Me vs the Church

My parent's world was divided into two types of people: missionaries and Everyone Else.  If you were a missionary, you were special, a chosen one who's only purpose in life was to go somewhere far away and spread the Good News.  The purpose of Everyone Else was to work real hard so that the missionaries didn't have to.  In my parent's sect, the missionaries were royalty.


One night, after a particularly inspiring missions presentation at church I announced that I was going to become a missionary.  I hadn't decided where I wanted to go yet but I knew that I was being called.  The Holy Spirit had spoken to me.  Years of waiting, of pondering, trying to decide what God wanted me to do with my life had culminated at this moment.  I finally knew what to do.  This didn't go over very well with my parents.  "You can't be a missionary," they told me.


Needless to say, I was very confused by this.  I was about 13, and I had already heard God speaking to me.  They were always saying that He had something special planned for all of us, and with my background His plan for me had to be extra special.  Everything in my parents' church was centered around missions, so missions was the obvious choice.  If not missions then what?


Of course, my parents knew things I didn't.  They knew it didn't matter how loudly and clearly God was speaking to me.  They knew that God only called people who were tall and good-looking and charismatic and rich, like salesmen or politicians, not fat dumpy geeks who value thoughts over words.


I was already a little crazy.  Not "something's wrong with my brain" crazy, I just had trouble separating reality from fantasy.  Church encouraged this side of me.  They weren't completely off the wall.  No one spoke in tongues, nor did the minister claim to have any healing powers, but they still filled my head with stories of demon possessions and "spiritual gifts," super powers sent from God.  A youth pastor had me take a spiritual gifts test and I tested very high for the gift of Knowledge, so I thought I knew the will of God when others didn't.


This was one of those areas where my parents disagreed with their church.  Maybe everyone's parents disagree with their minister over finer points of theology from time to time.  They told me I had to take all this with a "grain of salt," while other people I respected were telling me to make the most of my gifts.  My teachers were telling me this as well, though they meant other gifts.  I didn't know who to listen to.


I had two great shames: the first is that I had never talked anyone else into joining up and becoming a Christian.  This made me unhappy, which was my second shame.  I never smiled.  Apparently, it's the Christian's duty to be mind-blowingly joyful at all times.  Church people were always telling me "smile, God loves you."  Try telling that to my parents who never smiled either.  So not only was I not happy, I felt guilty because of it.


Another problem I had was that I was too honest, and I think I could sense when others weren't quite being honest either.  All these smiling, happy people seemed false to me, like they were trying to convince each other that there was nothing wrong.  They were always so nice, but it was the niceness of a used car salesman.  Not because they like you, but because they want you to like them.


So I was unhappy because I wasn't a good witness, and I wasn't a good witness because I was so unhappy.  I was falling into a deep depression, but no one seemed to care, they were too busy trying to out-cheer each other.  I came to the conclusion that God wasn't to be found at Church.  I determined to find Him or die trying.