A Jehovah’s Witness in church
A coworker invited me to church and at that point in my life I was open to it. It was a big beautiful Baptist Church. The inside of a Kingdom Hall is very plain and until recently they didn’t have windows, there is no Sunday school or fellowship room. This place was huge. I tried the singles Sunday school, but I was the only one who had a child or had been married. My best fit was in the older couples group. I enjoyed the whole experience, the choir, the preacher, the singing and the easy to understand Bible. Honestly, I was just trying to find something to be, somewhere to belong and church and its people are a nice distraction. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for the experience and kindness I experienced, but I was not a Baptist, I still don’t even know everything they believe. I got saved, but not like other people, mine was about burning bridges. Up to the point of sitting in the preachers office and explaining my situation and needing to break my chains I could have turned back. So yes, I was saved and felt a great weight lifted, not the weight of sin and being lifted by up by God, but the weight of religious opression. I got baptized at this church, unlike my first baptism it was a happy pleasant occasion. Of course my upbringing had to ruin this for me too.
I was dating a religious man at the time, he went to some non denominational church that spoke in tongues among other things. Apparently at his church, you could do no wrong. He was an alcoholic, a pot smoker and in a relationship with me. How could the way I was raised ruin this wonderful life I was leading?
Come on really? I can’t be the only person who has ever sat in church listening to the preacher talking about sex outside of marriage and felt guilty. Even worse, I was looking at the people around me, knowing I was a hypocrite and so were they, don’t they know God sees everything? I just couldn’t wrap my mind around doing something I knew was wrong and coming to church to be saved again and again. Where’s the accountability for your choices? Their God was more forgiving than the God I knew and I just couldn’t accept it. Maybe that’s what church is all about, accepting each other flaws and all, I couldn’t help but judge them and myself. So here I go thinking about my life again.
