To My Religion,

Growing up, a lot of things were very uncertain in my life, but there was one thing I could always trust to get me through- my faith in God and my religion. My parents raised me as a Christian, more specifically Roman Catholic, and I was so grateful to constantly be able to turn to God in prayer during the most difficult times of my life. I was the young girl who wanted to show my love for God by singing in the church choir ever since I learned how to speak. The church choir was the start of my singing, and from that developed a true passion for the love of music, which helped me through a lot of dark times.

I was also the young girl who cried hysterically for hours after my dad accidentally left for church without me and couldn’t turn back to pick me up. I remember choking on my own tears and screaming on the top of my lungs, “I’M A SINNER IF I MISS CHURCH! PLEASE TELL DAD TO COME BACK AND GET ME. I’M A SINNER!” It took the whole time my dad was at church, and then some reassuring words from my mom to calm me down.

That’s when I was told that I don’t have to worry because God will always forgive me and love me no matter what I do. Jesus Christ died so our sins could be forgiven my mom told me over and over again, and I felt so blessed that someone had that much room in their heart to not only forgive all of my sins, but also everyone else’s.

No matter where I’d go or what I felt, I would always be loved.

So far this seems like a love letter to my religion, a true recount of my complete devotion to everything I was raised to believe. But everyone grows up, and life gets a lot more complicated than you ever believed it could. Part of truly growing up is being aware of not only the things around you but also how those things around you make you feel when you experience them. You start to realize that you can’t rely on others to tell you what is right or wrong— you must begin to decide these things for yourself. Sometimes the light is shed on a situation and you see the true colors of a person you thought you could trust or even a group that you devoted your heart and soul to. But once you even get a glimpse of the light, there’s no going back into the darkness, no matter how hard you try to do so.

So as you can see from the recount of my childhood, I was living a life full of love, happiness, and true purpose. But with all of these good things came a catch- the endless dose of oblivion that I swallowed every time I went to church and didn’t actually pay attention to what the priest was saying. The same numb feeling I felt every time I walked up the aisle past the pews to receive the body and blood of Christ. Even in every God Bless You, Amen, and I’ll say a prayer for you. Over time, as my thoughts thirsted for curiosity, and my heart became more intuitive, the Our Fathers and Hail Marys felt less and less sincere, and more like a sin itself. The words that I was told to memorize and recite over and over in my head like a drill manual weren’t actually fulfilling any type of purpose, because after a very long time I came to the realization that I actually didn’t know what any of them meant.

Sometimes I wish I could just return back to this state of oblivion for one day, a life of carelessness and rarely any irresolution. But it seems that since I broke out of this barrier of my old life, the life where I was somehow expected to follow the words of a leader while simultaneously being unable hear, I’ve just been knotted into a ball of confusion, stress, and a conglomerate of cognitive dissonance.

One of the first books I picked up when I started to be able to interpret literature critically was the Holy Bible. This was during the very beginning stages of the withdraw I started to experience when my prescription of oblivion had at last run out. I wanted to be able to say that I could understand the reasoning behind the way I was supposed to feel when it came to my religion. I wanted to be as educated and well versed in the bible so I could not only understand it for myself but also be able to help others understand too. I was trying so desperately to cling to the thing that I had invested so much of my young life to, but through every page I flipped and every word I scrutinized, my lack of conviction increased, and my heart grew heavier.

Just when I began to lose all faith in my religion, there was a definite turning point that sort of brought me back. She plopped down on my bed -- she being my best friend -- and laid parallel to me, our shoulders completely touching. I could tell something was bothering her because silence never lasted this long between us, and I could immediately feel the sense of hesitation and uncertainty in her voice when she finally began to speak again. I thought that maybe something awful had happened to her and that’s why she’s was having so much trouble finding the words, but to my surprise, it wasn’t that at all.

“Can you tell me about it?” she said in the most innocent voice, a voice that made me feel like we were really young again, even though we were already pretty young to begin with. “Tell you about what?” I responded back. That’s when I noticed that her eyes had caught something on my wall, the cross my mom gave me as a present probably for my birthday. The cross that’s actually still hanging on my wall in my bedroom today, because I guess part of me doesn’t have the courage to take it down yet, the same part of me that is still confused as to what I believe.

“Can you tell me about God and Jesus and all that stuff? My family doesn’t really ever go to church, but I still want to know.” After she said that to me, I think that’s when I finally realized I didn’t exactly know all of the answers either, but I wanted to help her understand what I had been told. So I explained to her the very textbook-like definitions of the religion that had been consistently carved into my mind, but I also tried to be as sensible as possible, and threw in some of my own anecdotes to make her believe what I was saying could happen to anyone, even her.

We talked for a decent amount of time about all different aspects of the religion, and at the end I finally asked her why she wanted to know. She simply answered, “I guess I’m just afraid. I’m afraid that I’ve been a bad person and I’m afraid of what will happen to me after, ya know, I die.” That’s when I told her one of the only things that had stuck with me thus far in my life. I said, “You don’t have to worry, because God will always forgive you and love you no matter what you do.” Every fiber of my being wanted to believe that those words of assurance I recited to her that night were the undeniable truth, something I was absolutely certain of, but overtime, my way of thinking eventually changed through my first-hand experiences with the truth.

Please just hear me out until the very end.

I have my religion to mostly thank for my morals. I don’t really like talking about myself a lot, but at the end of the day, I think it’s safe to say I’m a decent person. Through my religion I was raised to be kind, loving, caring, selfless, and most importantly, respectful. And I’m not talking about the kind of respectful that’s only limited to honor thy father and thy mother. I’m talking about the real-world level of respect that includes respecting myself, the earth, ANYONE around me, and also the certain choices and the beliefs of those people even when I don’t necessarily agree with what they may be. I think it’s also safe to say that I’m a true believer in spreading the power of love to those around me, rather than unnecessary hate that often comes from ignorance or misunderstanding.

“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

(1 John 4:7-8)

So can you see why my heart broke into a million pieces when I arrived at church one day, only to see a huge banner that hung in the front and read, “One Man + One Woman= Marriage.” How was that banner doing anything good for the world by hanging there for everyone in town to see, a message that clearly was only being advertised to stir up controversy and hatred? That same friend I mentioned earlier, one of your many children, God, finally came out to me that she was gay years after our conversation about you took place.

This was the same girl that years before was willing to open up her heart to you and let you in. She wanted to know about you on her own, a choice I was not given the opportunity to have because of how I was raised, and some of your people let her down. I know you can’t be held accountable for all of your people’s wrongdoings and injustices on Earth, for they must learn to love on their own, but can you see now why I’m skeptical of the religion I was told was the true one to follow?

So no, this isn’t a letter of love nor hate to my religion. It’s more of a letter that pertains to all of my disappointment and confusion. I can’t deny who I was and what I believed in the past- Christianity will always run through the very roots of me and be responsible for some of the way I am and feel about the things around me today. I understand that not all Christians feel the same exact ways about things- I’ve met a lot of wonderful individuals along the way who have truly epitomized what it means to embrace and share God’s love with all kinds of people.

So with that being said, I cannot judge all Christians by the inequities of a few, but only respect the feelings of others, just as I hope they can respect my many feelings of uncertainty that I presently feel towards my religion. I'm at the point in my life where my most important prerogative is to keep an open mind about the people and things around me and to never condone unnecessary acts of hate. After all, you, my religion, are the one who taught me to be able to discern right from wrong.

Love Always,

Me