Nothing sums up my religious experience more than when I was on a roadtrip with my parents to Flagstaff and I cried for half of the ride.
My dad introduced me to Broadway and all of the best songs and shows and we loved to sing along to our favorites on long car rides. Music was a way for us to connect and I loved it. But when I was around 8 or 9 I started to become more aware of my faith and I was becoming an “adult” in the church’s eyes. This meant more intense lessons on my religion and more gloom and doom teachings.
I started to become scared of ever thinking or saying a bad thought about God and my faith. Every time I had a doubtful thought or a negative one, it spiraled me into a panic attack filled with fear of going to hell. It didn’t help that my OCD symptoms, at the time, were growing in intensity and starting to drastically affect my life. But I took the premise of the gift of “fear of the Lord” a little too far.
On this road trip my dad and I were singing Les Mis and the line “Jesus doesn’t care” from the opening song sent me into a downward spiral. I started to cry and pray and beg God for forgiveness because somehow in my child mind I was convinced that my dad singing this lyric meant eternal damnation.
I can’t imagine what 8 year old me would think now about what I’ve heard or done or said, but I know that it would cause an unhealthy amount of fear within me. I spent so much of my childhood scared of my faith and thinking anything different than what I was exactly taught and that takes a toll on anyone, not to mention a child.
I think that one of my biggest issues with the church is this idea that you are not allowed to question and to doubt. Yes everyone preaches that doubt is okay and you should always question but at the end of the day they only accept the kind of questions that can be nodded off with a superficial answer and hope that you won’t pry for more.