Facing my opened laptop is an odd postcard like letterhead with a generic pastoral picture and a bible verse written in bad font, "For Everything God made is good. 1 Tim. 4:4".

My guess is that if no one bothered to ask, most people that know me now wouldn't think I was Christian at all. This is ironic considering that in Sec 1 to 3, I was practically a Christian fundamentalist (or maybe I was just psychotic). When my grandma became really sick after doing her Tai Chi exercises, I was 100% sure Satan's demons had entered her through those exercises.

There was also a point in Sec 1 that I used to see weird shit. Like orbs of inky black masses floating about and flying into people's heads. I was convinced it was Satan entering them. Then I heard some voices calling my name, and soon 'in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ be gone' became my auto catch phrase mentally. It didn't help that I'd heard off rustling sounds in my room at night as I tried to sleep, even when I had a night light on (yes I am horribly scared of the dark, I didn't really conquer it till I was 16).

As the more innocent times of Sec 2 gave way to Sec 3, I hit my second major crisis (which I define as a period of great emotional and mental distress) and I started praying like crazy, for God to give me strength to fight it. My first essay on 'Myself' in Sec 3 was filled with how I was convinced that God had granted me epiphanies with every earthquake (the Asian Tsunami and some other minor quake in Sumatra in the beginning of 2005) and was helping me cope with my problems. (I am so cringing as I type these thoughts out now.) I remember my favourite Christian songs were Still, Above All and a song with the lyrics 'before the world began, you were on his mind/every tear you cry is precious in his eyes' - and I'd cry as I sang them. I even tried being a Sunday School teacher.

Then Sec 3 came to an end. Someone tried to commit suicide in school and days later I wound up having a breakdown during church practice. That was probably where I started backsliding. More shit happened, and soon I was facing my third major crisis as Sec 4 started. As the situation in church started souring and a betrayal came to light, I started to think poisonous thoughts and drifted far away from God. However, it still took me a lot of courage to work up the will to walk away from church, and I cried about the decision. I then spent Sec 4 visiting CCMC occasionally, because Stephanie went there.

Then I ended up in ACSI. I was partly relieved that there was chapel on Mondays, because somehow part of me still wished to cling onto religion even though I refused to go to church. Chapel became my way of feeling less guilty for not going to church. Then the whole idea of FireAC being filled with religious zealots, morning devotions becoming a mouthpiece of the overlords and in general a less Christian environment and religion became a minor joke. Then poof, Year 5 became Year 6. Stress, unhealed wounds and an already fragile state of mind combined to form a potent potion of disaster a few weeks ago. Someone who saw wrote me a letter, telling me to turn to God for help to my problems. Then last week my old Sunday School teacher sent me a letter with the aforementioned pastoral scene, telling me to turn to God for help as well even though she had no inkling of my problems now.

As I read those letters, I felt yet another pang of sadness for what I had lost. For how much I wanted to believe that things would really turn out alright if I just prayed hard enough (makes it sound like I haven't been praying the past few years, but I pray every night). For how I now felt so far away from God and how I couldn't really believe anymore because of all the shit that keeps happening. Then it shifted to how I couldn't believe that anyone would love me, that I wasn't good enough for God.

Yes, I have issues. Lots of them. Shedloads of them. On one hand if I didn't have them, I wouldn't be so damn screwed up in the head. On the other hand, I would probably have been a much less interesting person if I didn't have them. Talk about a tough learning process.

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The thing that really inspired this entry was how I just told someone 'Jesus loves you!', and the next thing that hit my mind was 'this sounds mocking' and then 'uh did I mean it to be mocking?'. I felt disturbed thinking about it, how much religion has changed it's role in my life in the past few years. Of how it seemed to have morphed into a joke.

I always say that in the long term, I want to go to church and be a proper Christian again. The sort who is madly in love and devout to God. The non-swearing, generic but happy looking Christian because I have God! But thinking about it makes me feel sick sometimes, and I don't think I can ever go back to how I was before. My thoughts about religion and life have changed and don't always fit in with doctrine anymore. My stance towards homosexuality is: If you can find love, cling on to it as best as you can and never let go, because love is so hard to find that it transcends everything.

Perhaps in church that was why I never really fit in with the rest. I always had my own little ideas about things, was that little bit the maverick. Even in being some sort of weird fundamentalist, I topped most of the things Conservative Christians could dream of coming up with (Pokemon, Digimon and Teletubbies are from Satan anyone?). I then shot to the next extreme of rejecting most of the things I was taught from a young age. It's almost like I could find no happy medium.

Today I float about, away from the 'organised' part of 'organised religion', with my own mishmash of Christian ideas and things plucked out from my emotions and reasoning which I have yet to really refine. I'm not really sure where I want to go from here. Do I try finding my way back home through God? Or does my home lie in another direction, or have I been home all along and never realised it because I was worrying too much about conventional thought?

I honestly have no idea, I just hope I find my answer soon.

P.S., please do not spam my tagboard or me with Bible Verses encouraging me to do xxx. I will not appreciate it. I am perfectly lucid as I write this and am not currently depressed. My biggest problem now is handing in EE on Friday, which I will do tomorrow since I ended up ignoring it today despite my best intentions.