I recently came across a post on the atheist blog "Love, Joy, Feminism," entitled, "When Demons Are Real, and it brought back some painful memories for me. Author Libby Ann says that as a child, she was raised to believe that demons were real, and all around her, battling unseen with God's forces. That's pretty much how I saw it, too, as a child but especially as a young teenager.
Yet the teachings about demons were only one more thing that I desperately grasped at in an attempt to finally feel like I was getting close to God. I remember the year I was thirteen (when I was only a couple of years out of Christian school, and homeschooling through materials sold to my family and graded by that same school, and helping to raise the neighbor's baby) as particularly rough, though I had a hard time of it throughout my teen years. There was so much of my life at the time that was very stressful, though I didn't recognize it then, and feeling like a bad Christian just aggravated everything tenfold.
My mother and I were watching a lot of Christian television, where it seemed everyone on TV claimed to basically have audible, or nearly audible, conversations with God. They would ask him a question, and he would answer. They used phrases like "And God told me..." "and the Lord said..." and "I sensed God's message..."
Which all made me wonder, why wasn't God talking to me this way? Was there something wrong with me, or the way I prayed, that he couldn't, or wouldn't, answer me?
Perhaps it was that I wasn't spending enough time with God. So I spent much time praying, reading the bible, and "listening" for God's voice, trying to silence my own thoughts. I even fasted for a few hours or most of a day at a time. Sometimes I would even lay down under my bed, trying to pray all night. I hated that tactic, though I still did it, thinking that God would like it.
I read that other people had "prayer closets," so I shut myself into my tiny closet with my bible, kneeling and praying in the dark. I even wrote out lists of people to pray for and taped them up inside the closet door, though I could barely see them in the dark.
I tried to be a "prayer warrior," though it was mind-numbing. I read many Christian books, and decided to only read the King James bible. I heard somebody say, on a Christian music station, that their son listened to it 24-7, constantly, so I tried that. It lasted about a day, because I just wanted some peace and quiet.
My mother and I tried to worship to Christian music stations in the car. A lot of the time, it felt like I was trying to force something that wasn't there.
We prayed, on our knees, late at night, speaking in tongues and crying out to God. That didn't work either.
I tried to just "rest in the Lord" and not try so hard, but it did nothing. There was no feeling of God's presence, at least not one that I knew of definitively (though I would have told you I did know definitively, if challenged).
Speaking of conversation, I constantly talked about God, as if trying to prove something to myself. Even when God wasn't the subject, I tried to force him into the conversation. I thought I was being a good Christian and a good witness that way.
(Even writing this post makes me feel weary, remembering how I used to feel while trying so hard, not just physically, but emotionally, mentally, and time-wise too.)
Probably the hardest part of it was the constant conversation with God, that I thought I had, and had to have, in my head. Everyone knows how awkward and exhausting it is to try to keep up a conversation with someone who is very quiet and doesn't talk much. Imagine if this person was there constantly, and didn't talk at all.
I couldn't just have a thought, because every thought was like a message to God, or at least God was listening in on it, so I had to have the proper amount of politeness and respect for him, even in spontaneous thoughts.
Today, I have many negative thoughts about the people I love, as well as many positive thoughts about them. But it's one thing to think something negative, another to decide if it's important enough to say something to the person. Imagine if every negative thought, every internal criticism or judgment, every little thing, was known to the person you were thinking about. How often would you feel compelled to explain yourself, apologize, or mention their good qualities? That was what it was like with God. It was exhausting, and that's not even talking about the embarrassing sexual or gross thoughts, or what I thought about other people.
I think I had undiagnosed depression for a long time. I had poor health, and couldn't get to sleep, because I just couldn't relax, for fear saying something bad in my thoughts. Sometimes I think I still have that problem, in a way.
When we were discussing something similar recently, my mom commented to me, "I think you were the victim of spiritual abuse."
I think we both were. Everything I went through, in those years, my mom went through with me.
I was afraid, for a time, that everything I had was demonic. When I was about twelve or thirteen, I got rid of my favorite childhood toys because I thought they were an idol. I enjoyed them, and the characters they represented, more than I enjoyed prayer and bible study, so they had to go. I was so unhappy, but I thought this would finally please God. I was so desperate, that I was giving up the things I loved and wasn't being myself. No one is worth that much.
Fortunately for me, I later found out that my mom had saved them, unable to part with the memories they represented.
"I hope you're not mad," she said to me about a year or two later, as we discussed how overboard and out-of-balance we were before, "but I saved your Toy Story toys."
Mad? I was ecstatic! She had even saved them in their Barney bag!
I am grateful for that to this day. I don't know what I would do without Woody and Buzz. At least with toys, I always knew where I stood with them.
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