Later that evening his son, the associate pastor called me and acted as if he had no clue what had happened..he said “the lord” laid it on his heart to call…yeah right…this situation was being talked about amongst the church members…I was devastated…I could not stop crying, I couldn’t figure it out and it really felt as if I was going to suffocate from hurt.
When I ask the associate pastor what I had done his response was sister you need to pray about and god will show you. I told him I had prayed and there was nothing…his response was “you didn’t pray right”…another blow and gaslighting at its finest!
After a few weeks I gave up trying to talk to anyone because no one was forthcoming in exactly what I had done. I finally realized I don’t think I did anything and that’s why no one knew. One lady along with my aunt gossiped and that’s where it started.
Fast forward- it took me from 2013-2020 to really let all that go. No longer feel the hurt, the pain and to quit asking why.
I have been able to move on study and find my own path. Through my studies I found so many lies I was told all my life. I found the Bible to have many contradictions and when looking into history has been changed many times. I was finally able to let go and move on. It’s not been easy….for years I was terrified of going to hell…afraid I had done something horrific that I didn’t understand. To do this to a person is absolutely abusive.
I went to therapy but I was only told to find a good church…LOL….they had no clue about RTS , religious trauma syndrome. It was almost like being tramatized all over again. If I would just find a good church all would be ok…not quite that simple. People that go through what I did, do not need church. We need understanding…we don’t need to hear about your experience, how good god is, how god brought you from the firey pits of hell and delivered you! We know all this…we no longer want to participate.
When a person goes through spiritual trauma it’s the hardest thing in the world to get through. I lost my sense of identity, who I was. My identity was tied up in church, what I believed, in god…I lost long time friends, family, my routine and schedule was thrown off…my entire life was turned upset side down. You don’t get over that in a day, a month or even a year. There are still days I question why.
Over the years of deep study of Christianity I have realized it’s just not what I believe. To many unanswered questions, to many contradictory things, Christian’s themselves are hateful and mean. They have canned generic answers for every question. If they can’t give you an answer they will begin telling you how they were saved and that’s all you need and become very condescending. They don’t get how a person that really followed god/jesus for years could really walk away. They say you weren’t really saved…how prideful is that to judge another’s salvation…I can tell you with complete certainly I was “saved” and chose to walk away from the faith…if you walk into god grace you can certainly walk out.
They idolize people, they support things and people that is absolutely against everything Jesus Christ stood for. I don’t get it! They talk out of both sides of their mouth. We don’t believe in adultry , lieing, stealing etc. yet support and endorse people that do all these things and many more…make it make sense. They make excuses that they really don’t support these people but what they stand for! lol…talk about bullshit and ways to twist and tangle up your beliefs to make it make sense in your own head. It’s unbelievable! They stand for blatant sin! They do the very things being taught is wrong! Crazy!
They scream freedom for all, but what they really mean is freedom for all who are Christian’s.
It took me years to see all this garbage. It angers me…it really does. I still struggle with being preached at or proselytizing. When I see a person/people supporting, aiding and abetting criminals that want to tell me about god and Jesus…lol…take that elsewhere because you clearly aren’t for real.
Today, I am good! I am happy, content and peaceful. I don’t have a particular belief really. I believe there is a force larger than us, I call it the universe. I believe we can all become enlightened when we let go of all the crap we have been taught and begin at the beginning. I believe people are born blank slates and brainwashing starts early in life in the religious world. It’s terribly sad because there far more peaceful ways to live. I don’t believe in hell where you burn for all eternity. History shows hell was added into the Christian faith as a means of control. I believe that while there is evil in the world, people are mostly good. I believe in loving who you love, be who you are and live life to the fullest. We all have the right to choose our belief system…be a Christian, a Buddhist, be a witch, be whatever path you drawn to…but you do not have the right to tell others to be the same.
I think the final thing that convinced me to leave the faith was this scripture
Roman 6-18 years Therefore he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he will he hardens.
No matter how much you pray, no matter how right you live according to biblical standard, god can choose at will whether he has mercy on you or you not. So it could all be in vain. This is predestination and you have no free will according to this verse. A horrible human could receive mercy yet a wonderful, loving, Jesus follower could be hardened…yeah, that don’t sit right with me!
So anyway, that’s an extremely condensed version of my journey to leaving the faith. You can find other details in some of my other post. Look to the right and you see a list of months. I started this blog in 2016 after my dad passed. You can start with December 2016 and read forward. It kinda fills in the blanks a bit.
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