Before you read any further, there is a short list of people who I would like to exclude from this letter. The following list are those who have listened to the best of their ability. These are those who have given advice without trying to fix me- listened without condemning:
My Dad
Dan Sidelecki
Ron And Kerri Miller
David Ross
Mike Wilson
Allie Prewett
I ache. I bleed. I break. And no one cares. No one hears. No
one understands.
I scream my pain and agony to the world. I sing it out with
all I am. I write it in prose. I publish it in my poems under “Unknown”. I tell
you in long discussions over dinner. But you don’t hear me. You don’t
understand me. You don’t care.
I desperately beg you to hear. If anyone is out there who
understands my desperate loneliness, they don’t let me know. Few listen. Even
fewer care. No one understands.
Those who do care try to fix me. They try to tell me what’s
wrong with me and they try to tell me how to get fixed. Well, you can’t fix me,
so stop trying.
I defile everything that I touch. Every relationship I have
turns sour. Every love I pursue leads me nowhere. Every Friendship fades away.
Every group, society, or community I join ends up driving me away. Or maybe I
drive them. I don’t know. I don’t care anymore.
I just want to die. But I can’t die. I just wish I could end
it all. I have no reason left to live except the knowledge that taking my own
life will only make things worse. That only while I’m physically alive here on
earth do things have any chance of ever getting any better. Every day I wish
some accident would kill me so I don’t have to suffer anymore, and yet still be
granted sanctuary with Christ. Because then I would get to see Him. Then He
could hold me. Then He would make all things right. My very life is the only
remnant of faith in God I still have. I try to find hope. But it all fades
away. I fight desperately every day against despair. But it’s pointless. Life
has no meaning. No joy. No peace. I am but a rat trapped in an endless maze.
And I just want to give up and die.
I am bleeding out. I show you my wounds. I scream in agony.
But you don’t care.
Christian America, you have driven me from you. I came to
you bleeding, and you twisted the knife. I came to you seeking sustenance and
you fed me poison. I came seeking an embrace, and you punched in the gut. I
came seeking a home and you drove me from your presence. So I am done with
churches and congregations. I’m done with pastors and denominations.
I am ostracized because the music I love is too hard, too
violent, to painful. I am told the songs I write are too sad. I am scolded for
being filled with pain. I am told to write “happy” “worship” songs. I am told
to smile while I worship, and yet the only way I can worship is with my tears. I
am told that my utter inadequacy to find God is my fault and that I need to “Fulfill
my side of the bargain” for God to show up, when I am completely incapable of
that very thing. I need God to do it for me, because I am desperately wicked. I
am told I am being disrespectful of God and man because I wear a hat while
serving the mothers on Mother’s Day. And when I object, I am told I am ignorant
and foolish.
And everything in me want’s to scream “FUCKING DAMN YOU!!!!!”
But that’s not what a good Christian would do. I would just be shunned all the
more. But I don’t care anymore. I just don’t fucking care. You have filled my
mouth with bile, and my heart you have filled with poison. You have made me
bleed beyond what I thought possible. I came seeking refuge. I found a prison.
So now I will go seek God on my own. I am leaving the
corporate church behind. Until you can love me without condemnation- until you
can hold me with twisting the dagger- until you can accept me without demanding
I change who I am- until you can welcome me without driving me away- until you
can hear me without talking me down- until you see my wounds without trying to slap
on your stupid little band-aids- until you understand… You will find me with
the lost. For they don’t judge me. They don’t drive me away. They understand
the agony. They understand the pain. And though we are worlds apart in our
worldviews, at least they are willing to listen. They are willing to accept.
They are willing to embrace me. So now I commune with the lost. I worship with
the Godless.
Because they listen. They understand. They love.
You do not.
