It was the year 2000, my first year out of school and first year of university. I would have been 17 or 18 years old.
My strength at this time came from my strong faith in God.
I went to church on Sunday nights, taught children’s Sunday school on Sunday mornings. Friday nights were youth group at church and once a week on the evening i went to a bible study group at someone from the church’s house. On top of all of this I had daily private times where I would read the bible or a biblical book and I would pray. I was told how I should live my life. I also did my best to obey all the commandments and teachings from the bible, including giving about 10% of the money I earned. I believed and obeyed everything I was told.
A scrap of paper I found and dated to sometime in 2000 reads:
“I love my Mum and I love my Dad. I love my sisters as well as my relatives and every one of my friends. I love God. God loves me. God loves every person so much that he sent his son to suffer, living hell after dying on a cross, just so that I may live eternally. this is the key to becoming a Christian, accepting God’s grace, through faith, so that when I die I know that I will live eternally in heaven.
This gives me feelings of peace as it shows that the eighty so years on earth, in perspective are so small and eternity so long, that we must always remember what is important is to love God and love others.
God loves me and has blessed me a thousand billion times and with my life I want to strive to please him.
I thank God every day for my blessings, for everyone that I know, for the fact that I can know them, love them and I thank him so much that they love me in return. I have said this to God every morning when I wake up for as long as I can remember and I will always as nothing can change this.
When I die I wish that everyone that knows me can know how much I love them and how much God loves them.
I hope that through my death, others can come to know Christ. If I could die tomorrow and my friends would come to know the love of God, I would without a second thought. When i die I hope everyone can rejoice over the life I lived and thank God for my life, as I do.
Everyone should rejoice in knowing that I will be eternally living with my God and will be waiting for them to join me.
What I want out of life
1. To please God and do his will. he has a plan for my life and he knows the best way (He created me so he must know!)
I know that without God I can achieve nothing, so why try to control my life without him? All it leads to is dissatisfaction. Look at Mariah Carey, for example, you would think she would be satisfied as she has everything materialistically you could ask for: money, guys, fame, talent… yet she tried to kill herself. She was unsatisfied. Materialism can only satisfy you to a point. There will always be a huge hole without God. Thus I wish to follow him and let Him do what he can. i trust that he has a plan and will lead me to a satisfying life.
2. Friends and family
I hope that my friends and family can be happy, healthy and also live satisfying lives on all levels. Especially that they will come to know God.
3. Materialistically and selfishly
I’d like what everyone wants: money, fame, love, nice house etc! No seriously… I want a job that I enjoy – working with great people and being able to support myself with a good income. I want to meet a guy, love him with all my heart and marry and have a happy marriage with God in the centre. We will live in a nice house, possibly with a couple of kids (eventually), have great holidays etc. Our kids will grow up to be also strong Christians. I will put my family before”
It finishes there and I can’t find the next page.
In fact, this is the only piece of writing that I have from this time in my life. It does a good job in summarising my mind at that time. I read this and I smile, laugh at the Mariah Carey commend, then cringe and feel my stomach turn. My innocent mind: pure, kind and loving – but so naive, indoctrinated and, excuse my language, fucked up.
This year brings tears to my eyes to think about – I gave every part of myself to everyone around me, and everyone around me took and took, like vampires on their prey. Noone realised the pain they put me through. At the time, not even I was aware.
To read about my journey from the very conformist fundamentalist Christian worldview above, into the questioning Christian / spiritually Buddhist / peace-loving Atheist I might classify myself today, check out:
My Thunderbolt Moment Click Here
And for Christians who haven’t had the time to question, I documented my questions, answers and my contemplation of the contradictions, which you can read here:
Further Reading:
Chapter 1 – Introduction Click here
Chapter 2 – Is the Bible the “Word of God”? Click here
Chapter 3 – Is Jesus Christ the “Son of God?” Click here
Chapter 4 – Discussing the contradictions Click here
Chapter 5 – What does this mean for my life today? Click here
Chapter 6 – My conclusions Click here
