Dreams that Still Haunt Me

I had a dream that still haunts me and reoccurs from time to time, often with some different forms, or I'll just see flashes of the scene, but it still comes and goes, as it has for years.
In the dream, I walk into a sanctuary. The pews are stained so dark, they're black, and everything is covered in a layer of dust. The place has a smell that is a mixture of an old church (anyone has to know what that smell is) and evil, like rotting blood or dead bodies. The ceiling is open all the way up, and the same dark stain coats the rafters and the walls.

I stand off to one side, to the right in the back, under the choir loft. Someone is standing with me, but I don't know who it is. I never look. I believe it is a man, but I don't know who he is. I get the impression that he's from my more recent life. He's from my now. He doens't know of my past, and he doesn't understand what is going on.

There is another man standing center stage, rage pouring from his being. My family is standing in front of him, namely my parents, and this man, this pastoral-like figure, is pure evil and full of fury. I stand in the back, unable to move, unable to speak, unable to do anything, while this evil man brutally slaughters my family in front of me, letting their blood spread all over. The figure next to me doesn't understand anything that's going on. I want to scream. My body shakes. My body shakes when I can't cry. My body shakes when I'm furiously angry. I look down at my legs. My thighs are splitting like ball park franks with huge horizontal slices that bleed profusely. I'm trying to pull down my skirt over the wounds, trying to cover them up and hide them while watching my family being killed. Figure next to me is confused. He's looking at my legs, taking hold of my elbow, saying my name. I don't know what to say to him. The pastor's eyes are full of evil fury and he looks at me.

I wish I had had this dream three years ago, even two years ago. I wish this didn't still haunt me. I had this dream about three months ago. It's one of many like it, though this is the most detailed dream I can remember anymore.

I don't understand it, and I'm not too sure I'd even want to. What I do know is at some point, while we were in the process of leaving my XC, someone spoke to my mom and said that the congregation would rather see my family's blood in their aisles than have us back in fellowship. I know that makes the dream seem pretty obvious. But it's been five years, and I've moved on from so much of it, you'd think I'd be able to get to a point where I at least wasn't still having the dreams.

Do spiritual wounds, such as the ones so many of us carry, ever really heal? I don't think time heals things like this.

I'll be honest, I've tried to leave and ignore so much of it, so much of my faith even. I closed my eyes to spiritual things a long time ago because I was so weary and beaten down, and so young, I just didn't want to deal anymore. I left my town and the life I've been living has barely lined up with the perfect little christian girl I was before. I honestly don't regret most of it . . . but I thought once I wasn't immersed in that church anymore, in all the evilness that was there and all the lies that were being told, I thought once I was free from those bonds, the dreams would stop and I would heal.

Apparently, I was wrong.

Derek

"Hunny, I think Derek's going to have to hurt you real bad for you to finally leave him." We were standing in the omlet line at the caf, two finals down and one to go when Jordan said this. She had just recently broken up with her boyfriend of four years. She was speaking from experience.

"I know, I know," I said, looking at the floor. I've been trying to break things off with Derek for a long time. I love him, I really do, but I've compromised so much of what I've always believed for him and I just couldn't do it anymore. He had a lot of problems, a lot of baggage, and I don't know where it all stems from. At twenty-one, he's been an alcoholic for probably at least four years, and while I connect with him intimately, he's been with a lot of women, and I could always feel that he wasn't all there when we were having sex.

Hours later, finals finished, I walked into my room to my roomate, Kelly, sitting on the couch with that we-need-to-talk-and-i-don't-want-to-be-the-one-to-tell-you look on her face. I knew immediately that it was about Derek and it wouldn't be good. Kel had just left her friend's room, after she had announced to Kelly that she's been sleeping with Derek for months, and how bad she felt for me that I didn't know.

I took off. I drove for hours on roads I didn't know. I cried. I screamed.

I went back to school and confronted Derek. I raised my voice and he nearly cried. I wanted to cry then. I wanted him to see my tears, but I was just furiously angry. I left and told him I didn't want to see him anymore, that I couldn't see him anymore.

How desperately I want to see him now.

That wasn't even a week ago. Since then, I sat down with my parents and confessed to them everything that happened with Derek. They took it surprisingly well.

At this moment, I'm hurt, I'm angry, I'm heartbroken, and I want him to hold me so desperately. I want to lie in his arms and cry. I want to kiss his face, his neck, his chest. I want to hold him and tell him that things can be better, that he can change. I don't want to accept that it's over. I want to think that in a year, in a month, in a week, he'll call me, tell me he's changed, and he'll be what I've always needed him to be.

But I'm realizing some things now. For him to change, he needs to first hit rock bottom. He needs to see himself completely broken. He needs to see how he broke me and other girls in his past. He needs to see the opportunities he's walked out on, and be completely and totally ripped apart. He needs to have two options: give up and die, or get help.

I pray he hits bottom soon. If he doesn't, he will never change, no matter what I or anyone else says. He will never be the man he can be if he doesn't fall.

Sometimes, I think he's close. The things he'd say to me while I held his aching head to my chest when he'd had too much to drink . . . he's coming closer to the edge than he ever had before. I hope he falls soon. I want him to fall and I want him to fall hard and soon, so he can start getting back up.

God, I pray that you break him, I pray that you break him so much, that he can actually see you for the first time. I pray that you break him hard enough that he has to hope and have faith. I pray that you put people in his life who can help him when he breaks, and I pray that you help me stay out of it. I pray that he chooses help, and that he chooses you. I pray you help him back to his feet. I pray that you change him.

Let him see who he hurt. Let him feel the pain, let him feel all of it, and let him be overwhelmed enough to call out your name. Let him be angry at whatever happened to him, but don't let him turn to alcohol or replacement pain.

Don't let him just continue as he is right now. Break him God, please, break him.

Then heal him, please, heal him.

And heal me.

I'm worth more than the level I stooped to this year. I'm worth more than a guy who treats me like meat. I'm worth more than sex. I'm worth more than my body.

I ask that you make me stronger and wiser because of this. Give me new strength and new focus. Help me keep my mind off of him unless it is in prayer.

I want to seize opportunities and return to who I used to be before I compromised so much.

Be with me. Be with him. Keep us both.

Help me forgive him.

Sex, Drugs, Alcohol vs. Church, Bibles, and Sunday School

I was out driving around town the other day, just cuz I needed to get out and away, and I just got to thinking about life. I have this boyfriend/whatever you want to call him who I've been a little on and off with lately. He tells me not to think so much. I thought about that. And I think I don't want to be with someone who doesn't want me to think.

Anyway, I was thinking about how the other day, I was frustrated and venting to my roomate, Mary, about how a friend of mine is trying to drag me back to church. She even went as far as to ask me when I was slightly intoxicated one weekend and keeps coming back with "You promised you'd go next week." Some of my friends treat me like I'm this vile person since I've left the institution of the church. Honestly, though I'm coming to terms that I have not made the best decisions the past few yeasr, I feel freer now that I'm out of the church than I ever have.

So I was venting to Mary, and I was trying to justify my frustration with Jenna, and I said something like, "Honestly, it's not like I'm this terrible sinner who needs to find god and cleanse myself, it's not like I'm . . . " And I was quiet for a second. So Mary graciously chimed in, "You're not what? Drinking, smoking, and having sex?" We both kinda laughed at the irony.

But it really got me thinking . . . I was so bitter, so incredibly angry when I left my church, I started thinking everything they ever told me was bullshit. And while they denounced this on the pulpit, as a student, I was beaten over the head with the idea of "do better, try harder." It was like this constant game of trying to excel to the next level, of being this perfect little Christian girl. Those friends of mine who were in my senior high youth group with me at the time shit went down, we've all "rebelled" in some way or another against this idea. I myself rejected this idea that I had to be a better person and do better things in order to be a Christian or have faith. I killed the god I knew, and started believing in a God who I think loves me anyway, who I think, looking back, was there with me everytime I made poor decisions, as much as he's been there when I've made good decisions. I think my friends and I may have hit on something, but I think we're still missing something pretty big too.

Because all the shit we do right now, the sex, the drugs, the smoking, the drinking, the boys -- it's all trying to fill a gap that was left behind in the "do better, try harder." I don't look at myself and think I'm this God-aweful person for what I've done -- though I realize I've made a lot of mistakes and very poor, possibly dangerous decisions. I don't think I'm going to hell for getting drunk, for wanting to feel a man's body pressed against my own, for destroying my body in all the ways I have . . . I think it was "wrong" (god, i hate that word) because I think all I've been doing is trying to fill a gap, and emptiness I struggle with. I used to fill that emptiness with "good deeds" or church or the bible, or this really selfcentered prayer I was taught. I'm not sure what was more wrong -- filling this hole with sex and drugs and alcohol, or filling it with these pharacitical ideas that I was a better christian than other people because I didn't do these things.

I'd write more, and continue these thoughts, but I'm halfway to being late to class. I'll come back to this. But in conclusion, I think I'm really starting on this journey now back to healing, or back to me.

Worship?

I've been struggling so much lately with the idea of where worship fits in my life anymore. For the longest time after getting out of the church, I would say that the part I missed the most was the worship. Worship at my exchurch was beautiful. The woman leading it had a beautiful voice, the arrangement was gorgeous, the band was good, the songs were young and easy to "get-into." Now, however, I'm questioning whether that really was worship at all, or if it was just a free concert with pretty, emotion filled songs that really meant nothing at all when it came to this God we were supposed to be acknowledging. I've been questioning it even more recently, as the woman who used to lead the worship and mentored me for years has left her family for a married man, an affair took place on the team, and from what I've heard, in the past few years, the entire worship service was so focussed on preformance and very little actual worship actually took place.

My question now? Do I even need any of this to worship? I believe that I had experiences there where I was in a meditative worship of the real God, not the fake god that place tried to show me. I really do believe that, but I think what was going on there prohibitted me from seeing this more than it helped.

Two years into college, five years out of the church, and I'm finding pressure from my Christian friends at school to go back to church, get back into worship, find God again . . . What the fuck? Do I need church to worship? Do I need church to see God? Do I need other people to lead me into worship? Explain that to me, when I can't even sit through a church service now without feeling great anxiety or disgust or nausea. I dread days I have to go to church. I've had to go a few times since coming to school for different reasons: record the college choir, a baby is being dedicated, a couple is getting married and I'm in the wedding. How am I supposed to worship there when I've never felt like it was true worship to begin with, and when I can't get my mind away from thinking "get me the fuck out of here now, please."

There's this patio out the side of my house where I always stand when I let my two dogs out. When things were really bad with my church for my family, when we were in the worst of it, and massive amounts of shit were hitting the fan, I needed to get out bad, but I was only 14,15,16, and I couldn't drive. So I'd let the dogs out and just stand there. I'd look up at the stars and I'd talk. "I can't do this anymore, I can't breathe. God, this hurts so bad. Where are you? How can I do this? Anything, give me anything to get out. Give me anyway to be free. All I can do now is cut, I don't want that anymore, but I don't see you, and it's the only thing that helps. God, fuck you. How could you let this happen? You can't possibly be who they think you are if you're hearing this. Do you hear me. Fuck you. I hope you hear this. Fuck you." Sounds terrible. Sounds sacreligious. Sounds heretical.

That was my worship at that time. I was at least acknowledging. I was alone and in contact with whoever the hell this Being was or is. I was honest. And I really believe he heard me.

I don't think that's all worship should be -- a rageful rampage at the supernatural -- but I think I was hitting on something even then. I don't need these people standing on a stage singing empty words that really mean nothing to get to the heart of what worship is. I don't need a band or the music or the people. Just me and him. Just the honesty and him. Call it a prayer, call it worhip, call it heracy, I don't care. It worked for me. It still works for me.

Mistakes

This is post is a bit off topic concerning the church, but I feel it has something to do with it in my ever so twisted way.

I’ve been seeing this guy as of late – since September. He’s three years older, a senior at my school. I started seeing him because the room situation I was in was pretty impossible. My best friend and I decided to room together for a second year, even after the first year didn’t go so well. I got sick and she broke her foot, and the tensions in the room were unbearable. We fought all the time. So this guy, I’ll call him Derek, showed back up in my life and offered me a place to stay. I’d stay with him four nights out of the week usually, snuggling and kissing and talking. It was a bad idea, I knew it then. It used to be against what I believed in a way. I used to believe sleeping next to someone is something that should be saved for marriage. Actually, I think that now, but between September and now, I thought differently. Well, as is no surprise to myself in hind site, you can only sleep next to someone for so long before going to far. I lost my virginity to him in November.

It’s been a whirl wind since then. I felt guilty at first, but I think it was mostly old voices in my head telling me I shouldn’t be doing this because I wasn’t a good person. I shot those voices down pretty quickly. Funny, my church and youth leaders always made sex outside of marriage sound very unfulfilling, but honestly, I had a lot of fun with him. I felt really close to him. We began to care about each other more and more.

I know now it was wrong, it was too fast, it wasn’t as real as it could have been. We’ve been on and off for about a month now – since I thought for a few weeks that I might be pregnant. I compromised so many of my beliefs for this guy and took the morning after pill, basically just not admitting to myself what it was doing. Now, I really am opposed to it, since I’ve done research since then and know what it does. But it freaked us both out and he suddenly stopped having time for me. I needed him and he wasn’t there. I grew so angry. I finally got his attention when he glimpsed my anger (I usually don’t let people see it at all). He came over, we talked, we talked a lot. We came to the conclusion that everything had happened so quickly, that we cared a lot for each other, but right now, we aren’t ready for this kind of relationship. I think sex should be so much more than it was for us, and I had lost sight of that. He doesn’t know what he thinks. Three years my senior, and I’m telling him he needs to grow up, find himself, figure out what the fuck he wants before he can ever be with a woman. And I need time away from him, I need space, I need to be free to date, maybe find a guy who really respects me.

It lasted a week before we were back in bed. Then we talked. And I took my number out of his phone, told him it had to be over for a long time, told him I needed him to get out of my life for a while, told him I loved him, but I can’t do this to myself. I’m trying to figure out too much right now, concerning myself, concerning God, concerning family and where the hell church might ever fit into that, and I don’t have time to be in this kind of dysfunctional relationship with him. I walked out. And now he’s everywhere. I can’t get away from him. He doesn’t live in the same part of campus I do, and he’s hardly ever been to my dorm, but now he’s here all the time.

I think things like this are tests sometimes. I need to focus on God and my life for a while, and now I can’t get away from the guy? I’m honestly grieving the loss of my virginity, because I know it was a mistake I shouldn’t have made, a mistake I wouldn’t have made had I been thinking clearly at the time. And he’s everywhere.

I don’t pray as much as I used to, but I feel like every time I lift this up now, every time I ask God to help me out with this, to make it easier so I can figure shit out, I run into him, I see him somewhere, he calls me . . .

I’ve screwed up. I know that. I finally am realizing my screw ups again, and I’m realizing it outside the realm of churchianity. I’ve learned that there are reasons for these boundaries God’s got for me outside of “the pastor said the Bible says not to do it.”

And, oh, sex, it is so worth waiting for. I can honestly say that now, from experience, for whoever might be reading this – just wait. I wish I felt comfortable enough with my mistake to tell my little sister, to be honest with my family and tell them I get it now. I’ve ended up learning most things the hard way now, because I left all my beliefs and the basis for them so long ago. For anyone who doesn’t have to learn something the hard way, take my word for it, it is worth waiting for. It is special. It is fulfilling at the time, but I can only imagine how amazing it would be if I knew the person was still going to be there in a year, in a month, in a week, tomorrow . . . I never knew with Derek, and now, I need him to be gone, and that hurts more than anything – that I’ve grown to care about this guy, maybe mostly through the sex, but I care nonetheless. I’ve been more intimate with him than anyone else, and it’s time to say goodbye for good.

Here’s to being single for a while. Here’s to finding myself again. Here’s to figuring out who this God I’m looking for is and how I can look for his footprints. Here’s to learning from mistakes.

God, help me figure this life out a little bit more.

Spirituality?

When I left my church, I kind of went into this crazy spin. I needed out of my house, out of my town, away from everything that reminded me of all that had happened. Throughout all of junior high and high school, I felt completely trapped in this world of lies and pain – I had no youth group, the pastor I had trusted for eight years was trying to sue my dad, my mom was having an emotional break down, and I was angry – so, incredibly angry.

Now that’s it’s been a few years, I’ve experienced so much more of life than I probably would have (or should have) if I had never left. I think I needed that in ways, but I’ve come to a point where I’m questioning so much more of my spirituality than I was initially.

I’m not sure where exactly God fits in my life right now. Church used to be everything for me and my family. I was there every Sunday at least twice, Wednesdays, and usually at least two more times through out the week. It’s where all my friends were, where all my mentors were. If I was doing something fun, it was there. If I was doing something involving leadership, it was there. Most of my church peers went to my Christian high school. I was ridiculously immersed in the church – both the positive parts and the crock of shit they teach you and believe.

Sometimes I feel like the God I believed in there doesn’t even exist. The God I know now seems to have a completely different heart and skin to him. Honestly, I think if the Church met God on the street today, at least the God I believe in, they would hate him, demolish him, kill him. I think in a way, they already have killed him with lies and rules and standards. I don’t fit those standards anymore. I like myself a lot more now.

But I was taught how to interact with the god my church believed in. I was taught how to believe, I was taught about the realm he lived in, and told I had insight and discernment into that entire world. I was taught how to pray – sometimes even how to pray to get what I wanted. I was taught how I had to respect those in authority and not question them. I know the last part is bullshit now. And I’m questioning the rest of it.