Disciple later, seek now

And many things I’m afraid to say out loud

I have been putting this one off for a few reasons—I fear the judgement from people that I know will disagree with me; I am mourning the loss of a belief system that gave me comfort; I am still completely in the middle of unfolding it all. I’m sharing anyway because I wanted to be wildly honest this year and because I hope that sharing this helps someone out there feel less alone.

I hyper fixated on being “good” before Christianity. I was a preschooler who learned the rules and didn’t step outside of them. I was a kindergartener who never got a color change. I got straight A’s. I never talked out of turn. I always raised my hand. I followed the rules. I asked permission.

My mom grew up Catholic, so I was baptized into the Catholic Church. I went through first communion and confession. At the ripe age of 7, I had to go to mandatory confessional and admitted that I was mean to my sister sometimes. I was forgiven and my sin was washed away. The catholic teachings were much more focused on being good, and repenting when you were bad—which felt pretty attainable for me. I didn’t like going but there were donuts and my mom was the actual queen of Vacation Bible School. At some point post first communion and before confirmation, I started going to church on Wednesday nights with my friend at a Baptist church and learned that I was missing something pretty important.

When the news came to me in an Awana class or a Sunday school, that I was innately bad or broken without Jesus, I think I was probably quite awestruck as I had prided myself/ built a tiny identity on the grounds of being good.  To find out that that kind of good wasn’t enough to be saved from eternity in hell was a bit frightening. Only accepting Jesus into the Jesus shaped hole in my heart would make me whole and enough and good—it was quite an abstract idea to swallow but the stakes were high so I definitely wanted to invite him in there.

I “got saved” in 6th grade in someone’s basement at a Disciple Now but to be honest I had been repeating the sinners prayer in my head at every altar call before that and most times after, just to be sure it really took.