From one end to the other and back again

By Curious Neko ~

Scattered. That's where I am right now. You see, once upon a time I lived a happy little church-going Christian life with my devoutly born-again Christian husband and we swore we'd make sure our children knew the REAL reason behind Easter and Christmas and we pitied the people who didn't because they were all going to hell. But, I'm getting ahead of myself... let's start "in the beginning," shall we?

I was born to a Buddhist mother and a non-practicing Catholic father. I was baptized in accordance with the Catholic faith and my entire devoutly Roman Catholic extended family rejoiced. Fast forward some 10 years. I've never really gone to church and only have the vaguest idea about some guy named Jesus being the actual reason for Christmas and Santa doesn't exist. I am incensed. My mother somehow got roped into going to a Southern Baptist church (at this point we're living in the deep South) and becomes baptised... my father and I just sort of go along with it. I'm trying to be a good daughter and buy into the doctrine but I have too many questions that aren't being answered ("why aren't dinosaurs in the bible" and the ilk of an 11-year-old's mind). I go along with it for some years, attend a private Christian school, allow myself to believe in this God fellow a bit.

We move to California, I meet a boy, he's a born-again, takes me to church some and LAWDY LAWDY, I'm a born-again Christian! Seriously. I went in for it hook, line and sinker. I was "on fire" as the evangelicals would call it and didn't think twice about spewing my self-righteous "word of God" to anyone who'd listen. I asked all kinds of questions and leaned on my fellow Christians for answers. They, of course, kept up the positive feedback loop by spouting off quotes from the Bible and voila! Faith reinforced! The boy and I got married... but already some things weren't sitting right in my mind but I banished them from thought because what I felt was right and what the bible/god said were right didn't quite match up. But I had to be a good christian wifey, right?

I'm in the midst of an existential crisis and have no one to talk to.But... if god is perfect and makes no mistakes, why did he create gay people if homosexuality is wrong? This was at the crux of my doubts as I knew I wasn't fully hetero and I'd been that way since I could remember. My 1st crush was on a female teacher, for crying out loud! How could he condemn people to eternal damnation for being the way he created them? That didn't sound very loving and just to me.

As the years passed, I asked more questions. If god is so kind & loving, why is he so vengeful? Why would he allow babies to be born into loving families only to take them back due to a tragic accident or illness? Why did he allow famines, droughts, floods, earthquakes, wars, etc? They kept saying that these were due to satan's influence and they were tests made to reinforce our faith... it began to sound more and more like sadism than omniscience and love.

Then horrible things happened... lying, infidelity, divorce. My rebound "love" was everything my ex wasn't... and not in a good way. If I hadn't miraculously gotten pregnant with this new guy (yet nothing in my 2 years of marriage no matter how hard we prayed), I wouldn't be with him. But I am... and because we have a child together and we don't want him to go through the hardships we see other kids from divorced families go through, we're trying to work it out.

But it made me question: If there is a loving god that wants us to be happy and praise his name, then why did my first marriage to a loving, sweet, caring man fail? And why did "he" allow me to have a child with a man who's arrogant, self-centered, a compulsive liar, verbally and emotionally abusing, borderline alcoholic, and I suspect to be an undiagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder sufferer and be stuck with him? Why would he have me support my family of three on barely above minimum wage because my loser of a husband refuses to get a job and comes up with elaborate stories as to why he can't?

Nothing makes sense anymore... and I'm truly not sure whether I'm atheist or agnostic at this point. It does seem a bit unlikely to me that all the beauty and order in the world is the result of some freak cosmic accident. But I also don't think there's a "man in the sky" that watches everyone's every move. That's just kind creepy.

So there you have it. I'm scattered. I have a young child and a husband I despise half the time, tolerate a quarter of the time, and am completely apathetic to the other quarter. I don't believe in a god in the christian sense anymore... or even "true love" in any sense. I suppose the past few years have made me rather bitter and jaded. I'm in the midst of an existential crisis and have no one to talk to since all of "our" friends from my previous marriage are actually HIS friends and took his side of things. And current husband doesn't have any friends that I consort with. I just don't trust anyone anymore... and I guess that's at the heart of this all, isn't it?

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