Don't let me drift too far

Yesterday at the afternoon session of this conference a couple of our friends (a husband and wife) sat next to us. The wife wrote me a note asking if I was okay, etc., and I responded honestly, telling her I felt really yucky and evil and like I was radiating negativity and feeling really guilty about it. She responded with... you guessed it, a "picture." Her picture was a rock with a crack in it, and I was the crack, apparently. However, in my mind it makes more sense that I would be the rock itself. So she said the rock needs to just split and crack fully open instead of being sealed or glued shut again.

Though you know I am extremely skeptical about all of this stuff, I chose to interpret the image to mean that I need to just deal with the @#%$ inside of me instead of trying to fix it up and make it go away. The problem, that I have expressed to a few people, is that I don't know how far down I am going to go if I let myself. It's kind of scary.

My husband, let's call him Ray, though I do not particularly like that name, said that he, also, had something for me. Remember, all of this is not too abnormal in our church. Ray said that he just kept hearing God telling him that I need to be more confrontational, on every front. I need to be confrontational with him, Ray, with my friends, with my family (which is terrifying), with our church, and most importantly, with God. Our friend, Leticia (not her real name either), was listening in, suggested, "I hate you and I don't believe you!" I was pretty shocked to hear her suggest saying anything that offensive to God. She is a people pleaser too and very Christiany, in a good way. I think I just have feel so guilty for questioning at all. Guilty about hurting my family and offending my friends at church and about disappointing God and about leading my children astray and about needing attention or thinking I am too smart for this stuff. You know what I mean. So hearing her say that was almost offensive to me. I was pretty shocked. It seemed like it would piss God off.

Last night I also chose to go to a dinner party of some old friends (actually my sister's friends) instead of going to the evening session of the conference. It was really good, because most of those friends are very cynical former-Christians. I think I needed to be around people who understood my resentment and skepticism more, even if we didn't actually talk about it. It just felt wonderful to not feel like such an offensive alien, as though I could almost say whatever I wanted.