Meet the Writers- Allie

I have almost no religious discipline whatsoever. Although I grew up in the church, sang in the church choir and I was even saved and baptized before participating in communion, I have always been confused about God.
The man who I've always known as my father was a "praise Jesus, ask no questions, just have faith", strict, Southern Baptist. That meant church every Sunday, prayers before bedtime, etc. There was a God in Heaven who was your creator, and Jesus was your salvation. End of story. There wasn't much room for questioning faith, and why we worshiped how we did. We just, did. 


My mother, on the other hand, had grown up Episcopalian.  Episcopalian is like, "Diet Catholic", or "Catholic Light", just to sum it up. While she was married to my dad she went along with the whole Baptist idea of God, but when they divorced she wanted to go right back to the Episcopal church. Naturally, being a seven year old, I had a ton of questions of what this meant. I wanted to know why, if there was only one God and one Jesus, was it necessary for there to be so many different types of churches in which to worship Him. I remember my mother finally telling me that there are different types of Christianity, and that although they worship differently, they still worship God, and they worship Jesus and that as long as you had faith in God and Jesus and accepted them into your heart, you will get into Heaven. Meaning, as long as you're Christian, it did not matter how you worshiped.
 For a long time, I just blindly accepted that Christianity was the only faith. Any questions I had were usually met with, "It's just God's will," or "God works in mysterious ways." After some time, though, those particular answers didn't cut it any more.
When I was twelve, for reasons I wish to remain private, I decided that I hated God, and God hated me, and I made the conscious  decision to turn my back on Him, and turned elsewhere for the peace, answers and belonging my desperate, pubescent mind felt it needed.
I found solace in the whole "Wicca thing" during my angry, rage-y teen years. Wicca brought me peace of mind at the time, and secretly doing it behind my mother's back brought me some sort of sick satisfaction. It also felt like I was hurting God as much as I felt He had hurt me, and that was what really mattered.

Now that I am an adult, I realize how silly the whole thing was. I also realized that my faith, although shaken, had never fully left. My dear friend, Sara, pointed out that I obviously still had faith, or I wouldn't hate Him so much. She had a great point, and ever since I had been wanting and searching for ways to rebuild my relationship with God. Thing is, there are a zillion ways to go about that. Which one is the right way? There is Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc. They are almost all the same religion, give or take a few things. It reminds me of being in an ice cream shop. There are so many different flavors of what is basically the same thing, so how do you choose which is right for you, or as Sara says, keeps you from burning in Hell for eternity?