Bad Christian

Truth is, I really suck at this whole being Christian thing. 

I grew up in rural Alberta, where everyone was Christian. We're not talking the "Jesus loves you no matter what you do" kind of Christian. More like the "If you read Harry Potter, you're in a cult and going to hell" kind.

 I used to really not understand praying. Half the time I thought it was ridiculous to think that God had time to listen to the whole world's prayers everyday, let alone mine. The other half the time I thought that I was just doing it wrong. I had always heard people talking about how God speaks to them, and if I couldn't hear him talking back, chances were that he couldn't hear me either. Mom was always saying that our internet was bad because we didn't have very good reception (back in the dial-up days), so maybe it was the same for praying. Or maybe my hands acted like antennas and if I folded my hands just right, I'd get a better signal. 

I remember being baptized when I was 7. It was all very.... Anticlimactic. For me, anyway. Everyone was so excited and giving me children's bibles and telling me that I was saved. It felt a lot like passing another level in swimming lessons and your teacher would hand you one of those blue and white badges with the level number sewn into it. Sure, it was kind of neat, but you couldn't help but think, "that's it?". I felt kind of ripped off. Where was the light shining down upon me from heaven? Where were the angels singing their angelic angel songs, doing their angel things? 

From then on out, I just tried to fit in. Obviously there was something wrong with me. I did my best to stay awake in church, and to at least try to understand what was being said. I once asked my Sunday School teacher if it was possible that parts of the Bible- particularly the miracles done by Jesus- were metaphors. Needless to say, that didn't go over well. 

So, no more questions, either. 

I just sat back while my faith slowly dwindled into smaller and smaller pieces until I was left with, "I don't know" when asked if I believed in God.

I was completely unsure of everything. I tried to scrounge up something that I could make into a faith, completely of my own making, so that I could believe in something without people telling me that I was wrong. Well, I guess they still could, but they couldn't believe it better than me. It was all muddled bits of anything I found that I liked, all tied together with pieces of string and glue. There were bits of Christianity, ideas that all Gods are the same deity, little bits of Buddhism, Gaia... in summation: a big mess.

But faith can't be held together with string and glue. Eventually it all fell apart, and the only thing that's left intact is God.

And now I'm here, fumbling with my faith, and trying to pick up the pieces.