Compared to other people, my family isn't the most fundamentalist. I wasn't told I could only be a wife and mother. I wasn't discouraged from going to college and getting an education. I wasn't trained to be dominon oriented, as some girls are. But everything revolved around the church. Nearly all my friends were church friends. Nearly all of my entertainment was church-oriented. When those church doors opened, we were there. I wasn't given a choice in the matter, not while I was living at home. I got up, got dressed and went to church. No discussion.
That doesn't sound so bad, does it? I mean, it's just church, right? Just four hours Sunday morning. And another three Sunday nights (we didn't always stay for the full sermon Sunday nights! Rebels that's what we were.) And you know, another four on Wednesday night. And well, the weekend-long Youth Rallies. Then the week-long Summer Camp I was compelled to attend, even when I said I didn't want to go. Really, going to Church was my part-time job only I didn't get paid and there were no sick or vacation days.
I had no choice. None. In fact, that was a recurring theme of the Church. God gave you free will, only not really, because He had a plan for your life and you were going to follow it, like it or not. And they said that, actually. That a lot of the time, God wanted you to do things you didn't want to do. That a lot of the time it was hard following God's plan, but you did it anyway because the consequences of not doing that were too dire.
What were the consequences? Well, they started out kinda small. First, God would make you miserable. Send the Holy Spirit on a torture run, give you grief and depression and anxiety and whatnot. Just to get your attention, you see. Cause that's how God works, he bullies you into submission. But, if that didn't work, well then he'd send the Holy Spirit out on a biological warfare mission. Get you sick, physically. That flu you got? It's not because someone sneezed on you or forgot to wash their hands, it's the Holy Spirit (aka God's Holy Hitman) trying to get your attention. Broke your leg? Sucks, but if you'd just done what God wanted you wouldn't have fallen off your bicycle and gotten run over by the car. And if that doesn't work? Well, then the Hitman goes to work on the rest of your life. Maybe you lose your job. Or your kid turns up pregnant. The car gets totalled and you have no way to replace it and the other driver has no insurance. Too bad. Listen to God, won't ya? But, if you STILL won't listen, after all of that? Well, then God's got to take you out. Like, dead. The Hitman puts a bullet between your eyes, squish. And you're off to see the Wizard, I mean, God. Where you will be told that if you'd just done what he wanted, you'd still be alive and your family wouldn't be crying their eyes out over your corpse.
So, there's your choice: Do what God wants or go to an early grave. Literally, they said that and backed it up with some Bible verses about God spewing lukewarm Christians out like so much garbage. There's another verse they used too, that I can't quite remember because I've blocked it out, but it essentially said that Yeah, God's gonna remove you so you won't be a stumbling block for others.
So, do what God wants, will ya?
Except, they couldn't really tell you what God wanted. You'd have to figure that out on your own, but really, if you were doing what God wanted, then you wouldn't be stressed or anxious and you'd never get sick and you'd never have any family/work/life troubles and you'd live to be old old old and die peacefully in your sleep, like all righteous people ever. (I guess Jesus was a screw up, because I don't remember him dying peacefully or being very old.)
So, it seemed to me like there was no getting away from God. You were compelled to do what he wanted, at the cost of your own free will and desires. Desire, wanting anything was bad. (And a whole other story. I'll tell you how that's affecting my marriage at some point.) If you didn't want anything, then you couldn't be disappointed when you didn't get it because it wasn't God's Will for your life.
When I was a sophomore in high school, I applied for a gifted boarding school our state runs. I wanted it so badly. Classes on literature and art and history and science and music and...well, it was everything I wanted. I was bored beyond belief in my public school and there were no private schools for me to attend. I was already reading at a college level. I was reading Tolstoy in class and all the teachers just let me, because they knew bored I was and that I was already way beyond what they had to teach me. (I'm not trying to be snobby. I didn't do anything to get the intellect I have. I was just born lucky.) I wanted to go to this school soooo badly. And I'd managed to convince my parents to let me go, if I got in. Which, frankly, was no mean feat. My father was hard to persuade and my Mom had to work on him for a long, long time. But finally, they agreed.
I worked extremely hard on my application and was accepted to the semi-final round! Yay! I couldn't believe it. So, we went up to the school for the interview and additional testing. And I fell hard, so so hard, in love with this place. I could see myself, walking those halls, taking those classes...finally having my ideas taken seriously, not having people look at me like I was a freak. It was amazing.
And then we did the IQ and math tests.
Math. I hate math. I know now that it's because I have a learning disability, but i didn't know that then. So I did my best, but I knew. I knew that I'd blown the math portion. Still, I was hoping the rest of my scores would be more importan.
That was the longest summer of my life, waiting for those results. Waiting for that letter that told me I'd gotten in. That I could finally, finally have something I really, truly, deeply wanted. I'd never wanted anything so badly in my life. I'd always been too afraid, so scared of going against what God wanted for me. But, I thought, God gave me this mind, he gave me this intellect. Surely, he'd want me to develop it? He'd want me to use it as best I could? And this school would help me do that. So it HAD to be God's will for me to go.
Only, I didn't get in.
I remember walking down the long dirt road to our mailbox. I remember seeing the envelope. I remember feeling how incredible thin it was and I knew. I knew I didn't get in. I started crying even before I opened it.
I was placed on the alternate list. So, if someone else didn't go, I could get in. Only, that didn't happen. I never got called up. I remember crying for days about not getting in. I remember how crushed I felt, how hopeless and lost and just. . .stupid. Yes, I felt stupid because I'd let myself want something that badly. Stupid to want anything, stupid to need anything. Stupid to have any desires of my own. I wasn't supposed to want anything. I wasn't supposed to need anything. Because, you see, God had a plan. And that plan was more important than anything I could want or need or desire. So not getting in was a punishment. A punishment for not waiting for God to reveal his plan and daring to want something of my own.
(Of course, now I realize that's silly. I didn't get in because my Math disablity caused me to totally bomb the math tests and part of the school's focus was ON math, so. . .It really was beyond my control at that point, because I hadn't gotten my diagnosis and hadn't gotten any help to deal with it. Ergo, math go boom.)
And whenever anyone saw me upset about it, they'd tell me not to cry because God had a plan and there was something better waiting for me. Except, there wasn't. I finished public school and went on to a public college. (Although, I will admit the college I went to was awesome. It was actually the college version of the high school I tried to get into, full of nerdy, gifted people like me.) There was no silver lining, just a very disappointed 15 year old girl. Who spent the next year suicidial and obsessed with being the very best Christian she could be until she got sick of it and decided to make some serious changes in her life once she got to college. Clearly, what I was doing wasn't working, so fuck it. Try something new.
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