Giving Up on My Religion is how I found my Faith:
I went through a "throw in the towel" period in my life when my folks split up. I mean divorce is not uncommon these days. It's a sad but common issue with society. What made me become so disillusioned with God and Christianity was the massive contrast of values and principles between; what my parents taught me and what I was taught at church, vs what they 'actually' did. The irony is that, what caused the death of the ‘faith’ I knew, is actually what allowed my own personal relationship with God to rise from the ashes.
Let me explain I grew up in quite a conservative Christian family that regularly attended church. Both my parents were strong Christians and were quite involved in church. While almost everyone else in my extended family had all been divorced, my parents were different and they made sure we knew that! They always told us, "There is lots of divorce in our family but we are different! We are the first Christian members in our family. We will never split up!". I guess me and my siblings really held strong to this as a promise and really connected it to our faith because when my parents did split. It really felt like everything they had told us. Everything they had preached to us, everything church had preached to us just felt like a lie. Without value or credibility.
Until then Christianity was just something I guess we did because that's what our family was all about and since that was no longer the case. I literally yelled out “God! Obviously everything I was taught about you and your word was lies! If you really are REAL and you really are GOOD and your concept of MARRIAGE is still even worth its weight, then show yourself to me. Teach me where the heck my parents went wrong!”. I also swore I’d never marry because I felt that if my parents failed despite their best efforts. What chance did I have? I developed this crazy idea that I was gonna make sure my family name ended with me “there was no room in this world for my fail family”, I thought.
The short of it all is that God really did show up in my life and reveal himself to me in a million different ways! It has been 10 years since then and I'm now happily engaged to my best friend and it's been a long process coming to this point. But the point I want to make is that often, God will need to strip us down of all our preconceived ideas and walls before he can rebuild us back into who we need to be to truly have a first-hand understanding and LOVE for him. I find this ESPECIALLY true for those that grew up in religious or conservative families (hence the title of my story). I haven't illustrated how I got from A to B because my story is irrelevant. Everyone's story is different and should always be a new and fresh, uninfluenced experience. My Point is that there IS a God who loves you and he IS good. And if you are going through a stage of questioning that or even just finding that out for the first time. All you need to do is ask Him and He will touch your heart in a way that is unique and special to YOU. SO you're at the end of your rope with your belief? Good!! Throw it in the bin and start afresh and let GOD reveal Himself to you. For me, it was really hard letting go of all the logic and reasoning I was taught in favour of letting God simply touch my heart. Butthat’s why its called FAITH.