And I wish I could say that there’s something so strong in the church that wants me to stay. But I haven’t found it. I came to the realization because friends have been there for me when I have told them many of the things that don’t go hand in hand with whatever the church wants us to believe. They have been there for me; they have not judged me. And they have helped me realize that God is not judging me. God is not punishing me for something I don’t even know what it was. I have been able to realize that God is here with me. And even though I am not going to church, “Pray, read my scriptures, have the perfect family,” that they want me to have, God is still with me, and I never knew that.
For the past twenty—what, how long have I been in the church? Eighteen years that I have been in the church I never had God with me. I never knew I had God with me. And that was supposed to be what the religion in my life was supposed to bring me and I never had it. It just hurts so much that I have lived eighteen years of my life, as a teenager trying to figure out who I am, raising my own family and I feel completely alone, not even God being by my side. I couldn’t see it. The church made me believe that he wasn’t there because I did not fit in that box. I was not part of that group of perfect families that are happy and doing every single thing in the gospel the right way.
And I have come to realize that he doesn’t care, he doesn’t have any conditions for me. And he loves me.