bich

this book was heavy for me, and sticky. i obsessed over it as a child. i feared it. i remember once, I was probably around ten years old, I decided i’d look my fear in the face and read it. i remember how loud my heart pounded as I received the prophecy of what was to come, probably in my future (after all, the world was supposed to end in my lifetime, at least from multiple sources including family members, my church, and the christian media I consumed).

so i said to myself, i might as well read it so I will know exactly what to expect. i was surprised to find that there was no mention of the rapture. lots of monsters and natural disasters, yes, but I couldn’t really get the timeline straight. basically, all I wanted to know was if i would have to live through the disasters described in revelation, or if I’d be spared because God would pull me into heaven before it began. i didn’t get a clear answer.

like. it is so devastating. and it makes me feel naive, like i should never have told them i was deconstructing. because as soon as they found out i became a problem to be solved. i just needed to come back. and it is exactly this that has justified some of their cruelest behavior towards me. i didn't know they were capable of such cruelty. it doesn't matter what they do to me, how much they verbally abuse me or make me feel like an outsider, as long as i end up back in god's arms. hell theology has utterly ruined my relationship with them, and i don't see it being repaired.

i wanted so badly for them to accept me even if i didn't come back. to know that i'd still be loved and accepted by them. but what was i thinking? sure, they tell me they love me. but i know for a fact they don't like the person i am now. they do not accept who i am. i know exactly what happens when somebody in your circle becomes "lost." you pray for that person to become humbled, that when the time comes for suffering, you pray they turn to god. i know people who actually pray for suffering to fall upon unbelievers so they will turn to god. like they are actively praying for your downfall. you cannot look at a non believer without thinking of hell. and now i see that's how my parents see me. that's why i couldn't have close bonds with people who weren't christian when i was in the sauce. it was unbearable.

two years ago, i was part of a calvinist church that i tried so hard to love, and i was fighting for my life to stay christian. and i couldn't.

it's only been two years, and everything is so different. everything has changed in an insanely short amount of time, and I don’t know how to process that. It kind of makes me feel crazy, like the things the christians told me about getting sucked into liberalism, worldliness, whatever else, did happen. because it did. in a sense, they were right. but it’s not because I’m weak, easily influenced, gullible, or anything like that. It’s because the belief system they offered me didn’t hold up in the face of what happened to me in real life and the things I observed around me.