All of that is right and flawed. The principles of Christianity are what I love. Not the bible.. Lord knows..(pun intended) that more so than I believe the stories I believe in the morals they encompass.
Christ was a martyr for love. That's something this bleeding heart can get behind. John Keats once wrote a letter and in it he said...
"I have been astonished men could die martyrs for their religion-
I have shuddered at it,
I shudder no more,
Love is my religion,
I could die for that,
I could die for you,
My creed is love and you are it's only tenet.
Nothing could describe my heart more perfectly. I haven't yet figured out how to save the world, but I'm not done trying just yet.
Back to Christianity. We are the church. In the movie stigmata there is a line, "Jesus said, the kingdom of God is inside you, not in mansions of wood and stone, split a piece of wood and I am there, lift a stone, you will find me.
So as a Christian, basically we are all just admitting we are grown babies running around not knowing what to do, completely faulted, but we want to love.
There are A LOT, and I'm going to stress that again, A LOT, of us that do it all wrong. I'm not sure there is a right way, but wrong in the sense of judgment. Gays are burning in hell type shit. People who abort are baby killers... blah blah blah blah blah.
Not my Em-o. I look for the lesson. God (who I just refer to the entire universe as, or Big Guy, Abba, a hundred other things) used to give me these incredible prophetic dreams. Example:
I walked into a room where babies were sitting around in a circle. Exactly like a therapy circle. Each one waiting for their turn. Meanwhile, when I walk in I see this baby in a diaper, having a full fledged conversation talking it up. I was so dumbfounded by this. I asked how this baby was just having this full on talk and he responded to me that he was actually a grown man. That he was always afraid of growing up so he kept hanging out with people who didn't force him to. Kept doing the same things that were comfortable. So now there he was hanging out with a bunch of babies because that's where he felt his place was. Being with people like himself.
I awoke and remember my first thought was that was weird. And in an instant my heart said no, it was prophetic. If we always choose to do what we like, or never move out of our comfort zone, we don't grow. Maturity is a gift. And if you ask anyone, growing is never comfortable. That's why a lot of people don't do it, and they live their whole lives as babies.
So while I refer to myself as a Christian, one who only tries to learn with love, I think I have a large grand scale view of life. That actually be my ego though.
I always imagined religion as a room filled with things. Ceiling high. And in each corner of the room is a person that can't really move. So everyone is looking at what is directly in front of them, but not one person can see what the other one does. So all of them are right, but all observing from a different direction. I think everyone's right. Because the beautiful thing in believing that way means that there are far more possibilities. My ego doesn't need to be correct. It needs to believe in possible. In magic. In miracles. I have so many things the universe has done for me its insane.
I couldn't walk for two years. Beaten by my daughters father so badly a nerve in my spinal chord was torn. Two years taking handfuls of pills. And I mean five to ten at a time, at the age of 22 just so I could move. I had two small children, my Nana helped raise them I laid on her floor on a heating pad most days. Being told by doctors I needed to be careful because I was burning myself because after tons of injections in my bones and nerves being burnt, I lost the normal sensation and was hurting myself to get relief.
On a good day, and they were few and far between, I was walking with a friend.
And out of nowhere this guy who was with a couple of people stopped us. Excuse me I remember him saying...... Yes??? We are just out prayer walking and we're wondering if we could pray for you?
.... Sure.. This young man touched my shoulder and in an instant knew everything I had been going through. He looked at me and said, you have horrible back problems don't you? ... Me.. in awe... Yes..? How did you know that? He answered God just told me. You can't walk most days can you? No sir I cannot. And with what I can only explain was a miracle he looked at me and told me it wasn't going to be a problem anymore, I was healed. Now imagine me, flabbergasted.. confused, and then this man praying over me.
And it was real. I still have back problems but I can walk everyday. I know if my back goes out, (maybe 1 or 2 times a year) it's typically Gods way of telling me to slow down. And I listen.
I get mad at the universe. It created me with no patience. Zero. Zip Zilch. So there are often times I am left angry for not getting my way. Hi, my name is Melissa and I am a brat. Even when it comes to God. So I earnestly got checked this summer.
My daughter has a sister. They are 8 months apart. Clearly I didn't birth both of them, and along with being beaten, I had been cheated on. The three adults in this situation handled it all wrong. She was from an upper white middle class family. He was from the hood, and I was from a tiny little beach town, growing up poor and obviously with a lack of real love. At the demise of it all, after we all parted ways, my daughter was 3, she knew her little sister. Her dad took her on the weekends. They bought matching outfits, and took a hundred pictures. This woman actually ended doing very right by my daughter. And then they split up. And my daughter wasn't allowed to see her sister anymore.
Now making mistakes as adults that only affect ourselves is one thing, doing so that it harms children is a complete other. I watched my daughter cry, beg, sob, break my heart because the other mother wanted nothing to do with us now. I wrote her letters, promised her I would meet whatever requirements she had. I wouldn't even be the one dropping her off if that's what she wished. We had run into her in public one time not too long back. She was working at a booth at a festival. I had both of my kids with me. I broke down in the middle of all these people, all of her coworkers, begging her to let our daughters be sisters again. That people can grow up, and I've watched her cry too many times. I couldn't fix this. She said she was moving to Chicago, and said they could see one another, took my number and never called. My daughter was devastated.
Every year my kids go away to summer camp for a week, that's my vacation. At the end of camp, on the day of pick up, after driving two hours up north to get them, my daughter walks out and said "Mom, guess what?" I of course awaited with a what.... She said my sisters here.
I had cried, begged, pleaded, tried to barter with God so much because I was responsible for the breaking of my own daughters heart. And years passed. With encounters with her mom. And only God could of done this. So she had been spending time with her grandparents back here for the summer, and I talked to them, apologizing repeatedly for the dumb things we all did when we were younger. Crying.
They embraced me. Gave numbers, took pictures. Said my daughter could call them anytime. I believe they understood being young and foolish. They were kind, while it was completely unexpected. The best part.... it was church camp.
So I live in a place where I know the Universe hears me, I know that it listens and never forgets. But rather than giving us what we want right now, it holds on to what we need. What will show the most beauty in the universe at once. I know that there are miracles everywhere, you just have to be looking. And you are never ready, that's for sure.
But when I think about being a what kind of person I want to be, it's the kind of person that believes in the impossible. It's why my heart hurts, and yet my faith is so big. That's what I root for. That's why I am a Christian and still say Fuck a lot.
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