I QUIT

For anyone who doesn’t know, I grew up in the church. My family were the hardcore two hour-ers, which meant we expected to go to Sunday School and then sit through a regular service. The injustice of this often rankled the elementary and middle school me. But being blessed enough to grow up in a Christian family did lay foundation for my faith to be the center of my life, for that I am grateful. However, I mistakenly took growing up in the church to mean that I should always have an answer and, more importantly, always have faith. It wasn’t until much later in college that I learned I had built up these unattainable expectations for myself.

People expect those of us that grew up in church to have had a linear faith walk. By that I mean that we have always believed and always moved forward. At the very worst we have only put it aside during college, or some other rebellious stage, fulling intending to come back and pick it up again. I’m here to tell you that I was someone who almost quit and walked away from faith. I was done. It was too hard, too disappointing, too much work. I was tired of feeling like an imposter every time I walked into the church I attended at the time. My faith life didn’t look like those around me, so I must not actually believe what I thought I had believed. I attended a church that had members with many wonderful, tangible gifts and experiences with God, but that wasn’t my life. I didn’t have those experiences and began to believe that I had deluded myself into believing I had a relationship with Him. These doubts in myself and my relationship with Him grew over many months, manifesting itself in doubts in WHO He was, if He was even there to listen, and if He wanted anything to do with me.

I was deeply ashamed that I had these doubts because I had believed, or at least thought I had, for almost 20 years at that point. I know that was exceedingly prideful of me because it meant that I had thought myself above the brokenness that comes with being human. And even worse, I thought that I could just fix it through my own will. That did not turn out so great for me and only made me more frustrated and impatient.

I felt like I was crying out to God and He was silent. People around me said they had these close encounters with Him, so He must just not really be there since I wasn’t getting the response for which I desperately sought. There was one day in particular that I went to church and sat there thinking I’m a fraud because I couldn’t make my heart believe anything that was being preached. I broke down in my car afterwards and wept for the lose of a relationship I once thought was at the center of my life. It was only then, after months of hiding, that I finally made a call to my parents to confess that I couldn’t say I believed anymore. I also talked to my aunt, who is a minister, because before I walked away I wanted one more shot at something resonating with me. She shocked me by letting me know she herself had experienced a similar period of life many years ago. After our conversation I had made a decision to make one more effort, I decided I would go after Him as hard as I could for a year and then at the end of that year if I still didn’t believe, then I would make that decision.

Considering the fact that I’m sitting here writing about my faith life, I think you can assume what happened over the course of that year. But to be completely honest, there were still times over those next twelve months where I would desperately pray for a tangible answer or sign from God and I got silence instead. There were times I wanted faith, but still only got doubt. But what I gained over the journey through the depths of doubt was what it really meant to have faith when it seems like I shouldn’t. I was humbled by seeing that I am not an exception to His rule of grace. I was not the one person in this world that doesn’t get to receive grace. I had doubted that he would intercede for me because my faith walk looked differerntly. But He showed me that just as my personality is different than the person next to me, so is the way I relate to people and Him. Even more, He was the one that made me to be analytical and skeptical because there were things for me to do with those aspects of myself.

Sometimes I get upset when sermons make a blanket statement that says cry out and He will answer because I’m thinking uh yeah, I can tell you right now I’ve experienced this to not always be true. It was blanket statements like that once caused my doubts to worsen. The truth is that sometimes He may be “quiet” even when you call or think you are at the end of your rope. But that does NOT mean He isn’t there, doesn’t care, or doesn’t know what you need. He WILL show up; it just may not be when or how you expect. He will not leave you in your struggle even if you go through it longer than you would prefer. On the other side of it, you will be different but more of the person that you were made to be.

Take it from someone who almost quit it all.