Religion and me.

My Journey with religion and my path to finding God has been a rocky one. Fraught with ups and downs, but its been mine, my experiences, my highs, my lows, my journey, mine. And now I'm going to share it with you
As far back as I can remember I remember going to Sunday school in the Methodist church on Woodchurch, we weren't a religious family though and didnt go to church each week, read the bible or pray each night. Around the age of 7 or 8 I remember attending services at the Wirral Christian centre on Woodchurch road, I went with my best friend and her family and I remember getting given stickers with various phrases like Jesus loves you on them. I remember how I loved those stickers. During my friendship with Jenny I also attended services at the Bethany chapel in prenton - I remember these services involving lots of happy and loud singing and I liked that. That period of my life ended when Jenny and her family moved to Manchester. I can't remember if I felt particularly bothered about not going to church anymore, if I did it wasn't a feeling that was strong enough to stay with me. I think maybe I just let go and moved on.
When I started high school, we were all given a tiny copy of a gideons bible which was impossible to read because the pages were like tracing paper and although I tried to read it, I quickly gave in.
Fast forward a few years and around the age of 14 I started to fall in with a new group of friends, they all went to church, they all went to the church youth club and 2 of the group were the Vicars sons. As my friendships within this group grew, I began to attend the church, attend the youth group, finally feeling like I belonged and going to church just felt right.
I began to consider one of the vicars sons as one of my closest friends, we got on so well, I trusted him and told him about things I'd never shared with anyone else, I felt so comfortable in his company, safe, secure, he was one of my best friends. I loved spending time with him and I loved the feeling I got when he wrapped me up in his arms and made me feel like everything would be ok again.
Then things changed, he betrayed my trust in the worst way that a boy can betray a girl. I felt broken, my trust was completely shattered by what he'd done. The afternoon when he hurt me, I directed all my focus out of the window, I could see the church, which was upside down from my view point, quite poignant considering my entire life at that moment was also being turned upside down. So I lay there, my eyes focused only on the church, my mind focused on him, on God, on faith, on trust. A whole myriad of emotions raging through me, a million thoughts in my mind, yet only one question - WHY? Why me, why him, why did he do that, why didn't he listen to me, why did God let him do that, why didnt he stop, why did God allow His people to hurt others? Yet 15 years on, those Whys remain unanswered still.
After that day I went to a dark place, a very dark place, I had no room in my life for a God who allowed such things to happen.
I shut myself off completely, pain and anger slowly consuming me from the inside.
It was about 7-8 years before I even considered going to church again, and at that point it was ONLY so we could get married in the lovely old church by my mums house. In order to marry there we had to go on the electoral roll there, in order to go on the electoral roll there we had to attend regular services.
All my nightmares were happening at once, but carried along on the stream I suddenly found myself standing in church again on a Sunday morning, desperately trying to fight back the tears that were threatening, desperately trying to focus on anything and everything bar his face in my mind, his voice in my head.
There were times when I questioned myself, questioned why I was basically torturing myself each week. Slowly though, I began to form some kind of relationship with the rector at Holy Cross. I'm not sure where or how it began, but something told me that this was a lady I could trust and that same instinct kept nudging me, convincing me that I needed to tell her why coming to church was so hard for me.
And so the friendship struck up, as I slowly learnt that I could trust, as step by step, Anne showed me that God wasn't to blame, that T was the one to blame, and taught me that I could find my faith again if I really wanted to. Little steps, that's what I took in those early days, testing boundaries in both trust, friendship and faith, and I took those steps with an incredibly special lady by my side, guiding me and gently showing me that it was possible to let God back into my life.
I'd been so angry for so long, locked up so much hate and anger away that it had begun to manifest itself onto my body, yet slowly and surely I learned to open up, to let God in and to let the bad stuff out.
It wasn't an easy time, there were days when I sat in church willing myself not to loose control, fighting back tears, fighting the anger that still threatened to destroy the fragile relationship I was trying so hard to rebuild. There were days when I did loose control, days where I literally tried to tear the church to pieces brick by brick because I was so damn angry, with God, with myself but most of all with T. Sometimes I would sit in the church grounds , silent tears streaming down my face as I let the memories take hold yet again. I ricocheted between desperate sadness and raging anger.
Somehow, slowly, I found I was able to spend time in church without my adrenaline racing, without seeing Ts face in every wall and in every pew. And as my belief started to grow stronger, so T started to weaken a little, I started to believe that I could fight back finally, that T would no longer control my life, my thoughts and my faith the way I had allowed him to.
Then I decided I wanted to be confirmed, it was the next step in affirming my faith, I went through all the preparations, totally focused on becoming a full member of the church, threw myself wholeheartedly into this new chapter of my life, affirmed my faith alongside several other church members and hoped this would finally make me feel complete.
So then came my biggest wobble yet, as I now found myself on the inside, finally belonging, BUT finally belonging to the same family as T did. I began to panic, I'd deliberately tied myself into a family to which my worst nightmare also belonged, suddenly I felt an overwhelming urge to escape, to put as much distance between myself and the church as I possibly could, how could I think I would able to make such a huge statement of faith without it having an equally huge impact upon me. Thankfully my wonderful friend, mentor, guide, second mum, came to the rescue once again, offering reassuring words of advice, taking me into the church when no one else was there to show me it was still safe, and just being a general comforting presence throughout what came to be another dark period.
Yet another dark time that I managed to overcome, yet another time I managed to win, to prove to myself I was stronger than I believed.
Sadly these days my life no longer centres around the church the way it did a few years ago, life became busy when Eve came along, yet another little test of my faith as I wrestled with the knowledge that sometimes things are just out of Gods control, He sent us Eve, with all her complications, because He knew that we could handle what we were about to go through, I sometimes see Eve as my reward for proving the strength of my faith to Him, proving that I could go through anything and still come out the other side with my faith some how intact.
I don't go to church these days half as much as I would like to, life changed, things changed, but that's ok, because nothing can take away the faith that I have, and I know that I can believe and I can worship in my own ways, and that does not make me any less of a Christian these days just because I'm not in church each week.
I keep my beliefs to myself for the most part, sharing what I believe with others gets me names like the bible basher and so on. If someone wants to bring up religion and have a discussion then I'll actively be involved, but I'm not one to preach my religion to others despite the amount of nit picking and ridicule it seems to attract.
I believe for ME, not for you, not for God, but simply for myself. This has been and still is my journey and my journey alone. Some may join me on the path for a while but ultimately I don't expect anyone to follow the exact road that I have and still am following, for its MY road, MY journey, MY faith and MY religion - no one has experienced this but me, and no one has walked in my footsteps with me except Jesus xx