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I'm wading again through the waters called faith, and being a Christian.  Waters I don't tread often in posts.  I had a friend recently tell me that I was "one of the best Christians he knows" and it sat weird with me.

I grew up as the daughter of missionaries, and from the age of two I considered myself a Christian.  (I prayed to ask Jesus into my heart when I was two, almost three.)  I was taught from a young age what it was to be a Christian, to love Jesus and trust him with your life.  That was demonstrated for me time and again as my parents struggled through what it meant to be missionaries in a foreign country, living off the support of people who believed in their cause and that what they did was making a difference.  I remember hearing how they lost support sometimes over stupid things like what version of the bible they read.  (Apparently someone thought that all bible translation was done from the NIV, which is false, and they were not OK with that as they were staunch KJVers.)

I remember when I was little I would pray about all the little silly things that would come to my mind because I genuinely believed that there was a God and that he would answer my prayers.  And the cool thing is that he did.  I remember praying for Tracy Rectanus when she was kidnapped by a militant group along with Carol Allen (who would later be my fourth grade teacher)  I remember going to the mail room in Bagabag where the notice was posted and just thinking how I needed to do something about it!  I wasn't even in kindergarten yet.  They were both released and not harmed.

I remember one day that it was raining really hard and I started picking stuff up off the floor and the bottom levels of our bookshelves because I didn't want to lose anything when it flooded.  My mom told me to not worry about it and go to bed -- she didn't think it would flood.  It never had.  I had this feeling I needed to keep going.  That night, water crept into the house and we woke up to two inches all over the floors.  (Not a bad flood inside, but in the street it was over 4 ft.)  I have always believed that God had his hand in that and that he urged me, as a little girl, to keep picking up everything off the floors in preparation for what was coming.

In second grade I got ready to go back to California for a year and I was deathly afraid of the public school system.  I had heard horror stories from my friends.  My mom told me to pray about it because we couldn't afford private school there.  I did, and soon after we got word of a Christian school my aunt was teaching at, and that she could pay the tuition.  She had set it aside for her son who would be entering kindergarten, but as a teacher there she learned that he could get in for free.  She payed my tuition instead.

I was also baptized in second grade, on Easter Sunday.  The pastor asked me ahead of time, what baptism symbolized to me, like, if I was to draw a picture of it, what sort of picture would I draw?  I told him that baptism was like Jesus dying and being raised again from the dead.  We, as Christians, go under the water, like we are dead and being buried, and then we come up again in new life.  I don't know where I came up with that, but it is actually very scriptural.  "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.  The life I live in the body I live through faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me."

I had a very strong Christian upbringing.  I would write songs to God and I loved singing praises to God.  I fully believed that he loved me and looked out for me.  I still believe these things, but not without doubts.

I grew up attending a school for missionary kids.  I also attended a Christian private school for third grade in California and a private Christian University for college.  I only spent one year of my life in the public school system, eighth grade.  Man was that an eye opening year!  In all my private Christian education I had continuous bible classes.  In high school I had to have a bible class every semester.  In college, I had to take thirty units of bible, which equated to a minor, and had to go to 30 chapels a semester.  There were so many bible requirements I felt over fed, if anything.  I didn't take joy in chapels and bible courses.  I did well in them without putting out a lot of effort because it was the same stuff I had been taught my whole life.  I lost my appetite for spiritual learning and direction.  I began to wonder if what I believed was because it was what I was taught my whole life and told to believe or if it was really real.  I felt like if my faith was real I would want to study scripture and I would want to attend chapel.  I also stopped attending church regularly.  I would go from time to time, but I had those required chapels during the week anyway.

Yet, I know that it's real even if it's not a strong faith, because I do take so much joy in God.  I do delight in scriptures -- especially Ecclesiastes.  I'm not sure why that's my favorite bible book.  Part of me thinks it's because it's an odd book to have as a favorite.  "vanity of vanities, all things are vanity and a chasing after the wind."... meaningless, meaningless.

I think what makes me doubt that I'm a good "Christian" is that I love God but I'm not so sure about the church.  I think the church has made a lot of mistakes and has made a bad name for themselves.  I'm also not a fan of the way the church has "marketed" itself over the years.  I think the idea of Christian marketing is odd to begin with, because the church should not be about being trendy and branding something to be cool.  I think of all the slogans like "What Would Jesus Do?" and "True Love Waits" and I'm sure there are others... and all the Christianese that has been used over the years.  I say, stop putting up facades and live real life.  Real life is not trendy and it's not butterflies and rainbows.  But God didn't promise that life would be butterflies and rainbows.  There is so much legalism in the church.  There are also a lot of people who stretch what scriptures say and use them for their own greed or their own selfish purposes.  There are people who don't understand what it means to love God and pour out that love on other people.  They are all about condemnation, but not about lifting up and redeeming.  Brokenness ought not to be more shattered, but to be healed and redeemed.  And all mankind is broken.  But all mankind ought to be cherished.  Life ought to be cherished.

I love worshipping God, but I don't love the way that the people who say they are Christians live.  I don't think as many people actually live for God as claim that faith.  And I often wonder if my lack of involvement in corporate religion makes me somehow less of a good Christian than I am.  My faith tends to be a little more private than it probably ought.