In The Beginning…

There was doubt.

Required Listening: If It’s Not God by Maddie Zahm

If it was God, then I don't have to worry
He'll know why I left, why I ran in a hurry
So either way I choose, I'm not wasting my life
'Cause the voice in my head has always been right

It started off small. Little things I was taught growing up that turned out to be false.

Then it escalated.

Meeting and befriending people showed me that those in the LGBTQ+ community weren’t the monsters I was told they’d be. They were friendly, welcoming, loving, and nonjudgmental in a way I had never experienced.

Going to Pride and seeing street preachers and their signs filled me with anger. Couldn’t they just come meet these people and realize that they’re not the enemy?

The Christians were wrong.

I read all the Harry Potter books and watched all the movies, evening dressing up for the final movie when we saw it opening night.

I had family quote Deuteronomy (was it Deuteronomy 18:10-11?) to me when I posted pictures from a fun day at a Harry Potter festival.

But I never became a witch or dabbled in witchcraft.

The Christians were wrong.

I was told that being in a church community was akin to family. But when my differing beliefs on what it meant to be a Christian were showing, I was pushed out and I never heard from them again.

The Christians were wrong.

Little by little, the doubt grew.

And grew.

And grew.

And it grew until I could no longer sit in a church.