By Cecelia ~ N ow that I am free of religion and church, I look back and wonder why I allowed myself to be so controlled by both. I am definitely not a leader but neither am I a blind follower. I'm not a 'group person' who goes along with the crowd for the sake of it. I hate the mentality of 'everyone else is doing ... such and such so you should too.' I balk at that sort of faulty logic. I hate being manipulated and coerced. It makes me want to do the exact opposite of what everyone else is doing. For better or worse, I like to make my own decisions. I am my own person. When I found God in my twenties, I was still that person. I didn't turn into a total sheep, baaing away obediently to every command. In fact, there were many times when I felt that I was the only one who could see what an unhealthy little cult we all belonged to. Nevertheless, something had shifted in me. It's as though a big chunk of my personality had fallen off and got lo...

By Cecelia ~ S ix months after dedicating my life to God, I felt so unhappy within myself that I leapt, head first, into a sex addiction.  I got into the regular habit of taking myself off to nightclubs,  pubs and other likely venues in order to hook up with men for sex.  I wasn't interested in pursuing any sort of normal relationship.  It was the danger, anonymity and excitement I wanted.  At the time, my mind was in such a state of turmoil that I couldn't have explained to anyone, myself included, exactly, why I felt the need to do this. I was lonely.  I knew that.  I felt unloved. I knew that, too. I was looking for an emotional connection that I sought to satisfy with a physical connection.  That was obvious. The cold, stark reality of my days was depressing. I dragged myself around like a zombie, feeling dead inside, rejected and unwanted. I felt invisible. Once, when walking along the street, I saw an acquain...

By Cecelia ~ M y conversion from nominal believer to born again Christian was sudden and dramatic. I had been in deep meditation when a voice said to me. "Get baptized ." What a profound and powerful message. I had never had such an experience. The words were almost audible. At the time, I just knew it was the voice of God. But, now that I longer believe in God, how do I make sense of that experience and my interpretation of it? It has taken me a long time to, finally, accept that it wasn't the voice of God but my own voice. It was my sub-conscience. I had said it to myself. The idea of the message being from God would be more credible if it had told me to do something totally out of the blue, something like, "Go to a Muslim mosque." The idea of getting baptized was totally consistent with all the thoughts that had been running around in my head for weeks. I had been reading about Jesus. I had been reading about baptism. I had believed, ...

By Cecelia ~ I grew up in a time and place where almost everyone was a Christian. On Sunday mornings, my neighbour would drive a big bus around town to round up happy, eager, little children and bustle them off to Sunday school. On Saturday nights, my sisters and I would sleep with hair in curlers (ouch!) all ready for the best day of the week; Sunday school in the morning, roast lamb for dinner followed by fish and chips for tea. My father was a lay preacher who would practice his sermons out loud to anyone who would listen, even our cat. Puss had heard so many sermons that even she was a Christian. I stopped going to church when I was too old to attend Sunday school. My absence wasn’t a rejection of God or of Christianity. I still believed but I just wasn’t into it. As an infant, I had been taught to say my prayers at bedtime. I remember, at the age of about five, thanking God for bananas! (I hate bananas now.) Beyond that, I don't recall ever praying on my own...