This is probably my most personal post yet. Who knows if I'll post it but I feel like I have to write it. That's why I started this blog in the first place, not for followers or to write so people could read it but so that I could heal. I'm not really sure where this post will lead but the subject is my faith. Something I feel is a very personal thing for me. And also something that is part of my journey to becoming fearless. I guess we can start from the beginning...
I was born in the Middle East because my parents were planting a church there. That's how my life started, literally on the mission field. And ever since then I have always been immersed in it. I always knew God existed. I always believed in Him. I always knew I would eventually become a Christian (although I used to want it for the fame of the church). I grew up constantly praying and forgiving people and reading my Bible. It sounds like it was confining but it wasn't. I truly loved it. I also had the perks of traveling all over the world with my parents and family for church sponsored conferences or check-ins with other churches. It was an amazing childhood and my parents were popular. I'm talking rock star status. Still to this day if I mention my first name nothing happens but when I mention my last name it's like every time Harry Potter says his last name... (Oh I'm Harry... Harry Potter... and then everyone freaks out and says how he has his mother's eyes... That's literally my life. People actually say that to me.) Okay anyway, sorry got sidetracked... But I loved it. Reveled in it really. I constantly thought about ways to be held up during a church gathering or thought of ways I could get into my dad's sermons by doing something amazing and caring for someone else. I realize I sound like a freak of a child, and really, I was. I loved my childhood though, I still hold dear memories of the friendships I made at a young age because of church. I will never forget those times. But there was a downside to it all.
When I was in seventh grade (May of my seventh grade year to be exact) my world was ripped out from underneath me. I already spoke about leaving Budapest and how awful that was but a lot of why it was so hard was that my parents had resigned from their church position because of a few reasons I won't totally get into. Basically problems with the leadership and the direction the church was going in. It was so hard for me as a twelve year old girl trying to figure out why God would let me feel all this pain. I remember often laying in my bed in Budapest and looking through the skylight begging Him to let me stay. Begging and bribing Him to let me stay and to let everything be okay. Begging Him to explain what was going to happen to me, to my family. Begging and bribing Him for answers to everything. I never hated God or felt like it was his fault we had to leave but I still just didn't understand why I had to be uprooted and so upset when I was so happy there. I may add I had prayed for so many things in my life (from my Easter bunny stuffed animal, to bringing my parents home safe from conferences) that all came true, so that my faith in God being able to keep me in Budapest was one hundred percent.
When we moved back to the States it was so difficult for me. For multiple reasons. One main reason was my family was alone. Besides our family who was down the street, hardly anyone, who were our friends when we left, contacted us. Of course it is a two way street but a lot of hurtful things happened and not being reached out to after being uprooted so abruptly hurt the most. I'd be lying if I said it didn't. It became very difficult for me to separate the hurt I was feeling from the church. But it was also very easy for me to pray for things, simple things, like making it through the day or being able to instant message with my friends back in Budapest. There was still no doubt in my mind that one day I would make the decision to make Jesus the Lord of my Life. It was just a matter of time really... I was just waiting to make sure it was about me and not my parents or friends that I made that decision.
In all this decision making process I never talked about the pain and anger I really felt with a lot of people for treating my family the way they did, and still do. There is one person in particular I still feel so personally hurt by... Anyway as I have mentioned before I am not great at letting people in to my deepest darkest parts of myself. Who is really? But it's especially difficult for me because every relationship I encounter is already put on a timeline in my head and therefore I freak out thinking I will move or the person will hurt me because a lot of my life that is what has happened. Since I never really faced these feelings before making the biggest decision of my life I do not think I totally gave everything up to God. I did in a sense and was so happy with my decision and was excited to embark in my life as a disciple but I also always had this part of me that was curious. I never have known anything else. It was just my life from the womb that I was going to become a Christian. Not that I was ever forced into it but it was still there. As common as it is for a child to eat dinner every night, it was just as common for me to pray and constantly think about God.
When I made the decision to become a disciple I felt new, I felt clean, I felt free coming out of that water. I knew my life was going change. But I have an awful work ethic and I never worked for it. I would be so inspired at church or camp or on the service projects I was able to go on but I never let anyone totally into that part of me about four layers down into my soul. I hated being vulnerable, hated crying, hated showing my real self, fearing that I may be shot down or worse that someone would let me in and I would let them in. (How messed up is it that to me being close to someone is worse than being shot down?) There were only a few I let in somewhat, but even then I didn't totally open up to them about my doubts or fears. In all honesty there are still things I've never expressed.
When I got to school I was put into a lot of fake relationships. People did not try to get to know Amira but they tried to get to that fourth layer right away, which was not going to happen. I'm not saying they weren't coming from the right place because I think sometimes they were but I also was in such a tornado of change that it was difficult for me to let anyone in. I had a lot of doubts, I felt a lot of pressure, I got overwhelmed. Easily. I always felt guilty, like I wasn't good enough or that anything I did was not going to be enough. I constantly felt I needed to have some big problem or some big revelation and that if I was just real with someone it wouldn't be accepted. It was very hard for me to let anyone in, I think, looking back, because I was still feeling a lot of hurt from people in the past. I didn't handle the situations I was put into as well as I should have and I didn't totally have a great work ethic with my relationship with God so when I started finding people at school who genuinely cared for me and were interested in me, not just my struggles or the things I had or had not done to nourish my relationship with God, I clung to them. It was healthy for me. In all honesty, I was able to make real friends. Not friends who only talked to me because of who my parents were or even who my parents became. People who didn't care that one of my friends was kicked out of the church and friends who still accepted the church as a great place to be. Friends who could see when I was hurting or sad, not just friends who asked because it was literally their duty. It has been a learning experience for me because honestly I didn't really have friendships outside of my family before them.
Then came the boy. The one who I let into those places of doubt and fear. The one who made me believe in myself. The one who I trusted. I started to doubt my life decisions and doubt my faith. I still believed their was a God but I just didn't feel He wanted me feeling so anxious and guilty all the time. I started distancing myself from the church at school. Maybe not in the best most direct way, because let's face it, it was me and I am not always the most direct person when it comes to feelings. But I never left because of the boy. It had been building from freshman year and I had had many discussions with people about it but it never came down to my relationship with the boy. I say that because I know rumors went around that he was the reason but he never was, he just gave me the confidence in myself to finally stand up for what I wanted. What did I want? I didn't know. I wanted freedom. I wanted to be curious. I wanted to make mistakes. Lots of them. I wanted to not feel guilty every morning for pressing the snooze button instead of reading my Bible. I wanted to feel a freedom I had never truly experienced. I knew that it was selfish and I figured there would be moments I would not be happy and that I would probably not find the peace and security that I needed but I needed to experience a life I had never experienced - a life without church. A life, if we're being honest, without God. As scary as that was for me.
I'll skip over some of the gory details of awfulness that I have gotten into, or the days I've stayed up crying, or hyperventilating, and skip to today. I honestly don't think I was mature enough to make the decision I did seven years ago. I think I was ready to and I wanted to but I was a child. I was a child who as not totally ready to give up everything forever. Today I don't think I'm mature enough either. I don't know when I will be. But I refuse to just give up forever either. It's in my head, every now and then. That if the world were to end tomorrow, I may not be on that saved train. But part of me just knows God wants me to go through this rough patch before having me back. I know he's still watching over me. I know I disappoint Him daily. But I don't want to feel like a piece of dirt right now. I want to feel good, not in a worldly way but in a "Hey Amira, you're okay. You're doing fine" kind of way. Because I put myself down enough to have 30 of my peers telling me I don't add up too.
I still have my faith. I just don't have the guilt attached to that faith. I don't have the feelings that I'm not good enough every single day. That's liberating for sure but it's also scary. Because I also don't always have the best judgement, or the best team backing me up. It can be difficult to be alone in this time but I think it's exactly what I need. Closure. And alone time. I don't need a "quiet time" I need me time. And that sounds selfish and maybe dumb to some people but I don't care. Because honestly, no one in this world knows me better than me. And no one knows me better than God and He knows what I need right now. It's okay that I'm still a crazy screw up because even if I was suffocated in my own life I'd still be this crazy screw up.
It's hard for me to be this honest with myself. And with whoever may read this, but I think I need to be honest. Because where I am right now is exactly where I am supposed to be, dwelling on the past or day dreaming into the future is going to make me miss the magic happening right now. I need to realize that the truth can hurt but it is much better than living a lie. So here is to being fearless and to healing and honestly to getting over the past and living for today.
