I Stopped Going to Church & This is What Happened

Hello again! It's been a while huh?

So I have to tell you what I have been up to the past month or so. Well, more like what I haven't been up to: I haven't been going to church and small group.

It's been a very conscious decision on my part to refrain from this activity that in the past, I have solely pushed myself to go to every week. Despite anxiety attacks and what not, I pushed and pursued this activity, determined to follow God. But then it dawned on me: what if I didn't go for a while? If you read my last post about my struggle with religion and spirituality, then you'll probably understand why I chose not to go. Anxiety attacks were on the rampant, especially when it came to spiritual and religious discussions and issues. It was hard for me to connect with God in the midst of an anxiety attack. I realized I was miserably pushing myself to do something when I wasn't really quite sure what it was I wanted to do.

So I stopped going to church.

At first, I felt guilty and a bit scared. I thought, "Ugh... people will freak out if I don't go." and "Do I really think this will help? I'm just being a coward." With those thoughts, I realized I had to teach myself to live in grace. I needed to step back and lean into God's grace and mercy and tell myself, "It's OK if you don't go to church today. Your relationship with God won't fall apart. You'll be fine."

After a week or two, I got better with that aspect.

But I knew there was still more I had to face. I had issues with this idea of church and community that I hadn't quite touched on.

A few weeks went by. I hadn't really heard anyone comment on my absence or really search me out. I felt relieved. I had been scared that people would criticize me for not going and tell me to get over it. But that didn't happen, and I was glad for it.

I began talking with various friends about what I was going through, and many of them, to my surprise, were very supportive of my decision to step back. They all knew how my anxiety was quite a real issue and didn't want me to push myself to go to church if it meant I'd have an anxiety attack all throughout the service. Many could relate to what I was talking about and noted some of the faults within the church, and discussing how they themselves, got past it. Yet, they recognized that I needed to find my own answers and deal with the issue myself.

So after many discussions and some own personal analysis of myself, I soon began to realize what the main problem was:

Me.

To expand on this, I began analyzing my fears and thoughts of church and soon saw that church set off my anxiety because I was so worried about what people thought of me. "Do they think I'm doing this right?" "What if I look like a fool??" "they'll probably see how un-Christian-like I am and think poorly of me." And the thoughts went on and on.

When I realized that this was part of the issue, I saw that the only way to get around it was having to teach myself to not care what other people thought of me. It's not like I would throw out any advice or comments made to me, but to recognize that my relationship between God and I is between just us two. Other people don't make up our relationship: God and I do.

This realization only came recently, and I'm still working on how to deal with it. I've dealt in those areas when it comes to my artwork and my own self-esteem, but my spirituality seems to be an area I have not touched on yet.

The other aspect was that I doubted myself very very much. And I think this is something God has been trying to break me of as well. I'd doubt my own faith, and I'd doubt whether I was really doing things right in regards to my faith. If someone were to ask, "Well, do you believe you were going to heaven?" My reply would have been, "I don't know. What if I have screwed up somewhere along the way and didn't know it? What if I have been missing something very key?" And when I say this question, I don't mean "what if I have chosen the wrong religion" or "I'm not really sure about Jesus all the time", but more so, "what if, I missed something, and... that prevents me. It could be anything. I'm really not that great. I make mistakes all the time. Who am I to go to heaven?"

With this last thought and realization, I saw how damaging those doubts can be. Despite of what I know about Christianity and how things work, I still doubted. And with this, I was putting my own judgement above God's and his power. My faith has always shown me that when God wants something done, he gets it done. And while I need to acknowledge that I have faults and am not perfect what's-so-ever, I also need to heavily see how important I am to God and the value I have in His eyes. His power and love outshine my own fears and doubts any day, and I need to focus on that and NOT how many times I mess up in a day, or how I lack this quality, or didn't read my Bible, and the list goes on.

So there it is again; it's mostly me and my fears preventing me from actually pursuing God and developing what I want out of my faith. God and I have taken many steps in regards to many areas of my life. When it came to my own beauty, I saw very little. Many times, I felt God just yell and say, "Would you please take a good look in the mirror and see how beautiful you are!?! My goodness child, see what I see! Look at yourself! Look!!" When it came to my artwork, I'd give up before I even started. God slowly showed me that it was me holding myself back. So... I began to coax myself and encourage myself. The door to creativity opened, and there I was, making things I was proud of.

And now, in regards to my own spirituality, when I coax myself and battle the lies, I do find God there, stronger and more beautiful than before. I have to repeatedly tell myself that my relationship with God is not determined by others. God's judgement reigns over everyone's. People will constantly come in and out of my life and say, "You are doing this wrong" or "your belief says this? That's stupid," over and over again. But... I have to trust what God is telling me. And there's a little voice that says "So you'll never listen to anyone huh?" No. I'm not saying that. I'm saying though that I will listen to God first and run towards Him, in whatever way and fashion that looks like for me and Him. Maybe that means switching churches, maybe that means not going to church once a month and doing quiet time, or just... whatever.

And the thing is, no one has ever really criticized me and my walk with God. If anything, people often point out how too religious I am or commend me for my faith. So again, I see that it is just me, beating myself down over and over again. Not letting God in and saying, "I'm not good enough for you," and God gentles holds my hands and says, "Who says? No voice is more true or powerful than mine. And I say you are loved and way more valuable than all the stars combined."

So I'm still figuring things out and battling anxiety is never easy, but I'm hopefully making steps. Steps that will last me a lifetime and carry me out until I get to be with God again. :)

Silly Work Days

So... I like my job. Like seriously.

It came as a huge surprise to me when I began to realize it and I was even hesitant to say it at first. "What if I say it now, but then later, end up not liking it??" entered into my mind. But... I have to realize that there are times when I will like things and other times, when I won't. What matters is that I'm also committed to this job, and will come day in and day out, no matter what.

But really, I do like my job.

There are stressful times, with deadlines that come too soon, lack of inspiration moments that I must push through, and lots of people coming to you with lots of ideas and expecting you to be a miracle worker and "just do it all at once". But even despite all those, I can get through that with supportive friends, families, and well... co-workers! The past week or two, I was kind of surprised at my own co-workers helping me push along some stressful work load and doing their best to encourage me and talk to me about some stuff.

A week or two ago, I had stopped by one of my co-workers who's about my age and asked him, "Hey, do you think I work hard?" He paused, nodded and said, "Yeah... I think so." I nodded and then walked away, hoping that my hard work was being seen by others. I think I also left him a bit puzzled since the question was sort out of nowhere.

A week later, as I was working nearby, he began talking to me and said, "Hey, I heard John say he's really impressed with your work. He was bragging about it and says he's like what you're doing. So... you're doing a good job." It didn't really hit me till later that he was probably trying to reassure me that people could tell I was working hard.  Others began complimenting me on all the work I had been doing and I felt relieved. Glad that my efforts were being noticed and they were working.

After the stressful work order had mostly passed, I could relax a bit more and take more time to talk with others. I've begun a war where I go and change my friend's desktop background, having all sorts of fun with it. I walked in the next morning after I changed it and he turned to me and said, "YOU!!! It was you!!!" I just smiled and said, "Happy Friday!"

Later on that day, I walked in and sat down at my desk. My screen saver soon popped up as I shuffled papers on my desk around and I noticed one of the pictures looked a bit different. (My screen saver does a slideshow of pictures I have taken in the past). When I got a closer look, I saw that Batman had been placed in the image along with the bat signal. I instantly knew who was and turned to one of my pre-press co-workers and said, "How did Batman get in my photo!" I began searching through other photographs and saw that he had photoshopped quite a few of my photos. I still have to figure out a way to get back at him, but I was glad to find someone else at work who likes to pull pranks or be silly.

That afternoon (I guess it was just a silly Friday), I had walked out of the bathroom and the accountant lady saw me and had been waiting to use it. She exclaimed, "You! It's you again! It's always you in the bathroom." I just laughed and said, "You got to be a bit quicker to get in there." She turned to one of the guys about my age and she goes, "You see that! She's always in the bathroom." I began laughing and he took out his flash light and pointed it at me. I yelled, "Hey! Don't flash me!" as I walked by. He then threw his hands up in the air and then on his hips and said, "I DO WHAT I WANT!!" I then threw my hands up in the air and said, "BAH! WHATEVER!" And then all of us started laughing. 

For me, work environment can really make or break a place. I mean, you do spend most of your time there anyways. I'm also lucky that I get to be the only graphic designer here and get to act like a sort of art director. There's no one directly supervising me, which fits me and my personality perfectly. I get to roam, and be creative as I go. It makes me motivated to work really hard and keep pushing out more and more work. It's just a major plus that I work in a small company and everyone is super nice and helpful. I really like it. 

Plus, I get free printing. Who wouldn't love that as a designer? 

Out of Sight

Haven't posted a video in a while, neh? I came across this and thought it was cute. There's a twist that you should pick up quickly on. I like it. Enjoy!

Notes

I've been cleaning out my room and I've come across some notes and letters written to me. New thing about me: I always keep notes and letters people have written to me. Back in high school, my friends and I went through this phase where we constantly wrote notes to each other. Class would get boring, so we'd entertain ourselves with writing notes about whatever and folding them in weird or crazy ways. We'd then deliver them to each other in between classes and read the note in the next class. It was quite fun.

As I've gotten older, notes and letters aren't really used that often, which I think is a shame. But I'm still blessed with people who take time out of their day and have sat down and actually written to me. They're usually so heart warming and touching, and I can't just bare the idea of throwing them away. So I keep them and have a big stash of them; from the small notes in high school, to long lovely letters from friends. And at times when I'm alone, and come across them, I sit down and read them, and feel so loved.

It was especially nice the other day as I came across a few letters. I've been spending a lot of time alone lately and wonder if I'm becoming anti-social and won't have any friends. But when I read these letters, I see that I am so blessed with so many people who care about me. It even brought a few tears to my eyes as I read them and many memories danced in my head. I hope I can see many of these people soon and get to spend more time with them.

Photograph taken by Hannah Morris. ® All rights reserved.