Well, I’ve done this wild thing in my heart. I’ve become a real Christian.
You’re probably laughing and wondering why this is such a wild thing.
Remedial Christianity
It’s been so very hard for me. You must understand, I still believe that God Himself led me onto The Path of Perfection. I was happy there, and I blew it, by not attending class, and that door eventually closed (after 3 times of my dropping it).
My reaction to this was terror, fear, anger, pleading, deals – just like some of the 5 stages of grief – and similiarly, I came to accept it. I decided to go BACK to Christianity. Please understand at the time because of my great Hubris, I really did think of this as a step BACKward. I used to internally call it God’s need to send me to remedial spirituality. And even in sermons, I could see the truth of the Path being proven and used to think, Good one, God, you can still preach to me here, even though I’m light years ahead of these folks.
Really, my arrogance knows no bounds.
Tolerating Conservatism: Gulp
Then I moved to PA, and God – using signs that could have been divine post it notes on my desk – led me to a conservative, Wesleyan church. Did I mention, CONSERVATIVE? A liberal New Yorker like me, well, I went kicking and screaming.
My church is blessed with two amazing pastors. They preach and you can HONESTLY hear the voice of God. I found myself more and more sucked in. The urge to kick and scream started to die.
Because I was so lonely in my new area, I attended Bible study. To my shock, I grew and grew. I learned to DO all the things that I had on the Path and couldn’t. I learned God’s Will. I learned humility. I learned charity. (OH I’m lightyears away from where I need to be but I’m learning.) I attended these seminars they had, after the pastor recommended them. I discussed my beliefs with him and he lent me one of John Wesley’s books on Christian perfection. (It turned out to be right up my alley. Thanks, Lenny.)
I’ve been wondering what God’s plan was, especially last December when God encouraged me to take communion and I did, only to feel God’s joy after doing so. I could literally feel the Lord get happy. Mind you, I didn’t know until recently that taking communion if you are not a true believer is blasphemous, but I guess God was working with me.
Grace? What’s That?
Things were coming to a head for me personally. God has been giving me this LONG, LONG lesson about relying on Him, as I have no strength, energy or health in my life right now. And though I’m required to be Superwoman most days, I can barely manage Average Woman. I began to learn a new lesson: GRACE.
After attending the 3rd seminar in September on spiritual gifts, I realized I needed to DO something. I was stymied, though, because my main Christian gift (shockingly) was Knowledge. How could that be, when I subscribe to a non-Christian faith and, really, who is this Jesus fellow anyway?
As usual, I made my way through it with logic, and amazingly LOGIC led me to faith in Christ. You see, you could say that after 2 years of church, Bible studies and courses, reading the Bible in a year, befriending Christians and attempting to be active in the church, I would *naturally* become a Christian.
Except that, in very clear terms, a) God led me here, b) God surrounded me with Christians everywhere ELSE in my life, not just church, and c) God keeps telling me I’m on track.
Uh, Letting Go and Letting God?
And in my quest for perfection, I’ve found that at this point in my life I just CAN’T. I try and try, and am maybe one iota of a better person than I was a few months ago, but it’s so hard. Like Paul says, I do what I hate. And it gets harder, just like the Path says, as there are forces out there that don’t want you to make it, to rejoin God. That’s ok, though, because there is forgiveness. I still believe it requires restitution. I still believe in successive lives, and a heaven that’s way better than Christians envision (rejoining the Source: God). But I absolutely CAN’T do it on my own. Perhaps that was my misinterpretation of the Path. I’m always thinking I’m strong enough to go it alone, and accepting help is the hardest thing in the world for me.
So there, I leaped, I jumped, I went with it. The beauty is, I feel this nice, pure, lovely feeling inside these last few days since I have accepted Christ, and it’s something I haven’t felt since childhood. That feels like confirmation to me. I’ve got doctrine issues, and I’m still a liberal. I’m not at all for this whole “literal Bible” thing, although I believe it to be divinely inspired, and I don’t get what’s so ungodly about evolution. I don’t see why God couldn’t have made gay people and I think Christians who take the Bible literally need to do a whole lot better at explaining the contradictions. (I have explanations, but I could be wrong.) And I LOVE Dr. Scott Peck and the “The Road Less Travelled”…now that book’s a bit of truth.
But I’m hanging in there. I guess I’ll see what the afterlife holds. I trust God, and I trust God too that He will save more people than we can imagine or fathom. The beauty of the Path is that everyone gets saved eventually, even if it’s after eternity. (Don’t ask me to explain, I’m dodgy on the fine points.) God is good, is all I know, and I’m with Him til the bitter end.