I want my religion back

By Eva ~

My loss of faith was not a choice. I spent four years as an evangelical Christian believing that Jesus was my Savior and trying to follow a literal interpretation of the Bible perfectly to show Him my love. Early one Sunday morning before church, I was reading the gospel accounts of the crucifixion because I felt guilty that I didn’t know the events exactly as they occurred. I found the vast disparities between the accounts troubling.

I scoured my MacArthur Study Bible, my Christian websites, and Google search results for an adequate explanation of the differences. I found two theories: either the differences were due to changes in perspective from each gospel writer or some of the gospel accounts were erroneous.

I wanted to believe the first idea that the gospel writers had different perspectives, but it didn’t make sense to me. Why would Luke leave out the miraculous signs Matthew describes? Why would Mark fail to notice Jesus stop to talk to his mother as John recounts? I could not accept this theory.

The only theory left was that the gospel accounts contained false records of Jesus’ death. If I could not trust some of the Bible, then I had to question the whole thing. Myriads of contradictions and unanswered doubts I had suppressed flooded my mind. Much as I wanted otherwise, I could no longer believe the Bible was the inerrant word of God.

Gone were the easy Bible answers for the big questions of life: Why are we here? What ought I do? Is there a God? I plunged into depression.

Without Jesus in my life, I feel hopeless and empty. I started feeling worthless after I had sex, and now I feel stupid because my church warned me premarital sex causes feelings of worthlessness. I’m always sad. Everything I used to enjoy bores me. I’m getting scarily skinny, but I can’t get motivated to eat. I sleep all the time, and when I’m not asleep, I’m exhausted. I wake up thinking about dying.

I yearn to be a Christian again. I keep trying to believe, but I can’t help feeling that the God of the Bible is ridiculous. I find prayer taxing because God no longer seems real. I’m mad at God for making me stop believing and ending my happiness.

I want my answers back. I want my morality back. I want my prayer back. I want my joy back. I want my Jesus back.

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