People... and their religion

[ credit: Pinterest ]

I don't believe in God or Jesus or Mother Mary or The Holy Spirit.

But I use to.

I grew up in a Roman Catholic household and family. The things we could and couldn't do in church were strict. It wasn't a day of celebration. It was more like every Sunday we were mourning something. It was actually depressing now that I think about it. There was a lot of quiet. A lot of prayer. A lot of... I don't really remember because I was always so tired as a child from band comps that I pretty much would endure the hour and a half of complete and utter silence other than the pastor talking or him telling us to sing a song. Seriously. Depressing.

When my OCD hit me hard in 2006, I decided to make a change. A lot of my fears came from being sent to hell so I figured, let's change religions! To be completely honest, believing in God never felt right to me. It never made sense to me. There were so many questions I had and the only answer anyone could give you was "have faith". Uhm. Okay. Let me.... go.... do that... or the fact that The Bible isn't even written by Jesus just people who could had been completely misunderstanding what he was saying. Not to mention there's the new version and the old version. But there was a religion that was always in the back of my mind. One that any Catholic would completely misunderstand. That anyone, in general who is uneducated about the religion would misunderstand without actually doing a little bit of research. 

 

I feel like people are afraid to know the truth these days about things and would rather live in their blissful bubble of lies.

This blog post isn't meant to put down those who believe in God because while I don't, I respect the religion and the people who follow it. I still feel like certain things I do or say are sinful and even though I've removed myself from the practice of the religion you know, growing up with it... old habits die hard. 

The reason why I picked this particular image was because of the bottom quote:

 

But remember God works in his timing, not yours. Have patience.

 

Sometimes I do envy the people who give their lives to God. Who are completely okay with it. Because they have this thing that not many other people have --- they have someone they can "count on". They have someone they can "talk to". They have someone to thank and someone to ask for help from. 

 

And while I believe that it's not God who is doing these things, but the energy that you are simply putting out into the universe and getting back, they still have this thankful mindset. And people who believe in God, man, they take thankfulness to a whole 'nother level! 

You can see the difference in the people who grew up with this religion and who didn't. Who took something away from it growing up and who didn't and you can see how it shaped them as teenagers. As adults. And while I don't believe in the religion, I do believe it is something nice to grow up with because it does teach you a lot of things that become useful in your adult life.

God works in his timing, not yours. Have patience.

People believe that even though they've prayed for something, God will make it happen. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not next week and maybe not even next year. But when the timing is right it will happen. And it usually does. Catholicism teaches you to be patient. To stay optimistic about a situation no matter how horrible it is and on the days you can't deal with it, you pray. You pray for the strength to get through this and even though nothing is really happening, it does make you feel better. A little stronger. Like someone's got your back.

 

That's something I took away from growing up with Catholicism ---  patience that something good will happen. I just have to wait. That even if the situation were to go downhill, it just wasn't meant to be. I learned to respect people. I learned to show compassion. I learned to be aware. I learned to listen to myself. 

So just because a religion didn't feel like it was for me. Or something I could practice, I'm still glad I grew up with it. It helped a great deal in shaping who I am today as an adult. 

And most of all, it taught me that things will get better. I just have to have patience.