Speaking My Truth

This story originally appeared on our previous website.
Written by Andrea Christensen. Published on June 11, 2015

When I was 13 years old, I suffered a traumatic emotional experience at a Halloween party. All the girls I knew gathered around me to tell me they thought I was stuck up and didn’t want to be my friend anymore. This event changed my life. I spent many months trying to figure out exactly what they meant, since I never thought of myself as better than anyone else. I think I’ve finally figured it out: I lacked empathy. I was happy in my own little world and wasn’t thinking much about other peoples’ feelings. The good takeaway from this experience is that I developed empathy in such a huge way that it’s become one of my strongest traits. The bad thing that happened was that I turned inward and became afraid to be myself or speak my opinion, lest I make “everyone” mad at me again. From that day on, I worried constantly about what other people thought of me and arranged my life so that I wouldn’t ever make waves or take a controversial stand on anything.

That kind of decision kills the spirit. It’s good to make waves sometimes, and it’s good to speak your mind. How else will people get to know you if you don’t let them know what you’re thinking? I’ve been careful both in real life and on social media to remain non-political and non-controversial, but that has to change.

My First Big Mistake
I was married for the first time at the tender age of 18. Having been raised in an extremely conservative Christian fundamentalist home, my dad was relieved that I would be “safely” married off and wouldn’t have to face the temptations of modern dating. I quickly learned that marrying a man who said all the right things was not good enough. The marriage was a disaster, and that was obvious from the honeymoon. I didn’t believe in divorce, however, and stuck it out for eight horrible years. Finally, I had to open my mind to the concept that maybe God didn’t want me to be miserable for the rest of my life and maybe the world wouldn’t fall apart if I got divorced. I shed one of my limiting beliefs and got that divorce. I was so happy and so much like my old self that even my parents agreed it was the best thing to do.

Letting go of that belief was the start of it all.

But I Didn’t Learn
I was 28 the second time I got married. I was sure I could do it right that time. I said I wanted someone with a “good heart,” but I didn’t know my own heart well enough to make a good choice. The marriage was not a great one and began falling apart when we had to go through our first crisis together — my dad’s terminal illness. Things went downhill quickly, but I was determined that this marriage wouldn’t end in divorce. After all, we’d already had a child together, and I didn’t believe in divorce when children were involved. To make a long story short, I’ll just say that after another 10 unhappy years, I had to release that limiting belief as well or risk going to a dark place from which I might never recover.

Then Came A Miracle
By the time I met my soulmate William, I was a mess. I was depressed, overweight, ill, unhappy, unmotivated, and had self-esteem that was in the sewer. It seemed to turn around almost instantly as I started getting to know him, and we eventually fell in love. With William, I found out that I was lovable exactly as I was; I didn’t have to change a thing. I could speak my mind, be completely honest even when I had something unpleasant to say, and reveal my deepest thoughts and dreams. I didn’t feel safe enough yet to be that open with others, but I’d made a start. I knew William was a gift from God, sent to me to save me from the mess I had become. This went against what I’d been taught, though, which was that God only wanted us with other believing Christians. Oops. There went another limiting belief.

At first, we were thrilled to have found each other, and everything was sunshine and roses. Just reading his letters or talking with him on camera was enough to stay happy, even though we were separated by nearly 5,000 miles. But the timetable for being together kept getting pushed back. And back. And back. Life was hard after my second divorce, and I felt alone, despite being madly in love with someone who felt the same way about me. It became harder and harder to stay happy and hopeful. I didn’t understand why I was having such a hard time and also why God wouldn’t answer my prayers and clear the way for William to move here. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t just chill out and be patient. After all, I was a Christian and should be able to find joy in my circumstances, but I couldn’t. Despite my many blessings, I was becoming deeply depressed and feeling adrift.

One night I was chatting with an online friend, telling him how upset and depressed I was, and he suggested that I read a book by Joel Osteen. I bought the book, but it was months before I cracked it open. Finally, I started reading, “Your Best Life Now,” and was in tears by the second chapter. I had been feeling at odds with my Christian belief system for quite some time, and here was a preacher who believed as I did: that God wants us to be happy and blessed. I was raised to believe things that aren’t that far off from the Duggar family, but they didn’t sit well anymore. I was excited and a little scared to find validation in this book.

Now I’m Losing My Religion
One particular thing that’s always bothered me was the attitude towards women in the church. I don’t want to feel like a second class citizen simply because I’m a woman. In the last church I attended regularly,

women couldn’t be elders or teachers, unless they were teaching other women. I sat in the membership class where a couple women grilled the senior pastor for the reason behind these rules, but his answers didn’t satisfy me. To me, this seemed backwards, like from the time when women couldn’t vote or own property. (I’m so glad I wasn’t born at that time.) I know there are all kinds of scripture verses one can pull out to back up treating women as lesser, but that just doesn’t ring true for me. I don’t believe that God meant for 21st century women to be subservient to their husbands or other men.

There are a lot of other things I don’t believe about the Bible either. I actually do believe it’s the word of God, but I think we misuse it. I don’t think that he gave us the Bible for us to beat ourselves up or judge and condemn each other. I don’t think we’re supposed to pick and choose which laws and guidelines we’ll follow and which ones we won’t. What if the Bible exists primarily to encourage us to love God with all our heart, mind and strength and love our neighbor as ourselves — to know God and be inspired to love Him and each other? What if God is love, and love covers all things?

There’s a lot of fear and hatred in the Christian church at the moment. I don’t think this is what God intended. When I started reading alternative texts about God and love, I realized that much of what I’ve been taught is based on fear. Do this or else you won’t go to Heaven. Do that or else you risk falling away from God. But God is love and tells us that perfect love casts out fear. As I explore my faith and where I really stand on issues, I’m careful to keep checking in and testing what I’m learning. It feels very radical to me to question what I’ve unquestioningly accepted all my life, but there’s always been a little nagging feeling which told me something was a bit off. I’ve ignored that feeling until now, but I can’t keep on doing that if I want to grow.

Because God Loves Us All
And since I’m being controversial, I’ll go on to say that I’ve believed for a very long time that God loves homosexuals as much as heterosexuals. I’ve never taken a public stand on the issue, but I believe I need to now since I’m talking about love. As a woman and a divorcee, I’m living proof that the Bible shouldn’t be used to condemn people and put them in their place. Fifty or a hundred years ago, I’m the one who would’ve been shunned by the church. Now the church shuns gays. Does anyone really think this is what God wants? Is it really up to Christians to condemn homosexuality? Why not condemn divorcees or bacon eaters instead? I just don’t think it’s up to us to “enforce” some passages of the Bible and not others. I know there are plenty of verses that Christians quote to one another in defense of making accusations and judgments. It wasn’t long ago that my best friend of 30 years quoted all of them to me while calling me a liar, and she claimed she did it “in love.” But I’m reminded of Jesus, who invited an angry mob to go ahead and stone a prostitute if they had no sins of their own, causing them to drop their stones and walk away. I don’t know why a gay person would ever want to be part of the Christian church that is shaming and condemning them, and that’s sad. Aren’t we supposed to love our neighbors?

I am coming to believe on a much deeper level that God is love and as His children who are created in His image, we are also love. Any time we choose love over hate, love over fear, we are one step closer to what He intended us to be.

This is my truth: I stand for love.

[bctt tweet=”This is my truth: I stand for love.”]

Where do you stand? Please join me in sharing your truth.