SYMPTOMS OF A FAITH LOST - PART 6

Crossing the Line...

So I get back from Africa and the first thing I want to do is go see “this guy” right…so I invite him over to see me (even though I still smell like one of the climbing guide’s b.o. - which was smeared all over my day pack/carry on – and I'm looking pretty rough due to the burn blister on my lip that’s just finally started to heal and due to traveling for close to 3 days - or maybe just what felt like 3 days - in the same pair of clothes. He so sweetly plays a song for me on his phone [Michael Buble’s “You’re my Everything”] and says that this song is now OUR SONG…and I melt for him…even though he doesn’t seem all that interested in the last month of my life where I’ve been thousands of miles away from him, living a life he knows nothing about. He doesn’t want to hear the stories or see the pictures…but I let it go because he dedicated a song to us (blush).

Since I don’t have any faith to keep me in line I start to cross over into a new world where sleep overs with boys and wine coolers hidden in the closet of my dorm room [at a Christian university] seems absolutely normal and acceptable.

I travel to a different city to visit a friend and end up at a house party in the basement of a friend…of a friend…of a friend after just having a drink at a bar downtown. People are smoking weed and I get this strange urge to smoke along. I chicken out of the “real thing” and instead get a couple (of what they told me are called) “shotguns” from some guy my friend knows [before you go thinking that I was planning to shoot someone that night, let me explain a “shotgun” for those of you who don’t know – it’s just when someone else inhales the smoke and then exhales it into your mouth – kinda the same thing as smoking but doesn’t make me feel as guilty…or guilty at all really]. The next day I go to church with that same friend and interestingly enough I run into more than one person from that party the night before and I start to wonder…who are these “Christians” anyways? Drink, party, and smoke weed on Saturday night then go to church and “Praise the Lord, Hallelujah” on Sunday morning? Maybe I could get down with this Christian thing after all… OR …maybe I don’t want to get down at all with a faith where everybody is fake and two-sided.

I tell my boyfriend about the drinking and the weed and although he doesn’t scold me or tell me that I’m going to hell, he does tell me how those things aren’t good for me and he wants better for me…so I probably shouldn’t do them (because of course he NEVER would). He never would because this guy is a saint (not really). He earned his nickname (“Preacher”) when at a young age his mother found a tape recording of him giving a sermon and since then, his pastor, and his family, and everybody else, has had great plans for him.

This guy is like a "Super Christian"...afterall....
He grew up in the church
AND
He does sermons occasionally at his home church
AND
He does Christian stand-up comedy at conferences all across the U.S.
AND
He volunteers for a young people’s ministry
AND
He works at a non-profit Christian organization
AND
He knows the Bible cover to cover
...and is often known to recite scripture in the oddest, most “out of context” manner that is imaginable – but still, all of this gives him the image of a GODLY man – which is part of why I fell for him. I thought, “This guy is a Christian, he goes to church, he knows the Bible, and he likes kids…how can I go wrong?”

Well, I started to go wrong the very minute I let his label as a “Christian” blind me to the things I already saw [but pretended not to really see] in him. I saw that he was very charming and manipulative. I experienced the fact that he told lies to get to the truth and that he could be very evasive and really great with words. I knew that he had had sex with as many as 11 girls before we ever got involved…and YET…he was a CHRISTIAN – that simple fact just HAD to trump all that other stuff that didn’t sound so appealing…only, IT DIDN’T.

He still told me things that I later found out to be lies – because he was looking to get a reaction out of me, looking for a certain response.

He NEGLECTED to mention the fact that there was a pregnant girl out there who may or may not have been pregnant with his baby (from a sexual on and off again relationship before we had gotten into a relationship). I had to find that out from somebody else.

He manipulated me with his words and his actions.

He didn’t treat me right.

I could no longer trust him and all of the weird, strange, and coincidental things that I started to notice were enough to make me go mad.

I decided that if I couldn’t trust him, then I couldn’t be with him - SO - even though it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do (because we had gotten pretty physical and he was my very first relationship) – I broke it off with him.