Sometimes I feel like believing in God isn't cool. I grew up always wanting to be an individual. I never wanted to be like anyone else and never would do anything just because it was expected of everyone or its the norm for most people. I think this is why sometimes I have doubts about God. I've never felt like these doubts were a bad thing. In fact in someways, when I look back at those times in my life when I didn't think about God I feel like I learned so much about myself and about the world and ended up gaining a deeper and new look at God.
So given my desire to be different you might have expected me to have a rebellious past full of drinking, drugs, sex, and all that jazz. I actually grew up always wanting to please my parents and tried to live my life the way my preacher and youth leader told me to live. I use to read my Bible pretty regularly and pray all of the time. The preacher's daughter and I became good friends and tried to spend a lot of high school being the examples of a good Christian by having "good, clean fun", going to all of the Christian events, attending church every time the door was open, and praying for all of our high school. I even would fast sometime. This is what I was told would make me a good Christian and that's what I wanted to be. I somehow molded my childhood desires of wanting to be different into this persona of trying to be the perfect Christian girl that as a result would be different because she was the real deal.
I lived this way for most of my middle school and high school years (with one exception that involved a certain boyfriend). Toward the end of high school in my senior year, I found this book I just loved. It was called a generous orthodoxy. I think I enjoyed this book so much because I seemed to tell me that maybe the ways I was told I had to live to be a good Christian wasn't right. Maybe there was more to just following laws, singing praise songs, and reading the Bible. It was an interesting thought that has put me on a journey. The last 3 years in college I have struggled joining or meeting follow Christians that I thought were cool. My first year I found the people at the BSU to be rather boring and seemingly very judgmental toward the people they seemed did not seem to be that "good Christian" i was trying to be earlier in my life. Last year I didn't even go to quote unquote Christian groups, because I was afraid they would be no different. Yes, I'm being judgemental but I would rather join a group with a purpose like feeding the hungry which I would assume have some Christians (at least I would hope so.....it is one of the explicit examples of what Jesus did).
Yesterday I just finished a book I've been reading all semester called "blue like jazz". It was talked about by a lot of people I worked with this summer, so i was curious what this book was and I think a lot of the people in the ropes staff this summer were cool christians; i figured the book was worth my time. I should say the reason I thought some of these people were was their conversations about going to a jazz bar and things my pastor would have fainted about if he heard them. I could tell while I was reading the book why the people this summer would like this book. The author seemed like such a real person. Talking very candidly about his feelings. I think I liked this book because he would talk about smoking, drinking, cussing, doubts, and all sorts of things and never try to gloss over these things or condemn them. I guess right now I am just struggling with a fundamental question. I've always tried to be a very real person (I've never understood why people hide behind or use facades). I just don't know how to grow in being a christian without it being better at following a set of rules. I think I am growing and maybe that's why I liked the rules because they were proof of growth. I want to be a cool, unique individual. I'm just not sure how to be a cool Christian that is healthy and real. I think is very difficult to walk this line. But I'm trying. I think that's all I can ask of myself right now.
-Kristy
I don't know if you can read that too well. But I feel like we are brought up in school (especially college) to think of our future only being what job we will have and when we will get married with kids. And of course if you are a religious person, your center of worship will tell you what more you are living for. So I had all of these thoughts (basically questioning the purpose of life, I guess) and started looking at the painting he has made to decorate his room. I decided I should go to Walmart and get some canvas. I was going to paint what I was feeling. It was going to be abstract of course due to my very poor and underdeveloped drawing skills, but it would also allow me to represent symbolically how I felt and maybe I could make more sense of my emotions.