Community ramblings

Apparently I have a lot to say about this topic because I am choosing to ramble on just for a little longer.
I actually wrote the following awhile back in the midst of the counselor crisis...so some of it may be overlapping a little bit of what I have already said...
It might be slightly even more intense than normal entries because I don't think I wrote it in the happiest of all moods...I think it was wrote right before the rock bottom period of my life that happened a few weeks ago so I apologize if it sounds angry. Some of it I have been able to work through since then. There is a lot that comes from my not so positive church experience in the past so in many ways I am ;earning what my view of church is and what the bible says church is supposed to be....but here it is.

"Community
Belonging
To know you can be who you are without any pretending. Although you might not agree with everyone, you are accepted.
The Church is the Christian community. In theory it should emphasize this feeling of belonging but it along with the rest of the world is extraordinarily broken and is often unable to meet the needs of its members.
I’m a Christian. Jesus is my life. I am part of the body of Christ. Supposedly everyone is needed. A hand can’t say to a foot, ‘I don’t need you’. But sometimes I still feel like I do not fit into the church. Sometimes I feel like such an outsider. Where did my view of the church get as distorted as the view of my own body?
When did I suddenly feel the need to put up a wall that doesn’t let anyone into my emotions, including myself? Why can’t I feel anymore? Why can’t I cry? "

"My life is full of ‘shoulds’ that I never seem to be living up to.
I ‘should’ be trusting Jesus to get me through.
I ‘should’ be able to get through this with him alone, never needing to depend on anyone else.
I ‘should’ be able to eat when I am hungry.
I ‘should’ be an adult right now and holding my own job and paying my own rent.
I ‘should’ be putting myself aside to help others because other people’s problems are far greater than my own.
A religion that ‘should’ be rooted entirely in grace is rooted for me entirely in rules and laws that I just can’t fit into and that I can’t escape."

"Even admitting this to others just seems so wrong. I have a strong need for affirmation and validation and simply to be touched and to be held. Maybe it is my own distortion of the church or maybe it is what I have been taught but having these needs seems like the ultimate sin. I might as well have sex before marriage or commit a murder because these sins seem like they are far more easily forgivable than the sin of emotional neediness."

"How do I achieve the freedom that Christianity advertises? I want nothing in this world but to serve Jesus Christ, however, I ultimately seem to fail at this over and over again.
Starvation has become my Novocain for life. By concentrating on the hunger in my stomach I can block out everything else. I desperately want to seek help from others, to pour out my heart and soul to them, but that in the rules of the Christianity that I have been taught is just wrong. I ‘should’ be selfless and concentrating on the needs of others. I ‘should’ be relying completely on Jesus to meet my needs."

"However, even the most rigid of Christians will admit that life isn’t perfect all the time. Sometimes it’s ok to seek help and support for awhile. People will offer a hug or be willing to talk occasionally. But what happens when the problem and the pain is deeper than that, so deep that I can’t even voice it because it is so utterly icky and gross? Eventually people want you to get out of your “pity party” and stand on your own two feet. They get tired of you and your “emotional neediness” and set you aside as ‘one of them’.
An outsider.
A leper.
You are sent to a therapist to “get fixed.” Specialized centers are to provide all the care. When you are “better” you will be accepted back into society.
However, I begin to retreat farther and farther into my own brain. If I can create ways of not feeling that pain, actually not feeling at all, I will be far more likely to be accepted."

"But then I am back to that age old question, when is just being me enough? At what point do I no longer have to prove myself worthy of love?"

"Practically every Christian would say, ‘You don’t have to do anything. God loves you just the way you are.’ But that is just head knowledge. I think few actually believe this by the way they live their lives. It’s all about doing. When we should be walking side by side with each other, I look around to what seems like a race to be the best. In the secular world it is who can be the most successful or who can make the most money, but in the Christian community that I see it is almost a fight to be the best Christian. To give the most, to serve the most, to lead as many people to Jesus, even to be the most ‘humble’. Love doesn’t’ seem to be the rock that all our actions are rooted in anymore."

"And again, just writing that causes the hammers in my brain to come down even heavier as I get screamed at for being too negative. I want to love as Jesus loved, but I feel so unbelievably terrible at it."

"Looking around this city, I see a bunch of robotic people who don’t even question life anymore. I long to break down some of the walls and bubbles that chain us down and just get back to the simplicity of love."

"I don’t know where I went wrong. I want to love myself again. I want to believe that God loves me without me doing anything. I want to show people that they can belong. Frankly, I want to belong too. "

"Community group is my favorite parts of the week. I can see honest, open, and non-judgmental conversations going on. However, that is only for a few hours a week...I am slowly learning the importance of living out community every day. "

"I need the church. I need community. I need to see truth because if the Christianity I see is truth, I am forever doomed to Hell."

"I need love, not criticism or judgment. I need grace, not contempt. I need to see truth, but lies are what continually rule in my head.
I want these chains to be gone. I want to be the me I was a year ago, but purified through the reality of grace. I don’t want to care about weight and fat and calories and mirrors and what is ok to eat and what is not ok. I want to feel. I want to let go. I want to wipe the pretend smile off and just be real. I want to laugh. I want to be held until the pain and hurt go away.
I want to say good bye to the therapists.
I want to live in community."


"I hate that I hate myself. I hate how alone I feel. I hate everything about me. I never would have begun to say that a year ago. I hate how I seem to need my emotions to be validated. I hate that I am not trusting Jesus enough. I hate feeling so vulnerable and I hate that I can’t seem to communicate with others at all. I hate my neediness.
I hate asking for help and once I finally do I tend to run away from it. I just need to hear from someone that this isn’t my fault "