Finding my Own Path

I grew up in the Free Will Baptist Faith and spent 8 years as the wife of a Southern Baptist minister. All my life, I have been instructed as to what I should believe. 

At nearly 40 years old, I have come to believe that if I am to have a relationship with God, I must leave organized religion behind. The problem with it is that is is full of doctrines, rituals, rules and regulations that insist that my personal relationship with God must be the same as your relationship. It asserts what gender my god must be. It assumes to know all there is to know about him in 66 books or less. It leaves no room for the imagination or any room to grow. 

Its like marrying someone who I know absolutely everything about. It is boring. There is nothing new to discover. And to make matters worse, I am limited on how I am allowed to even discover anything.I am discouraged from looking outside the box for fear that I will be possessed by demons from another evil religion. I can only think for myself as long as it agrees with the teachings of the group. 

I have been told all my life that there is only one way to God and all of those who believe differently are doomed. Yet I find those "doomed" people act more "God-like" than the ones who declare themselves "saved". Here in the bible belt, I find more complaining about life and less joy than anywhere I have traveled. Yet, these are supposed to be the people who know that "the joy of the Lord is their strength". It is, indeed, a strange paradox. 

It took me nearly a decade of being away from the church to shake off the doctrines, rituals, rules and regulations, and be reborn as a spiritual person. Not a christian. Not a baptist. An individual with a spirit that longs to commune with God.

And I must find my own way. My own path. My own way of communicating. How that happens is up to myself and my creator. And that is part of the joy of living. Getting to know one another. Growing closer. 

And living happily ever after.