with the Lord, and there was always a confidence and peace in understanding and knowing that Christianity was right. There was no, I murdered a child, raped a women, was addicted to drugs story, where suddenly Jesus met them at their darkest and dragged them into the light. No, there was always peace. Thus says the growing up in a Christian home twin believer. On the other hand, there are those who hear this who are not believers. What I think they may be immediately thinking is, “oh no. It’s one of the gospel message deliverers.” From their perspective (from what I have witnessed) the statement that someone grew up in a Christian home is an immediate turn off, filled with notions that consist of judgement towards the unbelievers, sinners, and convicts. For, if someone were to grow up in a Christian home then they certainly did not have the chance to murder a child, rape a women, or be addicted to drugs. From the perspective of the one who did not grow up in a Christian home, the one who did did not have the chance to do these things, and therefore cannot connect with or sympathize with those who have, even at a much less illegal level. There is an immediate disconnect, because there is a mutual understanding that ‘we are not the same’. To make this clearer, if one were to instead lead with the statement, I did not grow up in a Christian home but I now have found God, this initially gives the idea that this type of believer has had the chance to be a sinner, commit sin, and then is able to sympathize with others that are actively indulging. When someone starts with the statement I grew up in a Christian home, it almost places a bubble around them that subconsciously labels them as better than their listener who is deemed sinful.

This may be dramatic. And of course it is not at all the case for every single Christian who grew up in a like-minded home. Because I did.

Throughout my growing up in a Christian home time of life, I also went to a Christian school. There we were able to speak freely about the Bible and were required to take Bible classes to graduate. I learned lots about what I was supposed to believe, all of the endless connections between the old and new testaments,and how it all revolved about God’s pursuit to his creation. I was taught stories about Jesus, I memorized verses, and was filled with faith and understanding. All of it seemed to make sense. It all compiled together into a fine story that didn’t conflict too heavily with what I saw in the world. Everyone around me believed in the same thing, and we were able to grow our faiths together. When I had anxiety, I was able to turn to this God of the Bible that I knew, the God of love who wants to know me despite my failings.

In 6th grade a new perspective of how to look at the world was introduced to me. My Bible teacher that year, Mr. R, greeted our young and oblivious brains boldly on the first day of school with the statement, “I don’t care what you believe.” This unnerved me for a whole month, until I came to terms with the fact I was with one of the most brilliant men I had ever come across. That year Mr. R instilled into me a way of thinking that involved a critical thought process, encouraging me to not take everything I have ever heard as truth, question if what was being read to me in the Bible was fact or metaphor, and evolved my understanding of not only theology but literature as a whole.

He was removed from school a year later. I still am not sure why. But I like to think it was because his teaching was so open. Some could be offended by the openness.

At this point in time I believed in the God of the Bible. To my understanding, there had to be a God. Something cannot come from nothing as science seems to lean towards (the Law of Conservation of Mass), and so something of this world could not have created the world. Therefore something incomprehensible and not of this world must have created it. Christianity is what I had grown up knowing, and up until this point nothing had challenged it. What of the other religions though I wondered? If I had grown up Muslim, studying and memorizing the Quoran, believing in Allah, would I still feel the same peace? Would I have come to the conclusion that Allah was the true God? For the most part I shoved this thought down, because that was the most comfortable. But when the thought became so loud, I told myself that Christianity was the correct religion because it was different from all the others. I told myself that it was the only one in which the God reaches out to the fallen and loves on his creation. The greatest love story ever told some say. My mind ignored the stories of children destroyed in the flood and Sodom and Gomorrah. Children that did not have the chance to choose sin or salvation despite being fully conscious yet. I told myself that God was in control of all and that was all that mattered. The God of the Old Testament may seem different than the God of the New. But that’s alright. It couldn’t be a mistake because if I believed parts of the Bible the rest must be true.

Summer before high school rolled around. That summer I was left alone a lot. I had also just gotten out of my one and only middle school relationship that seemed pretty serious at the time. I had lots of time on my hands. It was time to renovate myself. Into the Bible I dove. Searching for love and purpose, I soaked up the words in James and the hope found in Romans. Psalm 23:4 captured my heart and gave me confidence to make it through my hardships as I read, “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil for you (the Lord) are with me. Your rod and staff (God is a shepherd) they comfort me. (Humans are sheep.) My heart was on fire. I wanted to serve something greater than myself and meet as many people as I could at the start of ninth grade.

School began. Things got busy with my first AP class. And I forgot my goals. “Sorry God,” I prayed a few nights a week, “I just forgot to think about you again today.”

10th grade started. I began to notice the patterns of my friends, their peers, and my acquaintances. How everyone interacted with each other was fascinating to me. Pressure to perform seemed to be a theme. Grades on papers became very competitive, if you weren’t athletic you at least had to be good at art or theater. Maybe an instrument. If you didn’t have friends that was unfortunate. Where did that God we were supposed to be focusing on go? Life became mundane, repetitive. I had a stuck group of friends that didn’t seem to be going anywhere. They believed what I believed, we learned more about this Lord in our weekly chapels, were continuously challenged to live out our faith, and sent off without specific instruction. “Be kind and loving” the preachers seemed to chant. “Seek out those in a trial.” “People are quietly struggling with their own sin. Go out and help them.” “Go on missions trips across the globe.” Some encouraged local mission trips. But why did it have to be in a specific mission based act of service? It seemed slightly performative to me where it seemed near impossible for this to be a practical ritual of life.

From my perspective at the time, I was searching for something I could implement easily into my day-to-day routine. The answer always seemed to revolve back to the idea of loving your neighbor as Christ did. “Live like Christ, act in his character, love as he did.” But how?? Also, how did any of that differ from a regular kind person? I ignored these thoughts as well until I met a certain boy.

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that being said, i began writing not for myself, and sought to challenge not just my own views of the world but the views of others as well. i made a website just for the fun of it and started posting my thoughts on there, sending the links out across my instagram page.

one night i went to bible study with my mom and her friend recommended to me substack- explaining how i could get money for doing what i love and what ive already been doing the past few months. she helped me set things up and here we are!

here’s some info about me :)

• 17 years old

• upcoming senior

• grew up with loving but divorced parents

• very passionate about discovering truth

• competitive, motivated, and seek to work my hardest in everything

• hobbies include running, hiking, writing, learning, thrifting, photography, and hanging out with friends

• want to be a psychologist of some sort

• thrive on popcorn and pasta

• health obsessed

• open minded to any and all ideas and questions

as i continue to publish hopefully i can inspire others to think deeply. i want everyone to know that questioning truth is not unbelief but how you find understanding in the world. through this i have been able to dissect my past experiences and learned so much about myself. studying psychology has helped me understand that people’s reactions always stem from something that occurred in their past. carrying this mindset has revealed to me how others have been conditioned to understand their personal reality. never stop trying to understand!

thank you to anyone who has already been a part of my progress and i appreciate any and all support!

animo libero :)

Finally, in the spring of junior year, I fully quit soccer. Through much convincing, I was able to logically explain to my dad why soccer was unfulfilling to me and had been for many years. What started as a debate over whether or not to do track in addition to soccer as my sport for the season, turned into a reliving of the stress that I had been experiencing the previous fall.

In the early new year of January, I realized that I could not go back to doing two sports for a few reasons. Practically, splitting time between two different sports led to being minimally perfect at both. Splitting time meant fewer recovery days, less team bonding for each, and overall hindered the amount of growth that could occur in each. It was more than that, though. That fall, I really had almost lost myself. I cried almost every day from a combination of exhaustion and feelings of not being enough. I got very little sleep, and was extremely unhappy and unsatisfied with my life. I kept it together the best I could, just trying to get to winter break. I didn’t realize how much doing two sports was affecting my life till we got back to school for the second semester. The first Tuesday back at school, I went to track conditioning just to see how it went. Immediately, I loved it with my whole heart. The people were happy, just as they were in cross-country culture, and I felt so accomplished by completing a hard workout. I pushed my body as hard as I wanted, and I gained results from hard work, not necessarily from fine-tuning. That afternoon was wonderful, but that night I had a church league basketball game. Arriving 15 minutes early, I was exhausted. A flood of emotions came upon me from the tiredness I had been so accustomed to a month before. I strongly did not want to go back to the state that I had been in. While sitting in a circle listening to the five-minute sermon spoken before the game, Claire sat next to me and nudged me on the shoulder. I turned to look at who she had seen come in, and it was someone that had been very closely related to the original cause of my depressive feelings way back that August.

By then, I was well over the situation, but for some reason, combined with the familiar exhaustion feelings and stress over soccer, which started the next day, this triggered a load of sadness and hurt that fell over my body. Somehow or another, all of these factors were connected to the hatred that I had put on myself and felt from others earlier that year. Soccer reminded me of it, the unexpected church league basketball watcher reminded me of it, and exhaustion sent me back into my spiral. I hated it. I hated it so much that it made me sick. I felt awful the entire game, and once I finally got in my car alone to drive home, I sobbed. I sobbed and yelled and told Satan to get out of my head. There was no reason to connect all of these things to my hurt, but oh, how present they were! My heart was crushed under the weight of being judged all over again, people’s whispers behind my back gushed into my ears, and falling asleep and not returning to the real world for a long, long time felt so right. But I could not go back to that state. I yelled to the air, crying out to the Lord, “Please! I can’t go back, God, I can’t, I can’t do it.”

The next day, I went to soccer conditioning. During the middle of a scrimmage, I stopped, frozen, staring at the people around me. They were happy, enjoying themselves while exercising and being with friends. It was honestly an out-of-body experience. I felt like an outsider staring at another person’s life, because, at some point, I was them. I was the one freely passing the ball without thinking of where to go next. What had started as my passion, taking little effort to perform, turned into something that sucked the life out of me. I used to not have to think at all about what my next move would be. But as I stood there, watching the younger girls on my team play with ease, with such natural talent, I realized that it had all faded from me. My spark had faded. I no longer possessed the skill that had driven me for so many years. And right then I knew that I had to give it up. For so long, I had kept holding onto it, grasping my desire so tightly that instead of strangling it, it began to strangle me. When you try to hold onto something for too long it will take over you, entangling your thoughts and feelings, to where, when you finally do want to easily release it from your grip, it’s grasp on you was much stronger than you thought.

Control is never peace my friends.

Where does hurt come from? Atheists believe it stems from biological processes and environmental reaction to certain conditions, but as a theist, this hardship is permitted by God. Why would God allow bad things to happen to good people?

The first time I experienced worldly hurt was around ten years old. My mom decided to take in a little girl from foster care, who was abandoned by her parents at birth. We took her in at two days old and had her until she was 16 months old. I loved her. One afternoon, we got a call out of nowhere saying that this girl’s father, who had finally gotten out of prison for murdering someone, had decided to take her in. It was so abrupt, and without any other conversation, this little girl was taken out of our home, never to be seen again.

There are so many things wrong with this scenario, starting with the fact that this child, who had grown up in our family, now saw my mom as her mother. For a child to be so quickly taken away from a parental figure can be taxing and disrupt emotional growth and wellness. Aside from the developmental psychology aspect, this child was being taken from a loving, caring home, into a place where she could be abused, exposed to toxic substances, or even killed. And we had no say in her legal rights.

Of course, I have no idea what her life was truly like, but knowing that she was taken into the care of a murderer led me to imagine awful things being done to this little girl. It felt like someone I had known died.

In no way was this fair or right, and is that not what our country is supposed to be created on? Equality and rights for all? Should not the foster care system have been built on a better foundation?

It was times such as this that reminded me how truly broken the human race is.

Following this, I wrestled with the confusion of why God would allow something like this to happen. This innocent child did not deserve such hardship.

The answer to this conflicting theological question can be found through first understanding humanity and free will. According to Biblical teaching, all people have sinned, meaning that we have created a disconnect with the relationship that once existed with our God because of disobedience. Just as a young child disobeys their parents, so we have gone against God. Because of this, we now, through God’s grace, are given a choice. To either be reconnected with the Lord, or continue on in disobedience. This can look different for each person, but the final choice is chosen by us in the end-to either accept God’s salvation, or reject it. We are given free will to choose, because if we were forced into a relationship with a God, we would just be robots following his will. There would be no true relationship with the creator because we were forced into it.

In the same sense, God can use challenges in our lives to test this relationship that we must choose. Adversity appears as a mechanism to test faith as well as develop perseverance throughout our lives.

But why would the Lord allow these terrible things to happen in the lives of little children, who have no concept of who he is, what the world has to offer, or what they believe in the first place?

Some theologians could argue a similar perspective to the fallen world belief, that hardship will eventually result in spiritual growth and maturity. Eventually, as a child gets older, they could discover God through revelation and realize that the hurt that that have experienced comes from a humanity problem, and is not created by God. However, some could argue against this easily by saying that tragedy and trauma can easily lead to spiritual decay, distance from God, anger towards the world, and overall scarring rather than growth.

Similarly, others argue that bad things happen as a part of God’s divine mystery and ultimate omnipotence. This is difficult to grapple with. In day to day life it is near impossible to see how something that appears so terrible could be used for good. It is incomprehensible.

However, this is how I know it must be right.

I believe that there is a creator, because nothing comprehensible like a mysterious big bang, the world creating itself, or something coming from nothing makes sense. The only logical explanation for the universe coming to exist is through something unimaginable, and ultimately out of this world, making the world. By this logic, because I cannot understand how a God was to exist before time, that he somehow has always been and always will be, I know that the hurt that I cannot understand is too a part of a greater reality. I do not and will not ever be able to fully understand what God is doing or how suffering fits into a plan.

Ultimately, I must come to realize that nothing of this matter is under my control. This at times drives me wild. However, what brings my mind peace is at the end of the day knowing that it is not under my control. I think living out of faith is what eventually provides me the answers I am looking for in my day to day life.

Because I cannot understand, I recognize that there may be an understanding beyond this reality.

I can lean on my faith through something I cannot comprehend because of my lack of omniscience. While seemingly contradictory, sometimes not knowing is what brings me the most peace. Giving over my life to something greater than I through acts of faith gives me inner rest for tomorrow.

I have a fear inside of me that centers around the concern for losing what I have already obtained.

A fear of losing something that I have had for so long, and that came in the form of a sport that I felt defined my personality. This sport seemed more than just the physical activity, and I didn’t know how to separate this from the rest of my existence. So, to cope with the loss of one sport, I knew I needed to join another. For the longest time I had wanted to test out my sprinting skills, as I already knew I could run on the XC course, so full send into track it was-and oh what a joy I found.

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I used to think about when the next hangout with my friends was, if I were having pizza for dinner, or if it was a Friday night because that meant a movie with my mom. I was not concerned with how I felt. I was not concerned with how I could improve to ‘be a better person’. I did not wonder what other people were thinking about. I was balanced in the present.

Then I wasn’t. I started to look at myself. When I looked at myself, I saw what could be better. I looked at my inner thighs and wanted them to be nonexistent. I looked at my waist, and wished my rib cage stuck out just a little more. I looked at my arms and calves and quads and wished they were slightly more toned.

Sometime between my childhood and the deemed scary, rebellious teenage years depicted in film, I noticed that the conversations between me, myself, and I had changed.

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“Her cheeks need to be thinner.”-Me

“Ok, I’ll start doing daily facial massages.”-I

“I’ve heard that’s supposed to carve out your jawline!”-Myself

“Me, when did you let her get so pale?”-I

“I don’t know, I’ll be in charge of taking her out in the sun more, sorry.”-Me

“I don’t think tanning is very effective. She just keeps burning. Maybe SF should try a fake tanner?”-Myself

“Ugh, this isn’t working. She just looks orange.”-I

“I think everyone can tell we don’t want to be pale.”-Myself

“Oh no, you’re right. Everyone probably thinks we’re seeking the attention of others.”-Me

“What do you want me to do?”-Myself

“Keep carving out the jawline. Maybe we can fix that at least.”-I

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If you decline, you lose yourself. I’ve played soccer my entire life, since
the ripe age of eight. At first, it started as a fun way to let my energy
out as a kid. I was on the Lady Superstars team, beating every team by
at least 10 points a game. We were honestly very skilled for our age.
Many of the girls on the rec team went on to play club, a few even
going on to play in college. How we lucked out with such skill, I’m
honestly not sure. The first time I felt my skill come to me was in one of
the last games played with this childhood team. It was one of our first
nighttime games, and I was fueled by the darkness. Energy was high,
and our team was up by a few points already; however, I hadn’t scored.
7 pm was getting pretty late for a 4th grader, and I was determined to
leave the field feeling accomplished. Playing on the left wing, someone
passed me the ball and I drove down the field. There were two people
in front of me, one slightly to the left towards the sideline and one
slightly centered further back to my right. I dribbled directly towards
the first girl, and before reaching her, quickly cut inside, blowing past
the second girl who lunged right as I jumped over her foot, pushing the
ball ahead. Now I was dead center with a straight line to the goal, a
few yards out from the 16 box. I shot. And the ball beautifully flew
through the air just a few inches under the bar, and directly above the
short goalie's hands, landing the goal I wanted. It was beautiful.
Especially for a nine-year-old.

And that’s what set me on fire. From then I wanted to play club. Good
plays brought me joy when passes went where they were supposed to,
my heart set ablaze. The beauty of the game was that everyone moved
as one unit, and we all wanted to win just as badly.

I’m not sure when, but at some point, my love for the game dwindled.
Sometime in high school, the joy turned to stress.

I started going to ID camps to see if I could play in college, and I could.
But I hated it. Everything about it made my heart hurt and my stomach
twist. When playing, every pass, every shot, every play, I knew I could
do better. I knew I could’ve done something else. My fear of lost
potential was back. I knew, wholeheartedly, that I had so much in me,
but it was not what I wanted to do. The joy was gone, and the pressure
to perform had replaced it. If I didn’t play perfectly, the coaches would
think I was incompetent. If I didn’t score, I was a failure. If I didn’t
perform well, then I had to go back to the basics, even if I knew I could
do so much more. It destroyed me. I knew that my mindset was wrong,
but the more I tried, the worse I got. I couldn’t play freely, and the
back and forth of conflict between me and myself ate me up.

I did not necessarily hate the sport; I hated myself when I played the
sport that I used to love. That in and of itself was confusing, and I
think I just needed something to blame for the hatred that I felt. So it
ended up being soccer. Every time I went to play, my heart knew that
I could be better, and my potential was not being met. Therefore, I
was a failure to myself. There was something in my heart that ripped
open and wanted to claw at my skin to punish me for the
performance that was not meeting the standards I had so clearly hit
before, five years prior. This does not sound rational, but it is what I
felt to the fullest. It got to the point where I felt like crying every time
I played. There was no reason, I was just conflicted within myself about
what I wanted. All through the club season of 11th grade, I felt this
resonating in my soul. Despite this, miraculously, at the very end of my
club season in the last game, I suddenly felt myself. I have no idea
what it was, but before the game, I could sense that I was out of my
funk and could reach the flow state that I so desperately wanted to be
back to. I told my coach I was excited to play that day and that I was
ready to work to the best of my ability. Despite having personal
hatred issues the whole season, I had continued to be a starter every
game. The coach told me and my friend, the two best on the team,
that he was putting us on the bench to start. As I stared in disbelief
and disappointment, he explained to us that due to the rules of the
final game being slightly different from the rest of the season, he
wanted to wait to place us in later. This game, we only had four subs,
and said that by putting us in later, we would catch the other team
off guard and give our team an advantage. He said he wanted to keep
us together because we play so well when on the field at the same
time.

This part was true. My friend and I, who also played school soccer with
me, had an incredible ability to pass with each other. Without even
looking up, I could pass to an open area, and she would be there. I
would make a run on the wing, and she would pass without looking,
for me to fly into the area she aimed and cross it in for a goal.

Finally, into the game we went, full send. Chemistry on fire. We were
both having an incredible game. Until I was subbed off.

He said he wanted us together, yet he took me out, while she
remained.

I was distraught. This was the first time all season I had played my butt
off. This was the first time I felt happy and enjoyed playing my sport in
years. And he took me off. I was not even mad at my coach; I was
more upset that every time I tried to go back to the sport I loved,
something would be there waiting for me to destroy my confidence.

This was my last official soccer game.

Running does not depend on skill, and that is its beauty. You do have
to be athletic and in shape, that’s for sure, but it is all up to how much
you want to push yourself. Running was my way of pushing myself to
my limits and knowing wholeheartedly that there was nothing left in
me. I could be 100% sure of this if I passed out at the end of a meet.
Just think about it. You’re at the start of a cross-country race. Your
heart is pounding in your chest, anticipating when the gun goes off
after the three-second countdown. For the next 20 minutes and 58
seconds, you will be pushing your body to its breaking point to make
your team and yourself proud. The gun goes off, and you sprint. You
don’t stop, you don’t think, you just run. That’s all you have to do.
There’s no questioning if you made the right pass, there’s no missing
the game-winning shot, there’s no failure to defend that one girl who
scored for her team and therefore made your team lose the
championship. There’s no questioning why your coach took you out
despite leaving your heart on the field; there’s no hating yourself for
underperformance. It’s just you pushing yourself, and that’s what I love.
When I push myself, I know I can’t lose myself.

I heard this perspective in my Bible study a few days ago. I call myself a
Christian, but they had a point. Why would I not be yelling to the world the
danger everyone is in?

I have a truly incredible conversion story if I do say so myself. My family has
always gone to church every Sunday, on Easter, Christmas Eve, etc. Even
after my parents split, I continued going to each of their churches,
alternating which one I attended every other week. One Sunday when I was
seven, I was at church with my dad, and it was time to take the Lord’s
supper. The pastor said something along the lines of, “Those who have
accepted Jesus into their hearts, please come up and receive the Lord’s
grace by partaking in the Lord’s supper.” In a small Presbyterian church, the
Lord’s supper consisted of a tiny glass of red wine or grape juice and a small
piece of bread pinched off a larger loaf. I had skipped my snack that
Sunday, and I was hungry. I asked my dad before we got in line quietly, “Can
I get some bread?” He told me no, only if I had accepted Jesus as my Savior,
and to that, with my low blood sugar self, I cried. While he carried me to
the front he noticed I was upset and told me, “SF, if you pray to let God
into your heart, you can eat some.”

I didn’t know what this meant. But I did know that I was ravenous. So right
then and there I prayed to the Lord, “God, I don’t know what I’m supposed
to say, but I know that you’re real, so I’m going to eat some bread now.”

This was clearly not the act of faith that my father was looking for, but I
did get my stale piece of bread that day.

As I have gradually become more aware of the challenges to Christianity, I
have started to realize that everyone else has a point. Broad statements
such as, “Southern Christians are too fake”, “European Christians are too
excluded”, or “Christians in general can’t communicate with others without
seeming pushy” must have come from some form of observation, no?

The more I thought about the challenge of explaining the Christian
worldview to any person, believer or unbeliever, the more difficult it got. I
knew that even as a believer, I hated when others announced, “Let’s talk
about Jesus!” This statement always came across as I was about to get
solicited. Jesus or God or whoever I am about to get sold too simply
seemed like a business contract, filled with church services, commitment,
and the aggressive need to convert others.

Along with this, I was reminded by my boyfriend that those who are
convinced something out of fear are not convinced at all. Those who do
things out of fear are, for starters, not full converts in the Christian realm,
but are rather doing anything to make themselves FEEL comfortable.

I would love to be able to change your perspective on the generalized
Christian American.

Hopefully through this brief explanation of what the Lord showed me, I can
broaden your perspective on another belief system.

I am not here to convince, only to provide information.

I believe in the God of the Bible because it provides a framework that
makes sense of my existence and experience. I believe that this religion fits
best with what I can visibly see with my own eyes. When I look at
fingerprints or the patterns on fall leaves, I see signs of intention rather than
accident. The perfect, minute details that are a part of our planet reveal
that this creator must be organized, complicated, and extraordinary.

Science proves that the earth is billions of years old, while the Bible reads as
it is thousands. However, this is assuming that every word of the Bible is
taken in it’s literal meaning. By this logic, the earth was created in exactly
seven days, women are completely subordinate to men, Satan was a snake,
and wisdom is a woman. So perhaps, not every line of this book is literal.
Just as Adam and Eve, the first humans, were created already mature adults
(instead of babies), why could the earth and universe when created not
have already been mature-in this case billions of ‘years’ old?

There are many misconceptions about what the Bible speaks of, who has
access to it, and how God’s character is defined. For example, a few years
ago I got into a conversation with a Muslim girl. I wanted to learn more
about what she believed just as she was interested in learning more about
me. As we talked I realized she did not understand that the Old and New
Testament were both a part of the Bible. She asked why someone would
rewrite the Bible and change it from version one, the Old Testament, to the
new and improved New Testament. A completely valid question, if it had
been applicable. This just goes to show that so often lack of exposure to
information can lead to misunderstandings. No hate at all towards this girl,
for I too judge and assume things about other people or ideas just because
I have learned a false truth. If you have any questions I would love to
answer them here.

When I feel closest to God is when I am in the middle of a hardship. It’s
something about feeling isolated from what you’re supposed to feel a part
of on earth- friendships, clubs, parties, or popularity.

That’s when you can feel so connected with something not a part of this
world.

When you’re going through the motions and enjoying the earthly things,
they capture your attention completely. Then, once they are taken away
and no longer satisfy, Jesus is there to fill the space they leave behind. To sit
with you till you come running back to him.

The Jesus I know is the one described in New Testament stories, like when
he lets all of the little children run and come to be with him. He welcomes
them with open arms, even after some of his disciples beckon them to leave
him alone. I know that many people have different versions of God or Jesus
or a greater being that has seemed to cause hurt in their lives. Maybe he
seems distant and unconcerned for you. I can deeply sympathize with this.
I’ve felt hurt. I’ve felt confused, and I have felt isolated. I have questioned
over and over, why Lord? Why, after I try to live in a way that pleases you,
do you, put plainly, make my life suck?

I ask this, but deep down, I know that I am so much more satisfied being
close to God when I hit rock bottom. Rock bottom doesn’t sound like the
best place to be, and it’s not if you’re alone on earth. But I’ve discovered
that because God is there with me at the bottom I can have the strength
to keep going. When I am with him, I have peace. Jesus is an indescribable
peace that makes my soul feel still, even when there is no reason for me to
be calm. This peace helped me to keep going whenever I felt like I couldn't
get out of bed, and encouraged me to share His peace with others.

To return back to how I began this entry, why would Christians not be
more vocal about the afterlife? Clearly this Jesus has the power of peace,
and by theology saves me of all my wrongs. The answer to this question lies
in the fact that humans are not robots.

In the same way that we must CHOOSE God, rather than having a free pass
of a relationship with him, being forced into this relationship will not work
either. Think of back in the exploration period, when Native Americans
were forced under Spanish conquistadors to take up Christianity. Surely,
their hearts did not believe this message, they were just acknowledging it as
truth to not get wiped out. While Christian converters may not be as
aggressive now (although sadly in some cases they are) the same applies.
Guilting someone into believing that they are going to hell will not result in
them wanting to love God. They will just love what God has to offer them.

If Christianity turns into avoiding hell, the fear-based evangelism here
makes sense. However, Christianity is much deeper than that, centered on
reconciliation, love, transformation, peace, relationship with God, and
forgiveness of sins. Shouting rarely forms a relationship.

Sometimes people find the Lord because of going through hardship. They
experience fear or pain or addiction or loss. These may bring someone to
the Lord, yet cannot sustain love.

I personally came to know God because I was hungry in a random church
service. Clearly, I was not aware of the decision I was making at that
moment. That declaration of faith (or hunger) turned into many more
difficult conversations with my parents, friends, and mentors.

While I continuously find myself challenging my own beliefs, I do so with an
open mind. I know that I do not know all the answers. I know that many are
much wiser than me. But, at least for now, I feel I have slowly begun to
understand a deep peace that I can grasp onto for the rest of my life. By
writing this I hope to show that I do not understand everything, but show
that I too have spent a long time asking questions.

The Jesus I have come to know is not a salesperson. He is my father, waiting
for me to come sit on his lap and listen to my confusion.personal blog website