My personal journey

Warning: long and very personal, very me centered post ahead. (Instagram only.. I have too many work related “friends” on Facebook now for this kinda stuff🙃)

I’m currently curled up for an afternoon siesta after a morning of sun and driving. I spent the day out in the desert contemplating life and some very real pain. 

I came back to Phoenix 12 long years after leaving a part of my life behind I had done and would do anything to forget. 

The experiences of leaving a friend group, community, and church family which claimed to be serving God at the young age of 12, only to bounce between more painful religious circumstances for the next 4 years, left my young faith and heart broken and shattered. 

The moment of being told we were serving satan because we left one expression of faith. The moment of losing friends, whispers, the shunning while in a group setting. At 12. The moment when this happened a short year after moving across the country, leaving everything I knew of no volition of my own. It felt like my family had been ripped out of security into a cult-like setting, then ripped out of that into a whoknowswhatintheactualworldisgoingon (it’s a word I promise). 

My parents were broken too. My idols. The people I looked to for guidance were shut down and trying to heal themselves, as they should have been. It left me lost, not knowing what to do, knowing I believed in God and knowing I wanted to honor him with my life, but what did that look like? What does church look like? What does proper interpretation of all this 2000 year old document written in languages I don’t understand lead to? What does it mean to have a family, to lead them well? To serve a future spouse? To lead but not abuse? To not being toxic masculinity but also to be masculine? 

I watched my incredible parents cling to their faith, to their beliefs, when a young seed started to sprout in my mind, a seed that would grow to an ugly jungle.

The experiences had tainted my view to the point where any time my family or friends brought up any of these topics, I would immediately spit something out along the lines of “ugh I hated it there”, “I’d never go back” “who would want to live there?” Blaming Arizona and not the actual problem. 

What I failed to realize was that this was a gut reaction. A mask. A process of me trying to rationalize what happened and blaming a location, instead of recognizing the wrongs done, the forgiveness necessary to heal, and the move on towards enlightenment and growth.

This hatred for a location, originally developed to protect and stabilize, moved toward a destructive pattern. Any conservative viewpoint or belief would “trigger” (look I don’t like the word either but it’s the best one to use here) memories of abuse of power and twisting of scripture that lead to my family and myself going through what felt like years of emotional healing and trauma. 

This lead to the part of my life where, quite honestly faith was on the back burner. 

I would talk about my beliefs if someone asked, but I didn’t exemplify them in my life. Going to church was impossible because of my absolute lack of trust in any form of leadership. Meanwhile I was still “Arizona’s fault”-ing everything. 

Then enter the work world where I’m required to be neutral. No viewpoints taken because I’m simply a healthcare provider, my beliefs and your beliefs don’t matter, I take care of the person, and move on. 

It came to the point where I had lost my beliefs in a white washed neutral bland of inside ugliness where I had lost myself. If someone mentioned something about my faith I would say “I was raised extremely religiously” not “yes I believe that”. I would do or try anything to numb the existential pain of knowing one thing, believing another, and then acting yet another way. 

It wasn’t until I had lunch with my mom a couple months ago that I started to realize this. She poised a question someone asked her when she confessed concern about my faith. “Did you give up on God or did you give up on church”. 

Well, of course I said church. 

No way it’s my faith. 

I’m a good Christian boy.

Around my parents I try to put on the facade. 

I’m the “good” child. 

No way it’s me. 

It’s the church’s fault. They wronged us. They wronged me. 

Then I thought about it more. 

And the ugly truth set in. 

The ugly jungle had grown to the point where I had lost my purpose, my drive, and my will to live. I was going through the motions, but not going anywhere. The ugly reality of “if I don’t know what the right way looks like, I just shouldn’t try at all” set in. 

Why? Because I had given up on God. 

Deep down I still wanted those things. A church family, a physical family, a spouse to grow with and love where our faith was the foundation of something beautiful. 

But I had lost my fire. I felt so broken and unworthy, that the idea of finding someone who wanted those things, or a church family that would accept me with all the stains and pain of the past seemed completely out of reality. I would never be worthy of a partner or a future. 

Plus, I believed the lie that all the people who wanted those things outside of my family had failed miserably and there was absolutely no way to live those beliefs out in a way that wouldn’t result in eventual pain and suffering and future generations living through the same pain I had. So why bother? Just give up.

Why bother serving someone who lead my family through such pain? 

Just. Give. Up. 

I do not blame my parents. After 4 years (plus another 3 coming back to PA) of watching my role models be emotionally and spiritually attacked and betrayed by people in the “faith” who viewed things differently, my world should have been shaken. But it should not have been destroyed. 

I had let myself be destroyed by doubt and an unwillingness to move on. 

So why am I writing this horribly long insufferable post you are reading now? 

First, it is to apologize. To those who have been trying to heal, my family and friends who I’ve distanced myself from because I couldn’t process my own traumas properly. Your dedication to growing and moving on cut my soul since I was unwilling (not unable) to accept my responsibility in growth and healing. So many good people I cut out because I was still stuck in 2006 while they had moved on and grown.

If it wasn’t my fault I could keep believing the lie that I was good. And everyone else was wrong. 

Second, it is to clean the slate for myself. I’ve spent 12 years holding this trauma inside of me and letting it control my life. 

Am I a saint? Not even close😂

But what I am is an injured person who recognizes I need to accept the healing love of Christ and look for a community that supports that healing. The only way I can start that healing is acknowledging my responsibility in healing and moving forward. 

Will it be a perfect world? absolutely not. I’m going to be hurt and let down by my brothers and sisters in Christ. But from now on I cannot let that break my relationship with Christ. 

So this is the real me. A very injured, distrusting, skeptic. Someone who wants to believe the good things like community in Christ, a family and future are possible for our age group, even if it doesn’t feel that way sometimes. 

Someone who accepts that the way those things are possible, is if I accept the healing love that is there.

Someone who knows the baby steps are going to be hard, but I have to start walking.

I know I’m not perfect. I’m broken. But that’s okay. Jesus doesn’t want perfection, he wants me to trust him and follow in his steps, even if I’m stumbling the whole way. 

So if you are still here, I love you and appreciate you. 

I know the path back is going to be ugly and hurt.

But it will be so worth it.