I fear I may be plunging into this entry without properly composing my thoughts beforehand, but oh well. I'll just have to sift through the debris later.
My faith is a conscious decision. It's not just something that I grew up with, pressed into my being by my family. In fact, my family would be an excuse not to be religious. I don't think you could find a bigger bunch of hypocrites than my relatives. And about 10 years ago I had a conversation with my mom, who had recently become a Christian, that included the following:
Me: "Hey Mom, what's up?"
Mom: "God and the devil are at war over my mind."
Me: "Really?"
Mom: "We battle with evil spirits every day. Evil and demons are everywhere. We just have to claim the name of Jesus to win."
Me: "And are you winning?"
Mom: "Not right now. I just have to trust God. (bursts into tears) I just wish it wasn't so hard. I hate this. I just want it to stop. But I can't make it stop. Stop it. Stop it. My mind is their battleground. I bind you Satan, in the name of Jesus. Make it stop. Stop." (collapses onto bed, sobbing uncontrollably)
Me(thinking to myself): "Well, if this is what you get when you become a Christian, then I want nothing to do with it."
Oh, yeah, at just the age when religious types say a majority of people accept Christ, I was thinking that being a Christian made you crazy.
About 3 years after that particular conversation, my mom sent me, kicking and screaming, to a church camp. Oh yeah, I sat there in the church parking lot, with tears slipping down my face, back to the rest of the group, waiting to get on the bus, dreading the impending week ahead. It was not pretty.
Miraculously, that week was the beginning of my journey as a Christian. I can't say that my life did a complete 180 or anything, but I think my perspective changed somehow. It's been slow going, no doubt, and I've been the one setting the pace, so I shouldn't complain. All I can do is praise God for His infinite patience.
We Christians are a confused lot, but we're just trying to make sense of the world, like everybody else. Christianity is not a crutch, nor is it just part of my upbringing. I don't like how people think that I must be weak or lazy or unthinking to be a Christian. I have not blindly stumbled into this, and I'm not a person of faith because it's the easy or simple thing to do. I don't have all the answers, and I don't like it that some people feel the need to criticize me as if I've claimed that I do. I used to say that I didn't have a religion, I had a faith, now I realize that they're the same thing.