Hiding In Plain Sight

     For a decade almost, I've had seeds of anger, cultivated under the soil of my past in regards to my original church. Entrenched in tradition, I went majorly to please my parents. "Honor thy father and mother", right? I knew what not to do and avoided them. Pretty simple operation for a naive child, over-protected and smothered by the fabric of pews every Sunday. Then, my world opened up and closed off at the same time: I graduated to the youth program, if one can call it that.

     I didn't have a full set of social tools to bridge gaps between myself and others easily. I was quiet, reserved, wanting acceptance, but the way to achieve it was unknown. In the Real World of my group, it came as no surprise that I was cliqued out of that channel of the upper echelon. In hindsight, I could've tried more instead of isolating and victimizing myself, but I didn't know what I know now. With three to four leadership changes in our youth group generation, there was no one to cling to for tangible comfort; by the time they got close, they left. This made us detached from the church; we didn't have much of a voice, our teenage outcries squashed by wretched indifference and assumptions of us being okay.

     We spoke of camps being the end-all-be-all of our spiritual unrest. Like throwing preteens to a babysitter, it seemed that God could only be seen or experienced at places with colored flags flying high. We got a spiritual adrenaline rush for at most a week, and  then we got a one-way ticket back to topical relationships, half-hearted attempts, luke-warm pursuits, self-fulfilling prophecies, and holistic unfulfillment from the one place we could've utilized as refuge and sanctuary: the bride of Christ.

     There was a sinful virus that ran rampant in our group; its symptoms being legalism, social barriers, superiority, and pride. It incurred deep spiritual wounds in a majority of us. Out of the 30-40 people that were in the youth, 4-6 of us still go to the same church. Though unbiblical, I understand why people leave places they were hurt by.

     ~80% mortality rate. Impressive, Satan.

     To all who knew me, I pray you can forgive my reclusive nature, my selfishness, and my pride running so deep that I breathed in the pollen of my anger in full bloom in silence rather than pursuing hatchet-burying.

     To all who can empathize with this situation at all, I pray that whatever sin, shame, hurt, anger, or judgment you were subjected to can be given to the One who died for all these things. I pray you can let go. Healing is a time-staking, painfully aggravating process, but it's far healthier than harboring pain and allowing it to fester and ferment into the heady brew of bitterness.