Preacher, Susan Carter

Going Through Hell

 

In my opinion churches are supposed be a place of renewal and hope, but for me often they have been a place of trauma and pain.  My first traumatic memory in church was at the age of three, in my grandmother’s church.  My mother took me to a production of a well worn play that has gone by many names but with the same basic premise, there are several skits where various people die and go to the gates of heaven.  Once at the gates of heaven, if their name is written in the “lamb’s book of life” they are welcomed into heaven, or a devil comes and drags them away to hell, usually kicking and screaming. 

The play I saw at the age of three was called I Dreamed I Searched Heaven for You, and it started well with a young man who was apparently blind and when he reached heaven he could see.  However the next person to come to the gates of Heaven, a woman, was carrying a baby. The angels took the baby out of her arms and the devil came and dragged her away to hell.  I immediately began to wail because this woman was Ms. Ruby, who had been my Vacation Bible School teacher a mere two weeks earlier!  I couldn’t believe that she would go to hell! More importantly, why wasn’t anyone trying to help her?!  My poor mother, trying to comfort me, took me in her arms and put my head on her shoulder, which should have helped except for the fact that now I had a clear view of hell, which was at the back of the church.  The door leading out of the church had paper streamers and red lights to mimic fire and there were sound effects of screams in the distance.  I began to cry even more loudly because now in my three year old mind we were all trapped in a building with the devil and the only way out of the church was through hell….
…..I never knew how true and prophetic that was going to be. 

How many of you have felt that way when you left the faith or church of your youth? 
I found that the “faith of our fathers” was easy to follow as long as I was able to live up to the expectations of my mother, my friends, and the ones I cared most about in this world. As long as I didn’t challenge their faith by my questions, and my lifestyle fit into the cookie-cutter mold of what they think a Christian should be, I was accepted without question.

I found when I could no longer ignore or hide the differences I felt inside of me that church became a place of condemnation and isolation.  Church became hell.

Faith is personal and if it is dictated to you by others is really your faith?  The courage to stand in the face of your tradition and find God where you truly are is amazing. 

So often we are made to feel ashamed of who we are and what we think, because it challenges someone’s view of Christ. But Christ was never a conformist; in fact much of his ministry was in opposition to the accepted religious tradition of His time.  One of the best examples of these differences in the Bible is John the Baptist, who spent his life living up to the austere expectations of his faith in preparation to be the “prophet that would prepare the way of the Lord.” Yet in the end when he was placed in prison and heard all the things that Jesus was doing he began to doubt, because Jesus’ ministry was completely different from his.  Where John fasted, Jesus feasted; where John strictly observed the Sabbath, Jesus healed on the Sabbath; while John lived in solitude away from the temptations of the world, Jesus placed himself in the middle of it and associated with what was considered the vilest people of society.  So when John sends a messenger to Jesus to ask, “Are you the one or should we wait for another?”, you can hear in this question the anguished cry that so many of us have felt. “Was I wrong? Have I lived my life based on a lie? Has it all been for nothing?”

For when you face the rejection of the congregation of your youth it is easy to believe that you are rejected by the God they serve.  Wholesale rejection makes it difficult to find any hope that God still loves you, but Jesus spent his ministry on earth reaching out to those who had been rejected. Jesus answers John’s messenger by saying, “Tell John the things you have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the gospel is preached to the poor.”  And He follows it with, “Blessed is he who does not fall away on account on me”, or rather when I don’t live up to someone else’s expectations. I am thankful that I can seek God for myself and not the God of another’s vain imagination.

I’ve spent most of my life feeling guilty for something, because I could never get everything right, I could never be perfect.  So no matter how much I separated myself from the world outside of my conservative Christian group, I still felt like a failure.  Is that what God really wants for us, to live in constant reminder of failure? 

The day I realized that God wasn’t a God of guilt was the day I was set free.  I could finally just live life and not spend time in prayer every night begging forgiveness for the day’s failures.  I think God is better honored when we can find His blessings in the midst of our failures.  The blessings of God’s grace are hard to imagine until you’ve had to rely on that grace.  My faith does not rest upon my ability to live up to a laundry list of requirements, but rather on the sure knowledge of God’s love for me when I fail.  I believe in a God of hope not a God of guilt. The God I serve isn’t bothered by my questions, He welcomes them.  He is able to love those I disagree with and also welcomes all who have experienced the hell of exclusion. 

I am tempted to answer those who say I have no hope of salvation with a tirade of Bible verses and theological arguments, but that isn’t really going to change anyone’s mind.
When Jesus was challenged about His actions He cut through their misguided piety by asking them the simplest questions that betrayed their folly. When he was challenged about healing on the Sabbath he asked, “Is it better to do good or evil on the Sabbath?”  I would ask those who question my faith; “Is it better to show love or contempt? Is it better to include those who seek God or to exclude them because they are not like us? And is it better to close yourself off from the world and ignore everyone’s plight, or show the love of God to those who are alone and without hope?”

When I look back on the “hell” I went through as I was leaving the conservative Christian bubble that I had lived in for so long.  I am reminded of the lesson a wise woman taught me years ago.  “If you can’t find God’s goodness in the midst of your pain then you will never get past the pain.”  Leaving the Church of my youth was one of the most painful things I’ve ever done, but I’m thankful that I am not trapped in a faith that taught me to judge myself and others.  I am thankful that I am better able to understand God’s love for me, and His love for others regardless of what I think. 

I think that God will surprise those who have stood in judgment of me and you, who expect to hear: “Well done my good and faithful servant” by saying instead: “Did you think I made a mistake when I made them different? Did you think that the love they felt was any less precious because it wasn’t like yours? You didn’t know me. You didn’t know me when you told those who were sick that I had cursed them, that I was punishing them. You didn’t know me when you thought that I was offended by your questions and refused to listen to those who dared to ask.  You didn’t know me when you rejected those who were trying to seek Me because they refuse to conform to your standards.  You didn’t know me.
 
I may not be able to understand everything about the God I serve, but I know that His love is greater than a condemning society’s prejudice and judgments.  His love is greater than my own prejudice and judgments, my past and my pain.

Print in pdf