For 20 years I regularly attended local fundamental churches. In 1984 when I first professed to be a Christian, my father said he had failed. He had his own issues with the church. Although I could not admit it at the time, in hindsight I can see he was partially correct.
I was searching for love when I first attended a Pentecostal church. I was drawn to the outward expression of joy and hope which is part of their worship and assumed that this expression was love. Just like every other human creation, religion is fraught with human ego. Within a short period of time, I discovered how mean people can be and how we project onto “God” our perception of the world.
My first experience of this abuse came when I fell and twisted my knee twice in three weeks. I asked for prayer, only to be told that “God” was telling me to lose weight. I knew I should lose weight but could not find the motivation in my 20s to do so. Feeling rejected, trapped, and shamed, I sulked and expressed deep anger towards the church and their “God”. This was seen as a demon by those in power and a spirit of self-pity was prayed out of me. By this time, I was afraid of myself, and “God” and became clingy of my closest friend. Apparently, I was drawing my friend into a lesbian relationship. As same sex relationships were frowned on by the fundamentalist church, the leadership prayed to break our friendship to save our souls.
By the time I left that church I was paranoid, waiting for "God" to hit me at any time because I was so evil. I attended other fundamentalist churches where I discovered that their "God" didn’t accept fat people either. The final straw came when another minister said I had to accept the church’s wisdom and be under a minister, or married, or go back under my father.
What have I learned from this? If my beliefs do not aid the cause of love in this world, then they are damaging to both me and others and I need to question them.
If you want to chat about your church experience, message me.
In love, Jenny
