Faith Thoughts

16 September 2012 and 25 September 2012

In Spiritual Life and actually since I arrived in Memphis this summer, I have been thinking a lot about how much farther along the group I've grown close to appears to be in their spiritual life. I know I shouldn't be envious, but it just makes me wonder what I have done wrong over the years why I haven't been able to reach the point they're at yet. It just hasn't made sense to me. 

I've also started questioning my faith a lot and wondering, based on sermons I've heard throughout the course of the summer, if unfortunately my faith may have been developed and misplaced in a denomination and the idea of religion rather than in Christ. I think about times in my undergrad career when I stopped going to my home church because I realized that it wasn't a desire or want for church but rather a chore, a duty that was expected of me each Sunday morning. I remember thinking in that moment that church shouldn't feel like a chore to be checked off the list. I keep thinking about how all of this could have happened and why when I thought I had been going about everything in the right reason I am so unsettled now. 

I believe all of this uncertainty is what caused me to be thrown off with my interactions today with my co-teacher. It seemed odd that someone would have come to me seeking prayer rather than someone else of a more mature faith life. It is just so out of the ordinary for me. It makes no sense to me when I feel so insecure in this area of my life. 

I might be an odd ball, but sometimes I struggle to pray and so around mid-September at church I journaled my prayer because I needed to focus and not get distracted by the numerous other things that could have been interfering. These were my sentiments that day: 

Lord, 

I've spent the summer trying to intentionally seek you--to be a contributor rather than a consumer. I keep thinking about the sermons I've heard talking about how your life should be altered when you come to know Christ, and I can't help but wonder if I've been fooling myself for the past fourteen/fifteen years. I can't help but wonder if in that moment I came to follow a denomination rather than You. I'm becoming consumed with the worry rather than leaning in to you, and I don't know how to reconcile that. I feel so distant from you and I don't know how to shrink the space between. I think maybe I took care of that the summer between my junior and senior year when the man challenged me in the mall, but looking back, I don't see major changes in my life like the sermons I'm hearing have insisted so I don't know what to do...I'm lost, I'm confused so I'm asking you to enlighten me, speak to me, guide me, help me see/seek your will rather than my own Lord. I know I need you, I just don't know how to rely on you. Help me lean into you Lord. 

--A lost soul attempting to see her savior...

For me, faith has just always been a very odd entity in my life. My parents talk about how my birth and their want for me to be baptized as an infant led them to a church in East Tennessee (they're originally from West Virginia) so I grew up in the church; however, I also remember sometime when I was rather young on Thanksgiving, one of the rare times our dining room table is used for dinner rather than a collect-all shelf, asking my parents if we should bless the meal before eating. They looked at me and said if you want to bless the meal you are welcome to. I only brought the issue of prayer up once more at a Thanksgiving when I was a bit older and then I just gave up. Our faith life was something that just wasn't really brought up other than on Sunday. I remember at one point when our church was considering splitting due to a pastor dispute, church stuff was talked about a little more regularly as they were shocked when I spoke up at a meeting challenging adults about what they had promised me when I was baptized because I remembered the language vividly and the behavior I was seeing didn't align. Although the conversations were a bit more in the open, I don't remember us ever really talking about the gospel or the Bible. The most that ever came in to the conversation was around Christmas when Mom would say I think we need to get Zach (my baby brother) a more mature Bible now that he is older. 

It's just interesting to think about my history with faith in my family. I think this is part of the reason I am struggling and having such a hard time with faith here. I'm not used to people having their faith be such an out in the open aspect of their life. I'm not used to it being such an integral part of people's lives instead of a compartmentalized portion of life, which is what I am so accustomed to seeing. It just makes life interesting I suppose, and I don't know what to make of it. 

27 January 2013

I keep thinking back to the beginning of this new journey when I moved to Memphis and the identity crisis I’ve been on over the course of that time. I feel like I have no idea who I am anymore.

Today, J.B. talked about how being in Christ and being insecure doesn’t balance. They negate one another and so it makes me question who I am, what I’m doing, and where I’m going.

I don’t know what to make of it anymore. I start to feel grounded only to hear a sermon that shakes my foundation a little bit more.

How do you grow up in a church your whole life to only feel this lost and confused as a young adult. I don’t get it. Sometimes I get angry and just want to scream at my home church, at my family, at my friends, but then I realize that doesn’t do them any good nor does it do me any good or change my situation. I keep wondering where I’m supposed to go from here, how can I find someone to help disciple me and help ground me. 

May 2014

Relevant Magazine had been recommended to me a while back. I still haven't subscribed, sorry Relevant; however, I do follow the magazine on Facebook and read articles from time to time. At some point, they started this "Life 201" article series where individuals could ask questions and a pastor that works with the magazine would respond. A question mid-May this past year really resonated with me, "How Do I Know If I'm really Saved?" 

I grew up in the church and as you can see from the above writing, Memphis has challenged the way I think about faith and religion. What I grew up knowing and what I was now witnessing and experiencing didn't line up and as my students would say, "the struggle is real." 

The reader said, "I accepted Christ when I was 12 as a part of a confirmation class. But now, as a 23-year-old, I wonder if it really meant anything. I've prayed the prayer of salvation MANY times since then, but never know if it really took or if I'm just being crazy. How do I know if I'm really saved?" 

His response to this young woman aligned with a lot of what I was thinking about how we could get into the nuts and bolts of specific denomination and religious foundational texts or we could talk about different people's experiences. He reminded her that everyone's experience is different in how it begins. Some have a defining moment while others he says have "no defining moment--it's just a reality that has just always been there. Maybe they started following Jesus when they were little kids, or maybe faith was slowly cultivated and then, one day, just realized. In any event, there is no date on a calendar, which leads some to question if conversion ever happened at all." I think the lack of a defining moment and the lack of seeing those around me from back home have a shift in mindset and understanding of the world is at the heart of my struggle. The pastor goes on to suggest to this young lady that "it seems from your question like you're searching for the moment, yet you already have faith in what is hoped for and an assurance about what is not seen (a paraphrase of Hebrews 11:1)."   --http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/how-do-i-know-if-i%E2%80%99m-really-saved 

I still feel at odds with all of this. Wish it was cleaner, but then I remind myself that life isn't clean cut. It's messy just like us and this may be something that I wrestle with from here until the end. Maybe, just maybe, that is who God designed me to be--a woman who doesn't fit the mold and is constantly challenging and pressing to define ideas and moments more clearly for herself and others.