I went to a Christian elementary school that taught me A. God loves me and B. God can send me to hell.
I tread in the unfriendly waters of this paradox until I was drowning.
I questioned,
And my questions were met with raised eyebrows and Biblical text,
So, I stopped questioning.
Instead, I prayed,
Meticulously and with tenacity, and, above all, with all-consuming fear.
Most nights I was in elementary school I suffered severe anxiety attacks.
I feared that if I prayed to keep my dad safe in his helicopter in the desert then God would try and strengthen my faith by letting him die.
I feared if I prayed for help with my anxiety, he would allow my mom to get into an accident, which my young brain surmised God could do to teach me to manage my racing thoughts.
I became obsessed with it all,
With how exactly to pray so that I could both get relief from my own mind while also keeping my family safe.
My fear started to affect me physically by way of headaches and intense nausea when I suspected God was giving me this anxiety because I had done something to deserve it.
So, I prayed,
“Please forgive me God, I am a sinner.”
“Please don’t kill my dad, God, I will do anything.”
Childhood with my God did not feel like childhood.
When my dad came home, I felt relief but there were, of course, my friend’s dads who did not come home.
My teacher had assured me God answers prayers, were those Marines who had less family praying for them more deserving of death?
Did God really need sustained worship from the masses to decide which lives were worth saving?
Could I love a God who did?
Any time I would feel the sticky, black poison otherwise known as doubt seep into my skin I fell into a deep depression that I could only ascertain was happening because I had abandoned God.
This made me stay.
“Yes, Lord I know I am inherently bad, please forgive me.”
“Yes, Lord I know I am nothing without you, please love me.”
Leaving my small, private elementary school for a public middle school introduced me to jokes about sex, the best friends I probably had in my entire life, and a history of the world that did not include Noah’s Ark.
My life did not revolve around God, but I was still fearful and still a dirty sinner and still praying.
I journaled my feelings compulsively which now read like the confessions of a monk wrestling with a crippling crisis of faith and not of a sixth grader just wanting to not feel so nervous by the bus stop.
So, I prayed strategically, careful to not kill my mom or any of my new friends in the process,
Careful to not crash my bus.
“I am so sorry I ever doubted you, please don’t hurt me.”
In public school we had an assembly on abusive relationships and how to know you were in one and, critically, how to leave.
A speaker spoke of her experience with a man who hurt her.
My friend asked, “How could someone stay through that?”
I said nothing but when I got home and submitted to a force I worshiped because I was inherently bad and stupid and dirty and not worth saving on my own merit alone, I knew.