Where'd I go?

Have you ever gone through a period of your life where you do things uncharacteristic to yourself. Well that's where I am right now. I'm noticing the self-destructive tendencies of my short but ill conceived youth and I need to do some serious introspection and figure out who I really want to be.

The details aren't really important. What's important is that I've allowed outside descriptors to define who I am for so long, that now that I am throwing them off I need to figure out which of those are really who I am and which were imposed from the outside. I know I'm being particularly vague here. Basically I "Became" a Christian when I was 20 and rather than defining for myself what that meant I adopted the definitions of others. Perhaps for that very reason, despite a very real inner faith, the outer trappings have never felt authentic. Kind of like that guy on American Idol who used to be in a boy band presenting himself as a rocker and yet finding it hard for others to believe in that perception of his persona.

I still have a faith in God. And some days I believe that God is Jesus. Other days I don't know. And other days I'm too tired to think about it. I'm finding the latter has been the more prevalent disposition of late. I work two jobs, I had some serious faith issues in the last few years, and I've lived in decidedly liberal, non-religious environments (NY & DC) that have forced me to reconsider many of the black and white views on the world presented to me as a baby Christian. I had already tossed many of them aside but being in a secular world sped up the process of redefinition.

I want to go on Record that I think you do not have to be unintelligent, naive, bigoted, belligerent or narrow minded to have genuine faith or to be a Christian. I know many brilliant and open-minded Christians who have a genuine and kind faith. I have a very secular and liberal background. I feel that this influences the difficulties I have found as the years of being a Christian have progressed. I know the many in the liberal world believe all Christians are right wings conservative out to abolish abortion and deny people civil liberties. I know this not to be true. That being said I've been decidedly inactive in my faith and rather than outright rejection I've let it slip away. There's a core still there and I'm not living a heathen lifestyle but I got sick of all the stress and work and self doubt and doubt in God. With how busy my life is it just got easier to fall into the complacency and self-centered behavior of my younger days.

I think partly I got sick of being the good girl with nothing to show for it. I got sick of being alone and of feeling abandoned by God. I got sick of feeling like my parents were doomed because I was pretty sure they'd never believe as I did. And I got sick of feeling guilty for not trusting that God could bring them around. I got sick of defending the fact that I'm still Jewish even though I didn't believe what most Jews believe--that Jesus is not the Messiah. I got sick of all the questions in my brain about people of other faiths, children who die young, the holocaust, the evil in the world etc. Friends told my over analytical thinking was sabotaging my faith. I got sick of worrying about it all the time and just gave up. I wondered if I clung to Christianity because there were really great people in the Church. Most of my New York friends were Christian and they weren't stereotypical by any stretch of the imagination. We went out for drinks, watched rated R movies, met in a bar. And yet while I was with them my faith was stronger than it had been in a long time or has been since. But was that only because of the social life it gave me.

I think I've lost my focus but it was good to get out. Those that happen upon this and don't know me may think I'm crazy. My Christian friends will call me backslidden. The point was that I'm doing things that go against how I've lived my life for the last ten years. And I don't want to throw off the good that has come from the life I've lived. The friends, the morality, etc. But i also don't want to be who i was when i was 18. I'm 30 and I should be wiser. But I'm doing stupid things to rebel against the self-imposed goodness for lack of a better word that I've put on myself for 10 years. I need to look inside, find what is good and who I really want to be and stand for that.

Thanks for listening.