Dear Judgmental Christians

Dear Judgmental Christians,

I write this, not as a stab at Christianity, or any religion for that matter, but as a "stop and open your eyes" article.  Today is Good Friday.  I've been thinking about Religion lately in regards to my 3-yr old.  I want him to know God, as I have known God.  I want him to understand the lessons of the Bible and it's importance in our lives.  I want him to think freely and be able to develop his own beliefs and ideas without someone else telling him what to think and believe.  The question to myself is, how do I accomplish this without compromising my own beliefs?

Easter was a very important holiday for my family. As a child, my family went to church every Sunday for Sunday school and for service.  Easter was the most important holiday in our family and our church.  I remember the palms on Palm Sunday.  Our church would have a huge Palm Sunday display and then the wonderful Easter Service and Easter Egg hunt around the church grounds.  I have very fond memories of Easter Church Services.  We moved when I was in 1st grade and found another wonderful church in our new location and the tradition continued.
     Every year for Easter, Mom would make me a new dress and we would get all dressed up.  It was not only a renewal of faith for us, but it was the beginning of Spring when life begins anew.
     I remember so vividly Easter Sunday of 2nd grade.  After church, we went home for our annual Easter Egg Hunt around the yard.  That year, my mother decided my older brother was old enough to help hide the eggs.  He was in 3rd grade. But the show was mostly for my little brother at age 3.  Dad was instructed to take me and my little brother to go buy the Sunday paper.  The trip was scenic with several "wrong turns".  The little brother and I started to get cranky and a fight ensued.  Dad looked up in the mirror at us and very sternly instructed us to "knock it off".  He then looked at me and said "Don't you touch him again!"  I moved over and hugged the door to keep as much distance between us as possible so as to not get in trouble again.  Several turns later, we had the paper and were beginning the route back to the house.  I broke the silence with a small "Dad."  He ignored me.  "Dad."  I repeated a little louder.  He glanced up in the mirror at me and then back to the road.  I began to panic.  "DAD!"  I shouted in frustration to get his attention.  "WHAT?"  He snapped back at me.  "Bubba's falling out of the car!"  I exclaimed and pointed at my little brother as he began a slow lean out of the car.  Dad looked over his shoulder and reached around with one hand while steering and braking at the same time.  He managed to grab a leg and yell at me.  "Well grab him!"  I didn't know what to do.  I looked at him in disbelief.  "YOU TOLD ME NOT TO TOUCH HIM AGAIN!"  Ah, the lessons we learn.  Bubba had his lap belt on so he did not fall completely out of the car but he did manage to bump his forehead on the asphalt.  What had happened was that when Dad took a turn, my little brother was holding onto the door handle.  Needless to say, he unintentionally opened the door and then didn't let go as the momentum of the car pulled the door open.  We weren't going very fast, but it was enough.  In the end, Bubba was fine and Dad got in trouble with Mom.  Dad did not scold me because I was following his directions of not touching him, but I did get a lesson about sometimes it's okay to break the rules if it means doing the right thing and Dad learned to activate the security lock on the back doors of the car.  There was just something about Easter that always brought us together.
      In the 3rd grade we moved back to the same small town we had started out in, but the church was different.  The community had changed in the time we were gone.  The economic recession had hit hard and most of our friends had moved.  We slowly stopped going to church altogether.  Except for Easter Sunday.  We continued that tradition for several more years before we stopped going to church altogether, but we still sat down at home and talked about Jesus.  We still had our Easter Baskets and Egg Hunts.
     I started going to church with a friend in 7th grade and the tradition was reinvigorated with my parents although, they did not go to church with me.  My little brother started attending the church with me as well.  My Dad would get us up on Sunday mornings and cook a big breakfast and then take us to church.  We continued this pattern through 9th grade.

I no longer go to church and have not regularly attended a church since the end of 9th grade.  It's been almost 20 years.  That being said, let me tell you a little more.  The last Sunday morning church service I attended was before my Grandmother's funeral at the little community church where my Grandmother lived over 5 years ago.  The most recent time I have been to church was for my other Grandmother's funeral a little over a month ago.  I have been to Church's for Weddings, Funerals, and Celebrations over the last 20 years, but that is about all.

Now, let me tell you why.  My life changed at the end of 9th grade.  9th grade was in the Junior High.  10th grade started High School.  Everything changed.  My Mother got sick that summer.  She had to have "the surgery".  My Aunt also lived with us at the time.  I will save the stories about my Aunt for another blog.  Let's just say those years with her in our house were not good years (about 3 years).  Tensions began growing between my parents.  Tensions we had never noticed before.  My brothers and I pulled closer together.  I began to notice that Dad smoked more.  After Mom's surgery, her boss began stopping by the house regularly.  He would go in the room where she was bed-ridden and stay for a couple of hours while Dad sat in the living room and chain smoked while mindlessly watching TV.  It was very confusing.  We stopped going to church.  Mostly we stopped because it was summer vacation, but also because Dad stopped getting us up.  There was no longer any enthusiasm in him anymore.  He and my Aunt had gotten in a fight over who would cook Sunday breakfast one morning and Dad threw in the towel.  (As these memories come back to me, I find myself starting to cry).  I have blocked many memories from this time in my life.
    One morning, Mom called me in to her room.  She asked me what I thought of her boss.  I said he was a nice guy and that it was really nice that he was coming over to see her and check on her.  She asked me what I thought about him as a man.  Then she asked what I thought about him as a father figure.  I immediately responded with "I have a Dad.  I have a great Dad."  Then she asked what I thought about have a Step-Dad.  Everything that happens inside someone's head when they receive shocking news, happened to me at that moment.  The earth cracked beneath me and I fell into a never ending canyon of doubt and dismay.  I was 14 years old.  I couldn't respond.  I just stared at her and looked back and forth from her, to the ever widening hole in the floor.  What was she talking about?  Then, she said it.  "Your Dad and I are getting a divorce."  What?  I still couldn't speak.  "Please say something."  She pleaded.  "I don't understand." I sputtered.  "You know what divorce is?"  I nodded.  She then began to talk to me, not as a child, but as a friend.  She explained to me that while her and my Dad loved each other very much, they were not "in love".  She said she'd had a hard time dealing with everything and wasn't sure what to do.  She said that when I was older, I would understand "love".  There were many other things she told me about.  She told me that she wasn't looking for someone else.  When my now step-dad declared his love for her, it was on her last day of work before her surgery.  It caught her off-guard.
   That summer was a whirlwind.  A week or two after Mom's confession to me, my bible-study teacher from church called.  She'd noticed my absence and noticed a change in my voice over the phone.  She asked if it would be okay if she stopped by and took me out for a soda.  My parents consented.  She picked me up and we went to the local Sonic and sat in her car and talked.  I was dismissive at first and then she told me that I could trust her.  She talked to me about God and that the church was there for me if I was in trouble.  She gained my trust.  I told her.  I told her everything that my Mother had told me.  She sat silent.  I don't remember what else she may have said, but it was very changed from how she had been talking to me before I broke down.  She became distant, as if I had insulted her.  She dropped me off and told me she would call me next Sunday and come by and pick me up for church.  I agreed.
     I waited for her call that next Sunday morning.  I didn't have her number and we didn't have cell phones.  She never called.  She never came by.  Dad offered to take me to church.  I shook my head, went in my room and cried.  I felt abandoned.  My Mother had dropped a bomb shell on me and the church abandoned me.  Many people have tried to reassure me that the church did not abandon me, however, when I still look back on it today, I still feel the emptiness of a teenager.  14 is a hard enough age.  That woman betrayed my trust.
     My Mom got married on my first day of high school.  I did not go.  I was angry now.  My birthday had come and gone and I had withdrawn into myself.  I became more dismissive, and didn't care about school anymore.  My church friends weren't talking to me either.  All of a sudden I didn't exist to them either.  It was a difficult reality.  I went from a 3.75+ GPA, to 3.00.  I did just enough to get by.  I remember my 2nd period teacher asking us to fill out parent information cards for PE.  One question was "your parents names".  I raised my hand and the teacher mockingly commented on not knowing my parents names.  I responded just as sarcastically "well, kind of.  My Mom's getting married at 2:00.  What name would you like me to put!"

I guess the moral of my story is to be careful how you judge people.  I don't go to church because of the very deep betrayal at age 14.  I find it difficult to place that must trust in an organization that prides itself on unity and faith, and yet can be so judgmental to a teenager that was reaching and grasping for help.  I did maintain my faith through it all though.  I thank God every day for not abandoning me, even though his representatives did.  There are many other paths my life could have taken.  I did not succumb to sex, drugs, or violence, although, that could have easily happened.  Instead, I retreated into myself and into the lessons I had learned all those years ago when we went to the other churches as a child.  I held tight to the lessons my parents taught me about doing the right thing.  I believe in God and his son Jesus Christ as our savior.  I would also like to add that while Jesus decreed that you should "go to church", he did not mean an actual building.  There were no church buildings for Jesus and his followers.  They met outside of town, or wherever they could hide from their oppressors to practice their religion.  They met and they talked about God and about the importance of being good people.  Jesus focused most importantly on not judging others, lest you be judged yourself.

So now I find myself with my 3-yr old and wanting to teach him the lessons I learned.  I have decided to take him to church with some friends on Easter Sunday.  I pray to God, that I can find a church that I can feel comfortable in and someday maybe even learn to trust.  Until then, Happy Good Friday to all and thanks for listening to my story.

Thanks,
Summer