Reclamation

 

This is the story of how I left the system of belief that I was raised in. 

Nobody online has asked me about my faith or deconstructive process, but since it is part of the most extensive and positive change in my life, I want to document it. 

I want to start by clarifying something. This is not a crisis of faith. It is a collapse of meaning that has been happening gradually since I was a child and has become more conscious and overt over the last 2-3 years. 

There are parts of me that echo arguments I've heard or even used myself. They ask, "God wasn't the one who hurt you. Why are you turning your back on God just because church people hurt you?"

"This is just a normal part of growth as a Christian...sometimes people walk away from God, but he is always there waiting to welcome them back." 

"You need to learn how to forgive the people who hurt you." 

"God loves you, no matter how far you've wandered from him." 

And then there are the uniquely Adventist voices that say, "Can't you see evidence of the end times all around you? Jesus is coming back and you are clearly not on the right side." 

"Former believers like you are the ones who are going to be the fiercest opponents of God's true people." 

"You almost made it to the end of time but your faith was too weak and now you're missing out on eternity...and for what? You wanted to get some tattoos and eat meat? Is losing out on eternity worth it just to satisfy some fleeting, worldly desires?" 

Hearing those voices in my mind fills me with such heaviness and sadness. Not because I know they are right - because I know why they are still with me. 

These are the parts of me that learned that human acceptance and belonging depended on me abandoning myself and adhering to a shared belief system. 

And even now, the pull between the forces is exquisitely painful. Because to run back to the arms of faith offers community and certainty at the expense of my self. And staying true to my self removes the illusion of community and certainty. 

But I always knew this was the truth of faith. 

When I was as young as 5 or 6, my parents gave me sets of cassette tapes (I did grow up in the 90s, after all), and required me to listen to these tapes morning and night. In the morning, the tapes were a form of guided devotional practice recorded by someone named Janice Smith. She led the listener through worship songs, a Bible story, and a prayer. The devotions weren't long, maybe 15-20 minutes at most, and they always ended with leading the listener through the practice of asking Jesus to come into their heart. I remember following along with this practice faithfully, fearing that if I didn't, I would be fair game for the devil to possess me. 

My parents didn't allow my siblings and I to watch many movies when we were kids and certainly nothing with magic because they were afraid we would have nightmares. 

I did have nightmares. But they were based on fears of being demon-possessed because I had walked through Walmart with my parents and accidentally seen something on the TVs in the Entertainment section. 

Even into my 20s, I was so afraid of being demon-possessed that when I heard the Harry Potter theme melody while I was doing door-to-door evangelism, I immediately started praying and asking God to help me forget the melody. Those opening notes on the celesta reverberated through my thoughts for the rest of the day as I struggled in vain to forget them. I chalked the experience up to demonic oppression. The devil was just trying to get to me because I was doing God's work. 

I was raised from that young age to see reality in stark black and white. If I hadn't given my heart to Jesus in the morning, I was doomed to live out the rest of my day as a lost soul. Either I did my chores or my schoolwork to the absolute highest standard of excellence or I had totally failed. The Adventist prophet Ellen White wrote that angels watched and recorded everything God's children did during the day. She specified that if you neglected to sweep the corners of a room while doing chores, the angels would write it down as a mark against you. 

Of course, this was not meant to discourage me...it was meant to encourage me to be deliberate and diligent in all things. And it was also proof that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross had a lot of my sins to cover. But again, this was meant to be encouraging, because all I had to do was - everything, perfectly - and accept him into my heart each morning, and his blood sacrifice would cover my sins. 

Purity culture also contributed to my black and white mindset. Either I was pure or I was defiled. Either I was modest, or I was a temptation. Men were always dangerous and one moment of indiscretion (mine) away from molesting me. To be clear, it was my responsibility to keep them away from me by dressing and acting in the least attractive way, while somehow also trying to look nice enough to make Adventism and Jesus look attractive. Because I was born female, I had to behave in a certain way. I had to be attracted to boys and men, even though they were the biggest threat to my safety and the integrity of their souls was my heaviest responsibility. 

People who tried to exist outside of the binary were worse than simply "lost" or "wrong". They were responsible for bringing about the end of the world. According to Ellen White, the two "institutions" that would come under attack in the end times were the seventh-day Sabbath, and the sanctity of marriage between one man and one woman. So gay people were directly responsible for the end of the world. When gay marriage became legal, I truly feared that the Sunday law was right around the corner and I was about to be given the Mark of the Beast, preventing me from being able to buy or sell. I was literally afraid I was in danger of dying because gay people could legally get married. 

Adventist health culture also contributed to black and white thinking. I was either skinny, or I was unhealthy. Food was either healthy or unhealthy - morally correct or a defilement of my body temple. I even went so far as to believe that anything topical or medicinal was either morally safe or unsafe. For instance, in my mid 20s, I had gotten to the point where I felt guilty if I put anything on my skin or in my hair that wasn't edible. My thought was, "if I can't eat it, it isn't safe to put on my skin". This created a whole nightmare of stress as I tried to source deodorant, soap, and shampoo products that only had edible ingredients. 

Black and white thinking also showed up in my finances. For instance, if I was in debt, that was morally wrong. If I avoided paying 10% of my income to tithe and 10% of my income to offering, I was sinning. And like Ananias and Sapphira from the Bible, I was in danger of being struck dead for not being honest and generous with God and the church about my finances. 

This belief started young as well - when my parents first started giving me an allowance when I was a teen, I had to give 2 of my 10 dollars to tithe and offering every week. If I didn't, I got in trouble. 

And the through line you can probably already see was my relationship to my self. I was splitting into two pieces - the person I was (sinful), and the person I needed to be (surrendered) in order to survive. Either I was covered by the blood of Jesus or I was lost, and that depended on if I was making the correct choices, moment-to-moment. If I chose to do or even think something I was taught was "wrong", then I was consciously choosing to cast off the cloak of Jesus' righteousness. I was making his sacrifice a mockery. Jesus' blood was only meant to cover the sinful state I was born with - something I was incapable of changing about myself - it would not save me if I was consciously choosing to sin. Because if I could choose to sin and still be saved, then heaven wouldn't be a safe place. In order to prove that I would be safe to bring to heaven, I had to prove that I would not choose to sin, and thus ensure the integrity of heaven. 

As a child, I was taught that humans are born sinful. Every instinct or feeling we have is likewise, sinful. I fall down and skin my knee as a toddler and my instinctual tears of pain are wrong. I feel misunderstood and shamed by my parents, but those feelings are sinful too because they are just proof that I'm not surrendered to God enough. I want to play Appalachian folk music on my violin instead of practicing classical music and that is a sin because it is something I want. I think about kissing boys and that is evil because it makes me feel desire. I am hungry between meals because I haven't eaten much and I've been working hard all day doing chores and school work but my hunger is proof I'm sinful because I am not disciplined enough to only feel hunger just before a meal. 

I gain some weight and that is evidence that I am sinful because I have been gluttenous and eaten food that makes me fat. 

A boy talks to me "too much" and I am sinful because I am tempting him to be attracted to me instead of Jesus. 

I feel uncomfortable and restricted in my modest clothing and I am sinful because I'm not surrendered enough to God's plan for my life as a female. 

I feel confused and anxious about whether I'm pleasing God enough for him to come into my heart and safeguard me from demonic possession. My anxiety is proof I am sinful and unsurrendered... because if I were in right relation to God, I would have the peace that passes all understanding. The Bible says that God's presence brings "fullness of joy", so if I am feeling anything other than joy, I am not close to God. 

Everywhere I look, I am sinful.

I am failing.

Nightly confession time becomes a ritual of obsession. 

"Please, Dear God, most Holy Father, please have mercy on me, a sinner. I am sorry that I wore a shirt that wasn't quite long enough to cover my bottom. I am sorry I felt hurt when my mom told me I couldn't go to my friend's house. I am sorry I act like different people depending on who I am with. I am sorry I didn't get all my math problems right. I am sorry I wanted to read a fictional story instead of a true story. I am sorry I didn't invite you into my heart as soon as I woke up. Please forgive me for all these things and show me if there is anything else I did today that I need to confess. In fact, please convict me of anything I've done in the past that I've forgotten about that I need to confess. I love you so much Jesus and I want to live with you in heaven forever." 

Every morning I woke up and prayed, "Dear Jesus, please come into my heart. I give you all of myself, my sinful, worthless self, and ask you to possess me with your Holy Spirit. I am nothing without you. Please help me to only think, say, or do things that please you. Please help me to be a nail on the wall that you can hang a bright picture of your face so that others will see you when they look at me." 

And then I would methodically put on the "Armor of God" by asking God to clothe me with the breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the shoes of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, and the sword of the spirit. If I forgot a piece, I would have to start over and ask God to forgive me for forgetting. 

If anything happened during the day that tempted me to do or not do God's will then that was evidence of spiritual warfare, and I was glad I had put on the armor that morning. If I had forgotten to put on the armor that morning, then I would spend the rest of the day in fear that God might let me die that day and I wouldn't go to heaven. 

 My experience with faith was like waging war against my self, beating down my instincts, my emotions, my bodily needs, and my logic. I felt like I was underwater, drowning in a cloudy lake because I couldn't tell which way led to the surface. 

I spent hours searching for a sense of peace. I looked outside in nature, I looked in church, in myself, but nothing felt like peace. Nothing felt like rest. 

And throughout all of this, I was hearing my parents and the people around me condemn the "others", the people who didn't believe like we did. Other people were lost, they were "backslidden", they were unsafe for us to be around. The kids who went to public school were stupid and immoral and dangerous. Only homeschoolers were true "independent thinkers". 

My dad even took the most circuitous route to get to church each week so that he could avoid exposing us to "worldly" things while driving through town. I grew up tormented because of my curiosity about the world and the experience of "others". I desperately wanted to look normal, to be accepted by my peers, to live in a way that felt free and happy. But I learned that the only way to survive was to hide, to stay quiet, to assimilate. 

Even still, my parents were constantly berated me for having such a "strong will" and such a "dramatic personality." It wasn't ladylike for me to laugh, be silly, or have fun with my friends. 

I started to split when I was a child and the gulf grew wider throughout my teenage years and my 20s. 

I remember being 10 or 11 and asking my dad, "If God knows the future and he knows if I will be saved or lost, what is the point of me having a choice?" 

The answer he gave me was something along the lines of "God knows the future but he doesn't influence it." 

That didn't make sense to me. It still doesn't.

You see, despite all of the scrupulosity and piety, I was being torn to pieces. 

That is what Christianity does. It is literally built on the foundational belief that humans are born sinful and can only be redeemed by an external being. Yet, that external being is the same one who calls humans sinful. 

And Christianity says, "The sinful nature of humanity isn't God's fault. He simply knows the immutable laws of the universe and tells us the objective truth about ourselves. Only God is good, and therefore, without him, we are sinful." 

But who created the laws of the universe? If God is the supreme being who created the universe, he also created the laws that govern it. The laws that declare we are sinful and worthless without his sacrifice. 

According to Christianity, God has humans trapped in an inescapable hamster wheel. We are doomed without him...but if you really consider it, he is also the one who is dooming us. Christianity tries to pin the responsibility for our doom on our free will and our tendency to choose wrong (as evidence by Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden), but according to that same narrative, who was the one who gave humans free will? It was God, the same one who declares that a misuse of free will results in eternal destruction. 

Since my questions of logic were shut down as a child and young adult, I learned to ignore my own confusion and lack of coherence. 

I learned to believe terrible things about myself...that as a female, I am driven by solely emotion instead of logic. That it was my place to submit and not resist. That male church leaders had done all of the necessary thinking for me and it was my role to listen and obey. 

But things started to change when I hit my mid 20s. I finally graduated from college in 2017 and I officially left my parents' home and the restrictive religious community for the first time in my life. 

The more freedom I gained, the more I started to bloom. I was still working for the church at first, but I was able to make more choices about my clothing and my diet. I started wearing pants and eating cheese, and despite a constant war with guilt, I felt better. The Adventist churches I attended once I left my parents' home were much more open-minded and culturally diverse. I started to see that people could love Jesus and be Adventist and eat meat, and wear jewelry, and watch movies. And God wasn't striking them down with sickness or leaving them to be demon possessed. I bought myself some makeup and some underwear that was cute instead of just serviceable, and I felt better. I still discouraged any attraction from men, but I let myself feel pretty sometimes. 

Then my connection to the church started to crumble. My first two denominational jobs went sour and left me with work trauma and a sense of disillusionment. 

In 2018 I decided to leave my career as an Adventist teacher. Since that was the only thing I was qualified for, I had to start from scratch, and that meant I had to take whatever jobs I could get. And this is where things really started to change for me because at age 27, for the first time in my life, I was exposed to people outside the church. I got a job at a catering company in Nashville and although most of my coworkers were Christian, they weren't Adventist. I eventually got another job as a bartender at a country club, which was wild because I still believed alcohol was evil. I have no idea if the cocktails I made were even good because I had never tasted alcohol and refused to try it. But there I was, exposed to "worldly", "sinful" things and still going to church on the weekends, and God hadn't struck me down. In fact, my quality of life was still looking up. 

I met my now husband and he blew my mind by informing and showing me that men are not a monolith and are not all about to molest women at the first sign of moral weakness. I learned that I still had a right to say no even if I was wearing something "immodest" like pants, or a bathing suit. I learned that I have my own right to experience desire. 

I learned that I can eat when I'm hungry, and sleep when I'm tired, that I can watch TV and movies without experiencing nightmares or becoming demon possessed. 

Eventually, 2020 came around. I got married, and due to Covid, we weren't able to go to church in person. It was then I learned that I could not go to church and God still wouldn't strike me down, and my quality of life would still keep improving. 

I started to feel a sense of peace as I regained agency and choice. I still tried to have my own personal religious practice by having devotions, but eventually I realized that was just a continuous source of guilt and pressure. So I stopped reading the Bible. And God still didn't strike me down. And I was still enjoying my life more than before. 

Then, in 2022 or so, I was watching a sermon online and I started to feel like my body was being hijacked. I felt a familiar sense of dread wash over me as I heard the pastor preach about surrendering to God. All of the obsessive guilt and shame I had carefully extracted myself from came surging back. Anxiety flooded over me as I thought, "This sermon must be God convicting me to return to him. I've been living in sin and enjoying it, but the end of the world is still coming and this might be my last chance to return to the truth." 

But because I had been in therapy for a few years, I recognized what was happening. 

I was having an emotional flashback. I was experiencing anxiety, not spiritual warfare. 

And that's when I truly realized the harm that religion had done. I was free from my parents' household, and I wasn't living in a cult community. I had a loving husband who wasn't pressuring me to live a "holy" lifestyle, who was encouraging me to be a human instead of a religious caricature. I had a new career outside of the church and I was drinking pop culture through a firehose, catching up on the decades I had missed. I had learned how to have friends that I didn't have to witness to or meet their standards of religious conduct. I was even in a master's program at a secular university (gasp!). But all of the shame and fear from the last 30 years of religious conditioning came back the instant I heard a man on the screen talk about surrender. 

I had already realized that my sense of self was split, and I had been working towards reintegration, recognizing and accepting my own thoughts, feelings, and needs. But I realized in that moment that obeying God and becoming whole were two completely different things. And if I wanted to truly find peace and joy in this life, I had to protect myself from religion. 

Because it wasn't about the church. I had no issue with the church I was watching the livestream from. I had never even been to that church, as it was in a different state. I didn't have an issue with the pastor - he was a former friend and we had simply grown apart because he had moved to a different state. I liked him as a person and he had even publicly opened his church to people from all kinds of diverse communities, including the LGBTQ+ community, a choice I fully agreed with and cared about. So my emotional flashback really had nothing to do with that particular church or the pastor. It was directly related to the belief system I was raised with. 

I say all this to advocate that while yes, I have both hurt and been hurt because of religious practice, it is the belief system itself that is truly at fault. 

And yes, not all Christians have the same rigid, scrupulous beliefs as I was raised with. Not all Christians care that much about lifestyle or sin or living "righteously". I can see that most Christians actually find a strong sense of peace, community, and meaning because of their beliefs. I have been to Adventist churches where church members genuinely cared about other people and tried to be welcoming. I have seen Christian people who are in a relationship with something divine, outside of themselves. I have been loved by Christian people and I can see churches doing a lot of good. 

I also see good being done outside the church. I have met the most incredible people outside the church. I have felt welcomed and accepted by strangers who had tattoos and piercings. I have been supported and healed by the touch of people who don't believe in religion at all. 

And that has forced me to ask myself...what if the things I was taught about the "world" were wrong? 

Morality clearly exists outside of Christianity, so where does it actually come from? 

What if I'm actually not evil? What if I'm a human? What if it's ok for me to make mistakes and "bad choices" sometimes? 

What if (and my dad and his fear of post-modernism would have a panic attack about this), there is no objective truth? Or maybe objective truth isn't what I thought it is?

 Maybe we are all just trying to make sense of reality? Maybe religion offers benefits that humans need, like connection, hope, and a moral framework, but maybe that's where its usefulness ends? Maybe people use religion to control and oppress others? 

Maybe there is no objective reality and I can actually choose what I believe? 

I know, I know, I sound just like the snake in the garden. 

But when I consider the first 30 years of my life and think about the kind of person I was when I only saw reality in black and white, I know I have already experienced hell. 

Now, my life is so much brighter, so much closer to joy and peace. I am not at war with my own heart, and I am learning to welcome all the parts of me that I rejected. I recognize the spark of light that I've always had inside me, the force that's kept me from shattering completely, that has kept me from drowning in bitterness or despair. It wasn't God, it was me. My self, my humanity, my value, my worth has been there this whole time, despite the years I spent trying to erase it for the sake of Christ. 

Now I can listen to experiences that I don't relate to and still see their worth. I can disagree with others without feeling like my world is collapsing. I can accept people who choose differently than me because I acknowledge that choice is sacred. I don't turn my eyes away from pain or addiction or try to rationalize suffering. I see that differences don't mean pathology, and the systems that harm are based on human constructs of meaning...therefore they can be changed.  

I no longer believe that an afterlife looks a certain way or is assured to anyone based on how they live their life. I truly don't know what happens when people die, and I am ok with that uncertainty. I see the same sacredness in death as I see in birth. I see life as a chance, not as an imperative. 

And if God exists, I hope they don't look or act anything like the god I was raised to worship. 

If God doesn't exist, then it doesn't change how I live my life. I am still going to be as kind and as loving as I can be, because as difficult as it is to define, I believe in the power of good. I believe that I can make reality and existence just a little bit better for myself and others because I can chose to.

So yeah, I am very different on the inside and the outside. My body is bigger, and I have ink and piercings. I am learning to let myself breathe with my whole chest, to stop trying to suck in my stomach, to let my nervous system accept what peace feels like, which has been one of the hardest learning curves of my life. Some days I wear skirts and look cute and some days I wear more androgynous clothes. I'm learning that I am both emotional and highly logical and that even though I was born female, my opinion matters. I say that tongue in cheek because of course it fucking matters.   

I am philosophical and whimsical and dark and selfish and sweet and forgetful. I might have ADHD but that could also be Complex PTSD, who even knows? I am smart and stupid, and beautiful and ugly and strong and weak at the same time. I can hold dualities and not experience cognitive dissonance. I am bursting with both grief and gratitude. 

And I am so, so astonished by the life I have. I didn't choose to be here, but I choose to stay and evolve as the person that I am in this life for as long as it lasts. 

Some will say I've backslidden. Some will mourn because I've lost my chance at heaven. Some will pray for me even harder, and I am grateful for your care. The way I see it, I am not sliding back, I am consciously returning to myself. This is not redemption, it is reclamation. It is centering, opening, softening, receiving, and healing. It is reaching in towards my former self and holding her so close that her fear and isolation melts away in the warmth of my grace. It's listening for the pitch of peace and hearing the resonance inside myself.