Hey guys. I'm back from camp. This camp is a Christian camp (not Catholic, more like a youth thing) and for the first time in my life, I am going to blog about my religion (more than just the superficial stuff) and it's going to be all corny I guess. Don't read if you're just going to judge, and you have already been warned of this post's content. But this camp, Camp Momentum, was unbelievable and so surreal. It was, after much thought, life-changing.
This camp started on the 6th of April on Tuesday and ended today, the 9th of April. Well.. I really don't know where to start. I think I'll just start with an anecdote (haha), but a serious one at that. This anecdote is something I was struggling with for a long time already, it's been like maybe half a year or a year, that I've been struggling internally. It's really brought me down and I've never told anyone about it before. Really. I just didn't have the courage to. I thought of emailing my mum or going to see the priest over here a few times to try and get some answers or advice, but I guess I just never did any of those. It would be so hard to tell my parents or even Kat about this, I guess because we hardly communicate. So yea. Hold on tight. This might shock you out of your seat. It's pretty serious, in my opinion. So wipe off that internal smile off your virtual face (you know how you smile inside but don't actual move your facial muscles?) and know that you've been warned.
The thing is, I was battling with my faith, I was losing it. I was born in a Christian family, I'm Catholic. Ever since I was a conscious Christian (as in like.. I reached the age of maturity or whatever you call it), I pray every night before going to bed. But my family, we weren't those really holy type of Christians. We didn't pray before meals, we didn't do those family prayers or worships, we didn't read the bible. We did go to mass on Sundays, but if we missed it it wasn't end of the world. You get what I mean?
So yea. Then like recently (the time when this all started), I started to test my faith, to test God. I was questioning so many things about Christianity, about God, I was doubting everything. I guess I always sort of had those doubts, but then something made me just put it into focus and I really, really questioned it all. I think that the reason this all started was because of my stupid over-analysing and over-thinking nature. The questions and doubts I had all had to do with Christianity challenging my practical nature, which is derived from my over-analysing and over-thinking.
I was thinking things like: *braces self, deep breath*
-Does God even exist? What if I'm praying with all my heart and it's just a foolish act, I'm just talking to myself, having false hope. No one is on the other side listening to my prayers. It could just be meaningless hopes and wishes I'm citing to myself.
-Why does God always talk about healing the sick, giving sight to the blind, giving hearing to the deaf; always only talks about praying for those forlorn (poverty, sick etc) and what about us who aren't any of those? I know it sounds selfish. I'm not being selfish. Think about it, in church, during those prayers, we always pray about those who are sick, blind, those who have turned away from Jesus with hardened hearts. Never, not once, do they pray about us normal people who face normal problems like school etc. It sounds foolish. But really. I've never seen it mentioned in the bible before (not that I read it). Praying for us who lead normal lives but face hard problems too. Maybe our problems aren't as dire as those others, but they are still problems which bring so many of us down. It's so hard to channel my thoughts into words that mean the same thing. I don't think this is selfish. Maybe it is. I don't know. But I know this is one of the stupid thoughts in my head.
-Another one of my thoughts was that Christianity, my believing in God, was a source of great, great stress. This is probably the one that really, really brought me down. God is the marionette of all our lives, agree? His will is the one that gave us life, that made us who we are today. So, He is also the one who knows when we are going to leave this world. My greatest fear of all, is that one that I love will leave this world. At night before bed, the thing I would ALWAYS pray for before bed is that God will continue to have mercy on us, that He will continue to watch over us and keep everyone I love safe, healthy and happy. I always repeat that prayer again and again. I could say it twenty times before bed (not exaggerating), in hopes that God will really hear it, that He would really answer that prayer. I'm so, so, so utterly frightened of the unexpected the next day, that maybe, just MAYBE, someone I love would leave this world. So I always pray and pray and pray that that would not be the case. It scares me that one day, someone I love might just get in a car accident, would get cancer or something like that. It could just be one of us, you never ever know. So it gives me great stress. I get scared when I don't pray about it. I get scared when I pray about it.
-Another is how God is, according to the bible. God is a jealous God, He is one that is proud as well. You know how when God worked through Moses to save his people in Egypt? He sent the ten plagues. And He made the Pharaoh stubborn and not release His people just so He could 'show the Pharaoh how powerful and great and real He is'. Or something like that. Why is He like that? Why why why? Why does He have to be that way?
I don't know. There were really a lot of questions running through my mind. I was seriously so confused. It was really getting me down, it made me so miserable and.. sort of depressed, in a way. It was so serious, to the extent that when I was lying in bed at night, I would think about it. I would think and think and ask those questions again and again. I would pray to get some answers, that these doubts will go away. It was to the extent *brace yourselves. Seriously* that on some nights when they really got me down, I would be like I'm going to give up being a Christian. Is God even real? Is He even there? Why am I still a Christian? I'm just going to stop believing. Yes, it was that serious. I felt so horrible inside. I felt so, so sad, so depressed. I was desperate for answers. I aspired to keep believing in God, but that didn't make all the doubt go away.
But then, seriously thank God, I never gave up. Even though those thoughts were deep in my heart, I still went to mass on Sundays. I still prayed every night before bed. Sometimes as I prayed, I would also be thinking those horrible things at the same time. Subconsciously maybe?
Then things at home weren't that good (still isn't much better, though a different kind of horrible). It made things worse. Made me more pessimistic, more negative and more down. I sometimes felt that my aura was just really dark, like a dark cloud was perpetually above me, following me everywhere. It didn't really make me question God more, it didn't really make more doubts or questions pop into my head, but they did make me so down that I WOULD ponder on those doubts more often.
So yea. That was alllllllllll that I've been going through. Sad, huh? Wrap your head around it guys, it must be a shocker for all of you. But don't worry too much. I'm seriously fine now. Maybe not 100%, but really. I feel so much lighter than before. I feel great. Read next post to find out how I came over this. It's so unbelievable, even to me.
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