Crisis of faith

By Meranda ~ 

My story will sound very familiar I'm sure. I was raised by a single
mother with a mental illness, and raising children exasperated it, so
I was made a ward of the state at 12 and lived in 7 different foster
homes from the time I was 12 to 19. I only include that bit of my past
to set the table for my absolute desire for a Father, unconditional
love, purpose, someone who sticks closer than a brother, someone who
would never leave or forsake me, etc. I fell head over heels in love
with Jesus, and even now with all my skepticism I find myself hoping
that I could just stop thinking so damned much and fall back in love!
My 1st crises of faith so to speak was 3 years ago after the death of
my mother. The christian fundamental idea of hell was realized to me
in a way it never had before. Sending people to hell for ever and
ever, pain, torment...really. And isn't is so common for Christian
believers to say we deserve it? Really?! So to follow that logic, a
god who created us with a propensity to mess up, make mistakes, sin or
whatever you want to call it is going to sentence the majority of his
creation to everlasting torment...I came to realize how sadistic that
sounded. Last summer I was at a christian woman's bible retreat with
some very dear friends and I was sharing with them my dilemma about
god's character, and one girl asked me that if indeed hell is real,
and most are sent there could I worship him? My answer was "no way". I
am still so new to this way of thinking, and trying to sort out what I
believe and think, as opposed to a religious dogma that I have
ascribed to the past 17 years. My husband, myself, and my 4 children
still go to church every Sunday. I have a 14 year old that loves his
youth group. We just don't see that it is time to tell our children or
extended family all of our thoughts right now.
This is a very lonely time for us. A year ago, we were struggling with
hell and were reading books such as "The fir that Consumes" by Edward
Fudge which is basically supporting annihilation to now we are reading
books by Dan Barker who is a former preacher turned atheist! Lol Oh,
boy! We have a a few discussions with christian friends, and
unfortunately they are too afraid to talk about our questions...they
are worried they will be deceived by Satan if they entertain some of
the thoughts and questions we have...sound familiar? We have some
other more liberal christian friends who are involved in house
churches, but they too are just pissed at the institutional machine of
churches and want a more organic fellowship and not questioning his
existence, character, inerrancy and infallibility of the bible etc.