The Unmasking of The Divine

Getting back in touch with The God Within, and relearning how to trust myself

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I wasn’t encouraged to trust myself in my early religious environments. Being “human” and the emotions that come with humanity was always taught to be suspect, especially when they went up against the teachings of the Bible or the teachings of the religious leaders in whatever church I was attending.

“You can’t trust yourself. Only trust God’s word.”

“Your emotions are fickle and will lead you astray.”

“Our feelings will try to persuade us to do things against the will of God.”

“We must constantly fight against our wicked, wretched humanity.”

Ugh. Are we really that bad? Are we so flawed that we can’t be trusted to know good from bad, right from wrong, truth from lies, holy from evil?

My friends and family know me to be a very inquisitive person. At times I’m sure that I drive them crazy with my curious nature. My poor husband gets it the worst. Thankfully he is a very patient man, but God bless him, he never seems to have enough information for me! Mike seems to have the ability to take whatever information is given to him about almost anything and that’s enough for him at the time. I don’t understand it, but it seems to work for him. For instance:

Mike: “Hey, did you hear that Joe and Sara had their baby?”

Me: “Really? I didn’t know! Was it a girl or a boy?”

Mike: “I don’t know, I didn’t ask.”

I was incredulous.

Me: “You didn’t ASK? Well, when did they have it?” “Is she home from the hospital yet?” “Are they…”

He stops me right there.

Mike: “Marcia, I don’t have any more information for you. I’ve told you all I know.”

Humph. I just don’t understand how you can get a piece of important information and not ask any follow-up questions! I always have follow-up questions. It can be annoying to people around me, but my curious nature usually gets the better of me and I can’t help myself. It’s especially bad if something is told to me that doesn’t quite ring true. That is when I can really get on people’s nerves. I really try to listen with good faith, but my skeptical side will light up when someone tells me something that feels… off.

“What do you mean Jody was mean to you for no reason? I know Jody well and she’s not someone that I know to be mean. There must be more to the story. Could you have done something to hurt her feelings? Make her mad?” - yep, that’s when I usually get “the glare” from the person telling the story. I know I should just accept my friend’s side of the story as her experience and be supportive, but I… just… can’t! I need for this situation to make sense to me and it doesn’t make sense without more information!

And that’s why religion has often been a problem for me.