Rebellion

As mentioned about 12 weeks ago I am embarking on writing my "memoirs". Which sounds so arrogant as to be laughable.

Yet, here we are. Me writing it all down, you reading it. 

It's been slow going. Some of that is just the demands of daily life. Some of the slowness is my own procrastination. I want to do this yet the recall of my life, putting "pen to paper", is not the happiest of experiences.

In fact...it is quite painful. And yet I still feel that call from God to do this. And so I pray and continue to dig in.

[Recap from Pt 2 - But I would continue to be an obedient Christadelphian daughter, attending services and events happily (at least as much as I could muster so my parents wouldn't make my life more of a living hell than it already was). I’d like to say I made friends in church, and I suppose I did, to a point. We had nothing in common beyond our church identities. Plus being in a fringe religion it’s not like there are tons of others like you in your town or school. The friends I had at church were only seen at church and church events. My parents took the snobbery of being Christadelphian to an enormous degree, feeling that we were better than all the others in our own ecclesia. They saw us in an elevated status, despite that being 100% against the rules of being Christadelphian. We didn’t associate with all those people outside of church. A position which severely hindered my ability to make friends with a common ground.]

On Being Christadelphian, Pt 3 - Rebellion

All teen years have aspects of rebellion to them. We all chafe at whatever rules are put upon us during those years and it is inevitable we push against them, testing the strength of the limits and...the parents who enforce them. I began to seriously rebel against the Christadelphian restrictions when I was about 15. I resented having to go out on Sunday nights for yet more lectures from a bunch of old men. Bible study was a serious drag on my ability to do my school homework plus have a chance at any kind of social life outside of church. And trust me when Christadelphians start doing Bible study it’s not just reading and discussion. It’s a dissection of every word and verse to parse out the possible hidden meanings that only the most studious Christadelphian would ever discover from words written 2000 years prior. To survive Bible study nights, you best be able to dissect with the best of them or else you’d get a harsh talking-to on the ride home.

The further I got into my teen years the more resentful I became. But since I feared the wrath of my parents, I buried all that beneath a thick layer of perfection and obedience. It was exhausting to say the least.

Then the magic happened. I got accepted to a college that meant I would live on campus. While I was expected to come home every weekend (the college was in reasonable driving distance) and have a job to help pay for my higher education, I was free from Monday-Friday from all things Christadelphian. Yes, I still attended church on Sunday with the family. Buy my emancipation had begun.

I swiftly learned in college just how sheltered I was from general life. Christadelphians promote a lifestyle of being in the world, not of the world (Gospel of John 17). As a family we participated in the world when and where it was required. Christadelphians call this the Christo Bubble. And with 40 years of backward glances, I can see that my family, who believed we were better than the average Christadelphian family, didn’t just apply that lifestyle to our daily lives. We were in the world of Christadelphians but not of them at the same time. Talk about a narrow existence.

My true deliverance, temporary though it would be, came thru meeting my future husband, Jim. We shared a class in college where he was a senior to my freshman. We connected almost instantly and while it would take him a little longer to realize I was the love of his life; I knew he was mine. Our relationship was a total whirlwind. Met in March, proposed to in September, engagement ring purchased in January, married in July.

And against all the odds, especially those thrust upon us by my "Christian" family, here we are 41 years later still madly in love. But more on that later.