Liar liar liar, your pants are on fire…
Listening to the last episode of Manje Sale brought up so many feelings that I don’t know where to even start 🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️🤦🏾♀️. Unfortunately they are not so great about my teenage years in the church community.
There are so many takes out from this episode that I want to cry just thinking about it! I have heard so many similar stories from my friends or almost everyone I know who have the same upbringing as me. Unlike the girls sharing their own experiences in their “Christian community” , I grew up on the spotlight, my dad (bless his heart) has been a deacon for more than 20 years and also served at different other functions. Not in a small community but a gigantic one! As the girls were saying how spotlight were most of the time reserved for kids whose parents were so and so, I remember wanting to disappear from those opportunities because the price to pay was so heavy on my shoulders!
I remember that mask that I had to keep on with most people because of their harsh judgments, not only upon me but my parents. I remember how I used to be numb in so many services praying for them to be over because people were so happy to look at my friends and I and gossip about our clothes, behavior, parents ability to raise us. I remember people who are supposed to love one and another laughing at someone else fault. How so much pain!
I wanted to tell the girls that I feel their pain! For the longest time I hit rock bottom and couldn’t bare the idea of another spot on that pedestal. My friends and I had to form a clan to support one another, we did not ask for all of that but it seemed that we couldn’t escape. I often feel like an imposter who was stealing spotlight from more talented kids but the show must go on and even thinking about disturbing the status quo of things would have created so many problems.
As the girls, most of my friends have left their communities , I also had to leave for a while to able breath and find myself. It is so sad that we have so much in common and don’t realize it! I dislike the word “model” with all my strength because for me it only means pain and illusion. I know the difference now between religion and spirituality, I know how to difference the fake from the real! I thank God for rescuing me when “his people” were being so insensitive towards my insecurities and cry out for help.
PS: the most important thing that I’ve learned over the years is to differentiate a “men of church” from a “men of faith”. I’ve used the masculine, so what??? Have you seen women on the highest leadership position?
SophieJ Life Experiences 