I admire those who have a strong faith and a higher power to look to in times of need. More than once I have wished I had that kind of spiritual guidance. I could blame it on my much too logical frame of mind, but really I believe I was lead astray when I needed the reinforcement the most. I was baptized at a young age, attended Sunday School, and my parents were very active in our church. It wasn’t until I was about 11 or 12 that we slowly began to remove ourselves from the community. At that age I was unaware as to why. But by the time I was 13 we had stopped going altogether.
I didn’t understand how they could have been so involved and then just stop so abruptly. I thought, if you believe in something, then it ought to remain a constant, right? At 26, I can now understand that going to an actual place of worship (or not) is not necessarily correlated with personal religious beliefs. But as a preteen, that’s exactly how I saw it. A betrayal. And in this circumstance God and/or Christianity wasn’t ever spoken in our house thereafter.
Looking back I can say the whole experience did nothing but trivialize religion and its place in our lives. My life. And really, at 12 and 13 years old, I needed something to believe in. Something other than what was in front of me at the time. So I spent the next 15 years trying to come to terms with what religion meant to me. For a long time I was cynical and rejected all ideas of spirituality. I had no confidence in what religion could be for me. So instead of trying to understand my own definition, and risk coming up short, I chose to deny my spiritual side before it could ever let me down again.
Not too long ago I confronted my parents about their decision to leave the church; to walk away and never look back. Though I got an appropriate explanation; a practical prospective, to me it will never justify such a vague discontinuance of loyalty.
As an adult I have begun to make attempts to reconnect; to rediscover a higher power. I know it can provide a sense of guidance and structure when everything else falls apart. So often I have craved this sense of belonging and hope to achieve a level of blind faith some day. I understand this will always be a work in progress for me.

This experince has helped me to look within; to ask questions of myself and what I believe. Its never easy, but necessary for personal growth.