FINDING JESUS.

My formative years were spent in the Pentecostal movement. I grew up terrified of demons. There was one behind every bush. There was subliminal advertising on every page. The New Age movement was near the top of the enemy list. Everything was witchcraft. We didn’t celebrate Halloween. We learned more about the end times and abstinence than we ever did about financial responsibility, taking care of our bodies, or loving our neighbor.

If you’ve never broken your “secular” cds in exchange for (wildly mediocre) Christian versions, read I Kissed Dating Goodbye, or listened to Carman, this might not have been your life. If you laughed at any of those references while shaking your head, you are my people.

I grew up feeling guilty. I never felt Christian enough. I didn’t speak in tongues. I had anxiety. As it turns out, teenage me did not want to kiss dating goodbye. In fact, I really wanted to kiss. Please. Anyone. Dear God, someone be my boyfriend.

Many of my peers left church, and with that, Jesus. I can’t blame them. Yet somehow, by grace, I still found Jesus in all of this. He rang true. His message, his grace, his sacrifice resonated. As I became an adult, I questioned, I got angry, I changed my views, but at my core, there was still Jesus. It’s funny… for years I thought megachurch was the greatest of the church evils. But when God planted me squarely in the middle of one, I found the practical pieces I had been missing.

Over the last however many years, I have begun to undo many of the damaging beliefs that my past wove into me. (Church culture. Not you Dad whom I know is reading this. You laid a great foundation that I was able to hang on to, even when sorting through the culture stuff.) I’ve opened myself up to start to consider what I PERSONALLY believed. I sorted through politics, homosexuality, sexuality in general, new age, self help, health, debt...I’m not saying I have it all figured out now. I do believe I have a much clearer picture of what mattered to Jesus and what’s ACTUALLY important. My prayer is that I can teach my children the character of Christ and all of the other stuff they can work through on their own.