The Silenced

I grew up in your standard Catholic Hispanic household. My mother, being disenchanted with the the Church, left it for a cult that promised to not only teach but also research the Bible so that you would know without a shadow of a doubt that you were finally free in Christ...or so they said. Among the many errors that I was taught in the name of "research and teaching" was that a child wasn't alive until it took its first breath at childbirth. In the meanwhile, when I would travel to visit my grandparents in Puerto Rico, my grandmother, short of dunking me in the baptismal font, would work diligently to catechize me in the doctrines of the Catholic Church. I made it through three sacraments, but that didn't stop me from having an abortion at the age of 17.

It should have come as little surprise to anyone that the culture was the most successful influence on my thinking. Descartes' would be proud because as a result of my "research" I had fashioned a god after my own thinking. I regarded all things of a religious nature to be oppressive and I was eager to be free of them. I wasn't an atheist; I couldn't even pass for a good agnostic. At best I was apathetic. I found myself in the throws of the modern culture trying to be a "good girl," but when your compass points to all things you, it's a recipe for disaster.

Let's fast forward through years of bad choices. I was at a crossroads and before I could make the commitment to atheism I had to, as Nietzsche put it in The Parable of a Mad Man, 'kill god' in order to legitimately move on with my life. God is not mocked - especially not by a self-professed intellectual like myself. During the process of ridding myself of all things religious, I realized I didn't have enough faith to be an atheist. I surrendered; but more importantly, I repented.

Soon after I surrendered all, I remember sharing my story with a Christian girl I worked with. The very next day she requested to change departments; she wouldn't even look at me. I remember thinking, THIS is what you saved me from and to?!? Really?!? I was wounded by her rejection, but I knew I couldn't turn back to who I used to be. It muffled (shamed) me into a corner. I decided to keep  myself looking and smelling good just so I could stay "in community." God had wiped me clean, but His followers had decided I wasn't "clean enough." The end result: I went from apathy to sitting in the pews of denial with the rest of my brethren.

It would take me several years to realize that I wasn't the only one that had been "silenced." No matter what people had said, when a person like me openly lamented their sin, the people couldn't handle it. They would immediately rush to judgement and/or the internal comparison game of "Whoa! She was bad!"

Eventually God called me to share, but I would only do so in one-on-one situations. A couple more years later, a pastor I deeply respect told me it was time for me to share my story to a wider audience. He carved time out of his hectic schedule to minister to my heart and my fears, letting me know that it was no longer "my story," it belonged to God and I needed to be available to how God would use me. Shaking and trembling, I spoke at his church. I thought that was it and I could now go back to my "hobbit hole," but God said, "Not so fast."

The next step was to "formally" equip me. I trained with "spiritual giants" and I was in awe of their kindness. They loved me with the Truth and I was able to connect the dots of my past to the present. God has proceeded to place me in situations where I would be asked to speak. I speak, even when my  voice shakes; and trust me, it shakes.

My calling is to love people with the Truth of God's Word in a winsome manner; to remain steadfast in His love; and pray for God to do His work in both my life and that of the brethren. As I survey the landscape of the Church, I hear the silence, LOUD and CLEAR. I see more clearly than ever those who have been muffled into a corner and those whose busyness is their idol. I see people who forgot, or even worse, never learned how to lament. The end result is a weak Church with either pointy fingers or bleeding hearts because they fear the rejection of the crowds. Maybe it's both. I've lived it. I get it. I am free. I am no longer silenced.