A excerpt to begin this post: "This is my faith: a fragile hope in what humanity might be able to do when we stop looking for someone else to save us."
As children we are given an image of what God is like and who he is to us, our father. I grew up in the Catholic Church so some of what I was taught may be different from others. We are told God is our father and to look only to him for answers, yet to honor our earthly parents as well. Talk about confusing when you're a youngster! There were so many things I was told to believe when growing up, and as a child you never really question. Once adolescence hits, there are some things you begin to wonder about and this is generally when teachers, priests, and other church members let you know this is just how things are and point you to a Bible verse.
I never questioned my faith from my childhood. And mostly during high school either. One thing the author describes in her book, beginning to question is also the beginning of you no longer fitting in. When you're growing up, all one ever wants to do is fit in. Honestly, this is why I wanted to become Catholic at the age of 11. All of my friends were baptized Catholic. I had no idea what that meant at 11! Even now, I'm not sure I even really know what that means. Even now, I still am constantly searching for answers to the question of "who is God, really?".
This "doubt" as some may call it, but questions as I call them, started when I was in college attending a private Catholic school. I just did not really understand or believe a lot of what Church teachings were trying to tell me were right in society or in the world. And once you start looking into other religions it gets even more confusing on what is "right". Using the authors terms, I guess you could say this is when my "break up with God" started. Honestly, as time has gone by since then and events in my life have occurred, my separation has grown stronger. The author describes in the book how although her relationship with God ended, it is never forgotten. Like any relationship, she still has memories they shared together, pictures, and "love letters" also known to many as hymns, prayers, and creeds. This is how I also see things. Although my opinion of the God I grew up with is different than the God I see now, it does not lessen my relationship with him in any way. It took reading this book to realize I do not believe in the same God I did as a child. I have a new outlook on who God is to me, and that is okay.
If you choose to read this book, there is a excerpt to which really spoke to me about prayer, asking God for things, and their outcomes.
"If you believe in a God who blesses, you also believe in a Good who curses, condemns...There was just too much suffering in the world-too many people drowning in floods and buried by earthquakes, too many people starving, too many people sick and dying for Jesus to believe in a God who'd catch someone who jumped off a building to prove a point to a bully...I might as well have been standing on the top of a temple, arms spread wide, leaping into the air."
This is how I have felt many times. No matter how much I, or many others, prayed for something not to happen, it still did. This is where you hear "it happened for a reason". No, things just happen. Who says it is part of any plan? And who is writing the plan if we were given free will? Why is there even a plan if we're free to choose our path? So many questions on just one tiny piece of who God is.
If you know me, or even if you don't, and read this, please do not see it as a moment where I need help. Do not think I need to be saved or pray for my soul to not be damned. I simply just believe in a different God than you do. Many spend their lives trying to be the person someone else wants them to be, and they judge those who are just trying to be the best of themselves. I spent most of my "early" years trying to be the person I thought God wanted me to be, and I was miserable. Much like the author describes in her book, you lose the person you really are when you start living your life for someone else. No one is going to make me a better person, mother, wife, daughter, sister, aunt, or friend other than myself.
I still believe some of the things the Bible states, and I still am constantly learning about the God others believe in. I just do not feel I can be the person others are telling me I have to be in order to be loved and never forgotten by God. In the meantime, I live my life with love of others around me and myself. This is how I feel it was intended to be lived. And after reading Breaking Up With God, it is nice to know I am not the only one.
