I'm totally new to this site so forgive me if I do anything wrong etiquette-wise.
Here's my story:
Call me 'Snazzle' or 'Snaz' - I'd rather not reveal my real name at this moment in time. I'm an 18-year-old student (and part-time lifeguard) from the UK and I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember. My parents were both very committed Christians and I loved God from a young age, asking him to come into my life at around age 7 or 8.
I'm technically a baptist as I've attended a baptist church (very irregularly) for the past goodness-knows-how-many years... pretty much all of my youth until this point.
The reality is... I feel very alone now. I'm in a part of the country where we are somewhat lacking in decent churches, I'm not part of a C.U. (as I'm now entering my gap year between sixth-form and university so I don't go to school) I have literally no Christian friends.
Ok, the church situation... we seem to have very charismatic (to the point of quirky) and very traditional churches, with no happy medium. My church - the baptist one - is fairly balanced. The worship isn't bad, the services are a little more theological than wholly relevant, but I'm not complaining... it's just that, despite attending it for 10-12 years, I've never felt like I belonged to the congregation. There aren't many people my age at all - mainly much younger or about 10 years older (i.e. post-grads). The post-grads are friendly enough and have, on occasion, tried to include me, but there's too much of an age gap really - they all live on their own, have done uni and are in professions. Plus we don't really have much in common and I'm pretty much invisible to them most of the time.
My family, once fully involved in the church - we are great friends with the minister and his wife - but an incident happened about 5 years ago which I can't go into, but it really damaged our family. Whilst my mum and I remain strong in the faith, my brother and father take a much more casual approach if you like, and are very quiet about it. The trouble is, my mum means well, but when she tries to explain things according to our God, she comes across sounding "holier-than-thou" which alienates my brother and father further, causing them either to roll their eyes or be riled. (Because my mother, like anyone, is not exactly mother Teresa either, although she is certainly a Godly woman). So anyway... I don't feel I can really talk to my mum about spiritual things too much. I read my Bible daily (a habit which I've only recently started again, I'll admit, due to lack of time around the pressured exam period)
I think I have a total of three Christian acquaintances my age. One is a nice guy whom I lifeguard with, quite charismatic in his faith but a quiet person. Thing is, he isn't very forthcoming, and he is part of an active church with a lot of Christian friends. Thing is, all his Christian connections are largely from the same church/CU/school thus likely to part of a 'Christian clique' (one of the saddest things about any Christian gatherings I know - everything, from the CU to the church, is cliquey! And whilst you might be interesting to any particualr group as newcomer, the novelty soon wears off and you find yourself outside of conversations regarding the retreat or camping trip they went on, or last weekend when they went to a beach etc...)
My other friend is a close one whom I've known now for 5-and-a-half years - she's made an effort to include me in various happenings at her church. But the church cliquey-ness prevailed once more. Furthermore, she has had a very sheltered upbringing and so can be quite narrow-minded, and has a few quirky tendencies. For instance: one time, at our CU (we went to the same secondary school), she ran a session of it where everyone closed their eyes, opened their hands up to God to receive what He was saying (fair enough)... and then... we asked Him what his favourite colour was. I kid you not. We repeat the exercise with other things, like asking Jesus what game we'd play together if He came down to Earth for the day (not teh second-coming, mind) So, naturally, everyone in the group gets a different answer (funny, that!) and her response was, "This shows how everyone is different and unique." I honestly do not follow that at all. You get my drift.
Additionally, she is not on the same intellectual wavelength as me. Now I know how arrogant this sounds, and I'm not having a go at her - her heart is in the right place and she is by far the most devoted Christian I know; a very kind, caring, lovely girl of God. But we are not on par intellectually, and as such, I can't talk to her about everything. The conversation isn't as eloquent as it sometimes needs to be for deep, heart-to-heart topics.
The other person I know who's a born-again Christian is a friend of mine I've known since birth. However, he lives a long way from me and we've not spoken much in 4 years. Our parents were close at university, went to the same CU there and are more or less lifelong friends, but since 'the incident' relations haven't been the same. There's too much he doesn't know to go back to the way things were, if you get my drift?
So basically, I've joined this site to find other Christians, crazy though that sounds. I'm so overwhelmingly depressed sometimes (I'm certainly down about it today) because I feel so very isolated. I love God, and I want to follow and worship Him as much as I can, but sometimes it's very hard without the fellowship of other Christians my age. I have many friends who aren't Christians, but our morals are totally dissimilar - they like to party, get wasted, sleep around, and whilst I'll join them on nights out to be sociable, my heart's not in it - I'm not going to get bladdered drinking to excess, I'm saving myself for one person and I spend my money in different ways. My friends - non-Christian as they are - are not very selfless, so I often feel taken advantage of (I love to be a blessing, don't get me wrong, but when you loan friends £17 and never ask for it back, and they get shirty over the smallest amount, it's a little frustrating...)
I shouldn't complain; I'm in a country which allows religious freedom, I have a bible on my iPod (as well as in real life, hehe) and great programmes available on the GOD channel. But all of this is no substitute for supportive, loving members of the church and I just hope that I can somehow find people to pray with and maybe befriend on here.
Anyway, I'm really sorry for posting all this, I must sound like such a sad case. It's very self-indulgent and not very God-focused at all. Oh well. If you have read all of this, thanks. I'm sorry to be so dismal. I'll try and post chirpier blogs from now on. But I needed to get this out of my system before I become consumed in sadness and self-pity. (Yes, I know it's wrong. I'm sorry.)
Love in Christ.
~Snaz
Here's my story:
Call me 'Snazzle' or 'Snaz' - I'd rather not reveal my real name at this moment in time. I'm an 18-year-old student (and part-time lifeguard) from the UK and I've been a Christian for as long as I can remember. My parents were both very committed Christians and I loved God from a young age, asking him to come into my life at around age 7 or 8.
I'm technically a baptist as I've attended a baptist church (very irregularly) for the past goodness-knows-how-many years... pretty much all of my youth until this point.
The reality is... I feel very alone now. I'm in a part of the country where we are somewhat lacking in decent churches, I'm not part of a C.U. (as I'm now entering my gap year between sixth-form and university so I don't go to school) I have literally no Christian friends.
Ok, the church situation... we seem to have very charismatic (to the point of quirky) and very traditional churches, with no happy medium. My church - the baptist one - is fairly balanced. The worship isn't bad, the services are a little more theological than wholly relevant, but I'm not complaining... it's just that, despite attending it for 10-12 years, I've never felt like I belonged to the congregation. There aren't many people my age at all - mainly much younger or about 10 years older (i.e. post-grads). The post-grads are friendly enough and have, on occasion, tried to include me, but there's too much of an age gap really - they all live on their own, have done uni and are in professions. Plus we don't really have much in common and I'm pretty much invisible to them most of the time.
My family, once fully involved in the church - we are great friends with the minister and his wife - but an incident happened about 5 years ago which I can't go into, but it really damaged our family. Whilst my mum and I remain strong in the faith, my brother and father take a much more casual approach if you like, and are very quiet about it. The trouble is, my mum means well, but when she tries to explain things according to our God, she comes across sounding "holier-than-thou" which alienates my brother and father further, causing them either to roll their eyes or be riled. (Because my mother, like anyone, is not exactly mother Teresa either, although she is certainly a Godly woman). So anyway... I don't feel I can really talk to my mum about spiritual things too much. I read my Bible daily (a habit which I've only recently started again, I'll admit, due to lack of time around the pressured exam period)
I think I have a total of three Christian acquaintances my age. One is a nice guy whom I lifeguard with, quite charismatic in his faith but a quiet person. Thing is, he isn't very forthcoming, and he is part of an active church with a lot of Christian friends. Thing is, all his Christian connections are largely from the same church/CU/school thus likely to part of a 'Christian clique' (one of the saddest things about any Christian gatherings I know - everything, from the CU to the church, is cliquey! And whilst you might be interesting to any particualr group as newcomer, the novelty soon wears off and you find yourself outside of conversations regarding the retreat or camping trip they went on, or last weekend when they went to a beach etc...)
My other friend is a close one whom I've known now for 5-and-a-half years - she's made an effort to include me in various happenings at her church. But the church cliquey-ness prevailed once more. Furthermore, she has had a very sheltered upbringing and so can be quite narrow-minded, and has a few quirky tendencies. For instance: one time, at our CU (we went to the same secondary school), she ran a session of it where everyone closed their eyes, opened their hands up to God to receive what He was saying (fair enough)... and then... we asked Him what his favourite colour was. I kid you not. We repeat the exercise with other things, like asking Jesus what game we'd play together if He came down to Earth for the day (not teh second-coming, mind) So, naturally, everyone in the group gets a different answer (funny, that!) and her response was, "This shows how everyone is different and unique." I honestly do not follow that at all. You get my drift.
Additionally, she is not on the same intellectual wavelength as me. Now I know how arrogant this sounds, and I'm not having a go at her - her heart is in the right place and she is by far the most devoted Christian I know; a very kind, caring, lovely girl of God. But we are not on par intellectually, and as such, I can't talk to her about everything. The conversation isn't as eloquent as it sometimes needs to be for deep, heart-to-heart topics.
The other person I know who's a born-again Christian is a friend of mine I've known since birth. However, he lives a long way from me and we've not spoken much in 4 years. Our parents were close at university, went to the same CU there and are more or less lifelong friends, but since 'the incident' relations haven't been the same. There's too much he doesn't know to go back to the way things were, if you get my drift?
So basically, I've joined this site to find other Christians, crazy though that sounds. I'm so overwhelmingly depressed sometimes (I'm certainly down about it today) because I feel so very isolated. I love God, and I want to follow and worship Him as much as I can, but sometimes it's very hard without the fellowship of other Christians my age. I have many friends who aren't Christians, but our morals are totally dissimilar - they like to party, get wasted, sleep around, and whilst I'll join them on nights out to be sociable, my heart's not in it - I'm not going to get bladdered drinking to excess, I'm saving myself for one person and I spend my money in different ways. My friends - non-Christian as they are - are not very selfless, so I often feel taken advantage of (I love to be a blessing, don't get me wrong, but when you loan friends £17 and never ask for it back, and they get shirty over the smallest amount, it's a little frustrating...)
I shouldn't complain; I'm in a country which allows religious freedom, I have a bible on my iPod (as well as in real life, hehe) and great programmes available on the GOD channel. But all of this is no substitute for supportive, loving members of the church and I just hope that I can somehow find people to pray with and maybe befriend on here.
Anyway, I'm really sorry for posting all this, I must sound like such a sad case. It's very self-indulgent and not very God-focused at all. Oh well. If you have read all of this, thanks. I'm sorry to be so dismal. I'll try and post chirpier blogs from now on. But I needed to get this out of my system before I become consumed in sadness and self-pity. (Yes, I know it's wrong. I'm sorry.)
Love in Christ.
~Snaz
