So Then I Said ........

........ "it's like this church and I are having the worlds most civilized divorce and we're sharing custody of you kidlets."

I left my church.

I was the last of my old crowd anyway.

Devin still came around sometimes, but she shared all my same frustrations.

I stayed so long because I've invested so much of myself into the Jr. High group, and to leave my precious kidlets seemed unfathomable.

The differences between the church and myself run deep in both of us, and it would take forever to explain them. So I'll try to keep it short.

I'd always known that I didn't fall in line with ALL the church's doctrine, but I'd felt that we agreed on the few important things. To not agree completely didn't bother me, but eventually I felt the pressure, to think twice before saying what I really thought.

There was really no place for me, other than the places I served. And thats unhealthy and unbalanced. There was a college group. I went. I tried. Twice. The second time, unlike the first, I actually made it home before I started crying. I tried to share during prayer requests the difficult situation with my mother. I was cut off, told that she meant well, and that just wasn't having enough love for her. We then moved on to another prayer request. "So I bought this new outfit, and I'm really nervous about what my friends will think when I wear it tomorrow...."

Other than the college group, my only other option was the Newly/Nearly Marrieds. Yeah. They didn't seem to think there was anything wrong with assuming that all the college age people would move on to newlyweds. Of course, in this church, most of them did. Or they left.
I didn't feel like sitting in the college group like the retard that got held back from the next step in life, when I was, in fact, proud of my choices that had kept me single to this point. And as much as the thought of sitting in the Newly/Nearly Marrieds by myself to make a statement, amused me, I only have so much time that I'm willing to spend making a point to people that prolly wouldn't get it anyway.

Which left the option of leaving.

I have questions. Ones I couldn't ask at my church without being acused of searching for justification for past/present/future actions. Such as, "Can anyone show me the actual verse that says we shouldn't have sex before marriage?" I felt it's a relevant question. I would have been hauled aside and questioned extensively about 'what's going on in your life?' After a 20 minute lecture on purity, I'd leave without an actual answer to my question.
I'm not claiming it doesn't exist. I just want someone, ANYONE to show it to me.

See, it started a while back, when I was still with JR. We'd been dating for quite a while, marriage was discussed and so I made a list of women who's marriages I envied, to go to for advice. I thought that the list would have women who exemplified the guidelines I'd been taught. Surprisingly, at the end of the list, I re-read it to discover that I envy a lot of second marriages. Or parents of blended families. Most of the best mothers I know happen to be divorced, remarried, or never married.
Some flourished in more liberal enviroments, and others adopted a veneer of guilt, that in deep discussion it became apparent they didn't truely feel.

I realized that my peers, the young people around me, where entering one of three kinds of marriages.

One, the Jr. High relationship. The one where they bought, hook line and sinker, the same dating advice that I gave to my Jr. Highers. Nothing wrong with the advice, per se, but somewhere between Jr. High and 25 the nature, the whole purpose of my relationships changed.
And it was painful to watch them marry, knowing that in a month they'd be hollow-eyed and disillusioned, plain to see.

Two, the Ones That Didn't Wait. They were routinely stripped of leadership, and shunned on a personal level, until they quit coming or 'repented.' Most choose to quietly quit. Because of course the repentance couldn't be a one time act, they'd be forced to recount it to every youth group, to 'make some good come of the tradgedy.' Oddly, their relationships seemed to fair better, based on my own personal poll.

And Three. The Virginity By Technicality. The brides that walked the aisle with one virgin hole on their body. These girls seemed most likely to befriend me. And I think I hated them most. The ones that offered ideas and tricks, "other stuff" to avoid intercourse. Just wait it out, and don't get pregnant.
Sorry.
That's not purity.
That's birth control.
And frankly, if I wanted to be a hypocrite, I'd at least sign up to be a hypocrite thats actually getting laid. Why go halves?
Their marriages seemed to fair about 50-50.

Were these my options?




I have lots of questions like this. On many issues.

I guess it boils down to, I'm not afraid of having these questions. I'm not afraid to surround myself with people that don't agree with me.
I don't ask that everyone agree with me.
I wouldn't hold it against them if they couldn't answer my questions.
I am not in the least afraid of the answers.

But I can't last long in a place where they're afraid of my questions.
Where no answers are offered because the question makes you look bad.
Where the question would get me put in a sort of remedial christianity class, before I infect anyone else with my questions.
Where it's required that I only tell the children the official church doctrine and not tell them its an open issue with a few viewpoints and to look it up themselves. (Really, whats so scary about that? Any heart that seeks God, God will reveal Himself too.)
Where they can't or won't hear me. Talk to me. See me.

I'm bitter, admittedly.
I don't hate anyone at my old church.
I'm just frustrated and worn out.

And if I wasn't so frustrated and worn out, maybe I'd have had an answer for the boy in my class that immediately demanded to know what church I was going to, so he could join me.

I'm not sure there is a church, a place for us.

And maybe the church should worry less about my credibility with the kids, and more about that sad fact, that there may be no place for us.