Howdy!
So... I'll be perfectly tired until I get into bed to sleep. Then I start thinking. I really ought to stop that.
I'm not looking to start a debate. I don't want to argue with anyone or force my opinions.
Here's my side of the story.
I guess you could say I was raised in a Christian environment. My parents made me go to church every now and then when they found a church that didn't have the wrong flag flying. Yes, my family has literally left a church over the flag they were flying.
Church was on Sunday and that was basically it. Never prayed before meals, never talked about God, never had quiet times.
We moved to Texas while I was in middle school. Found a great youth group with a pastor who cared. I was still absolutely miserable. I had friends sure, but my home life was terrible. I made an extra effort to put on a good "I'm so so happy" show for the outside world. So much so that my Bible study leader pulled me aside and told me to quit it. I still laugh when people reference "the old super happy Shauna" that they say they will never see again. People blame my boyfriend, but it wasn't who I was, it was who I was forcing myself to be.
My home life consisted of homework that was never finished to my father's satisfaction. After a certain point I would actually specifically not finish everything just so he couldn't assign more. Home schooling was alright... I love my mom, but she rarely contributed to anything past middle school. Her main job was to nag me to do my work and apparently that wore her out. Dad would grade my math. Everything else was either self taught or in a classroom setting. I got to see my friends once a week during middle school. Gosh, I loved going to church for that sacred once a week that I could see other people. Once SAC Day started my freshman year I got to see people twice a week! Luckily things got better with my drivers license. But that's besides the point.
Both of my parents hid in their separate rooms and stared into a computer screen for the majority of the day. I honestly don't know how my parents spent their time. Neither of them had jobs, or friends. Dad drank. And mom shot bubbles at other bubbles. I'm sure I'm not giving them credit for all the crap that they had to do for us, but besides being taxi... which Dad never did, I don't know, maybe they had other adult like responsibilities that I have no clue about yet. Dad had a way of being there, without being there. Mom would make dinner, he would get a plate and eat it in his study. He hated us. He never said he disliked us... but he never said he liked us either. He would make comments about how he didn't want kids but Mom made him. And how he was overweight because of how much we stressed him out.
To say the man had anger issues would be an understatement. He threw a freaking keyboard at me once. Threatened to hit me 2 or 3 times. He says he doesn't remember it. But I do. It's not something you forget. "I would smack that expression right off your face if it wasn't for the braces that I spent so much money on."
I couldn't tell you the exact year... but I think it was before my freshman year. Things were getting particularly ugly at my house. I cried myself to sleep every night. And I wish that was an exaggeration. There was a time in my life when I kept it together until I was alone and then just lost it. Dad was fighting with Shane, doors slammed, Shane then would take out his anger on us younger siblings. Shane didn't realize his strength... so Kyle and I basically had to hide when Shane got mad.
A couple nights I could hear my parents fighting. Or rather, I could hear my dad yelling, and my mom crying, and my dad not giving a damn. He would say such terrible things to my mother. Things that should never be said to another human. He was terrible to her. It's not even like I could have interpreted it incorrectly. "You are ruining my children." can only be taken so many ways. I wanted so many times to walk out there and say "um... hello? You know we can hear everything you are saying?" I never did. I sat with my ear pressed up against the door and cried. Those nights were the reason I was so crazy in middle school. It took an excessive, over the top to say the least, personality to cover up what I was going through. I would think to myself, if I was dead, I wouldn't have to listen to this. If I was dead, maybe my parents would realize what they lost and it would bring them together (which is totally ridiculous because children dying is one of the more common forces driving divorce). If I was dead, they'd miss me, and they'd realize how miserable I was because of them. If I was dead, they'd realize that they had killed me. That they had pushed me over the edge. I cut myself once. I took a sharp pin and scratched the hell out of my upper thigh. Because cutting your wrists is far to obvious and a blatant cry for help, and I didn't need help. It was mine. I had control over the pain.
I never did it again. I wanted to. But I promised a friend I wouldn't. I would sit there with my leather-man knife open. Just look at it. I could slit my throat and that would be it. Just as easy as that. I wouldn't have to hear the rest of the screaming match. Too many people would miss me if I killed myself. So there I sat, completely hopeless. Stuck in my miserable life, with no options. No way out. Suicide sounded good, but not plausible. So this is it, I just get to be miserable for the rest of my life?
In a single night that I'll never forget, I figured out what it actually meant to put my faith in Jesus Christ. Sitting on my bed. Knife in hands. Cursing in the background. I was about to do it. For whatever reason a voice popped into my head and it said to me that I wasn't actually thinking these thoughts, that something else had control of my mind. I'll never be able to describe what happened next. I started shaking, I threw the knife aside and literally started rolling around on the floor sobbing and silently crying out "Take it from me. I don't want this. I never want this again. Take this from me. Jesus, help me. Help me. I can't do this." Once I stopped flailing and calmed down, I laid there for a while on my bedroom floor. Things had gone completely quiet. If my parents were still fighting my ears were silenced to it. The urge to kill myself was no longer there. Instead, the calming thought that Jesus loved me, no matter what. The little voice told me over and over that it wasn't my fault. He took it. He listened to me, I wasn't imagining that calm.
People argue that there is no God, or if there is then He doesn't care, or matter. He saved my life. I owe Him my life and love. He is my first love. He will never leave me. No one can make Him leave me. He won't abandon me like my earthly father did.
Things got rocky when my parents got divorced. The mindset of "if Dad was a Christian then I don't want to be one" set in. I started being a really sucky Christian. I still am, I've probably always been. How can I call myself a Christian if I'm doing XYZ? Because never once did I question God's love for me. Nothing can snatch me out of His hand. John 20:29.
I don't want people to look at me and think, oh, well she is a good Christian because she doesn't party, and she goes to church every Sunday. I want people to look at me, and think, I wish I could have what she has. She doesn't worry about the little things because she knows in the grand scheme of things they will be irrelevant. I would go crazy if I didn't know that He had it under control. I cannot deny his existence.
Instead of looking back on my past and blaming God, I look back and think about how God got me through it. I live life with no regrets. I try to learn from my mistakes, but I never think back on my mistakes and wish they hadn't happened. People call me naive for saying I never regret things. I think it's freeing. Imagine a life with no regret.
So that's my story. I suck as a Christian. But I love Jesus. So sue me. I'm not gonna worry about checking off a list that makes you a better person. He loves me and I never have to worry about that. He's also running this place, so it makes sense if the King loves me, I have nothing to worry about.
Okeyday. I'ma sleep now.
