Come, come, sit down. Let's have a chat. I promise not to go overboard. Today we're going to have a little talk about something that has been tugging at me for some time now. God.
I'm going to let you all in on some Ashley History 101. Growing up I was raised in a good family and went to a Christian school. We had Bible as a part of the core curriculum and I was great at memorizing passages. We went to church as a family every Sunday, and had brunch at a restaurant somewhere after. I did my homework, got straight A's, and had an awesome group of friends. Then one summer I left on vacation to Seattle. I remember getting the phone call that my parents had spent the weekend in Laguna Beach scoping out houses for sale, and that they were serious about making a sizable move to the small{er} beach town about a half an hour south of where I currently attended school, without traffic. At first I didn't even comprehend what the move meant. I was all for it, in fact I just might have been the one creating usernames and login ID's for Realtor.com.
Somewhere in the process of the move talks it was discussed that the shelf life of my private school education was coming up for expiration. With a commute involving the I-5 during morning and afternoon gridlock traffic, my parents weren't exactly thrilled with the notion of paying the rising cost of fuel to drag me across town twice a day. Thus there was proposed the bribe. A gleaming new 14" iBook G4, for my soul. Okay, I'm being a bit dramatic, but you get the point. I can't say that I was in protest of the idea, with a new laptop, who was going to deny my ability to make friends. Boy was I wrong.
Most of my 8th and 9th grade year was spent wandering from one friend circle to the next. The Spring of my Freshman year I decided to change that. I branched out and headed to the football game one Friday night where I befriended a couple of girls, one of which, Martha, I am still best friends with to this very day. But a lot more came with branching out, I started swearing, was introduced to different views, drugs, sex, the works. I started "backsliding" as some might call it. I went to church less and less, and sooner or later just stopped going all together. I got married, moved out, and started getting into the daily grind of being on adult. Whatever that means.
Somewhere along the road from then 'til now though, I've felt this strong tug to go back. The longer Kris and I are married, the more we're going to consider having children sometime or another, and being on separate pages about religion isn't exactly going to help when the wee ones pop into our lives. But I think secretly I'm scared. I think I haven't gone back to church for a reason, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable listening to rappers cuss on the radio, and drunkenly rambling at people in a bar. I'm comfortable watching the not so godly shows, and laughing at the jokes. Kris has expressed interest in church, saying he's fine to go along and try it out but I'm still scared. I'm scared that religion will come easily for me, and not for Kris, or vice versa. I'm scared that somehow in my search for togetherness we'll slide apart. I'm scared of becoming the traveling missionary family that gives up everything to go teach some random tribe in some random country.
I know this post is a little deep, and maybe a tad bit too honest, but that's what this blog is about; being honest, whether I'm happy or sad or somewhere in between.
Somewhere along the road from then 'til now though, I've felt this strong tug to go back. The longer Kris and I are married, the more we're going to consider having children sometime or another, and being on separate pages about religion isn't exactly going to help when the wee ones pop into our lives. But I think secretly I'm scared. I think I haven't gone back to church for a reason, I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable listening to rappers cuss on the radio, and drunkenly rambling at people in a bar. I'm comfortable watching the not so godly shows, and laughing at the jokes. Kris has expressed interest in church, saying he's fine to go along and try it out but I'm still scared. I'm scared that religion will come easily for me, and not for Kris, or vice versa. I'm scared that somehow in my search for togetherness we'll slide apart. I'm scared of becoming the traveling missionary family that gives up everything to go teach some random tribe in some random country.
I know this post is a little deep, and maybe a tad bit too honest, but that's what this blog is about; being honest, whether I'm happy or sad or somewhere in between.
I guess the main reason for me posting this was to get some feedback. Have any of you been through the same thing, the same feelings?
I was not raised very religious at all. But I feel your dilema. be strong and make descisions from the heart, that way their will be no right or wrong.
ReplyDeleteChurch isn't supposed to be scary. "Religion" might be scary. But a relationship with God and a community of people to support you should not be. But I do understand how it could be. But there is no pressure. Just come as you are, and see what happens.
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