Muttering

I had to eat half a Zoloft last night because I was sinking into Hell. There were demons hidden all around the edges of the darkness, waiting to grab me and drag me down with them. I was almost asleep when I screamed. It freaked my friend out. Even more so when I said that I'd felt an evil presence surrounding me. So I got up and bit off half a Zoloft and my mind was soon blunted.

For almost a week, I felt as if my old self was returning. I had finally quit the Zoloft habit. I was being witty again (or so I believed), talkative. I started reading more, thought about maybe doing some writing, and was on the whole a lot less spacey. But the dizziness soon returned, and I started muttering once again that desperate mantra I had so long muttered through-out my life, "Holy Spirit I do not hate you, I love you", compulsively, almost spasmodically because, like some evil ticker-tape, it's opposite would scroll unbidden across my mind. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder I am told. But knowing that does not help much when experiencing this horror.

In the eleventh year of my life, I became a Christian. I was not raised in a religious family, but because I had an acute fear of death (I would often cry myself to sleep at night because I knew that someday I was going to die and blink out of existence), I was therefore exceedingly curious about spiritual things. My mom didn't have much use for religion, but because I bugged her for years to let me go to church, she finally relented to let me attend a little church just three blocks from where we lived. I was immediately enamored with the whole church-scene--a bunch of grandpas and grandmas, a way cool youth pastor, and the man of God Pastor Koons all paid attention to me and loved me in ways that my own family couldn't.

I sat in that church for the first three weeks with sweaty palms and a racing heart under the pastor's heavy sermons about sin and Hell. I knew I was a sinner deep down to my bones, even before ever going to church. But these people taught me also that there was an afterlife--the possibility of Heaven. This, I thought, was my ticket. If I gave my heart to Jesus, I could get into Heaven. I would not just blink out of existence when I died. I could live forever.

So finally, on the third Sunday, under heavy conviction, with what felt like Hell on my heals, I stumbled up to the front of the church, knelt down at the altar and gave my heart to Jesus. That's when the unexpected happened. I knew, in that moment, without a doubt, that there was a God, and that He loved me.

Walking home that day, it was as if Jesus was walking right beside me. I was no longer alone. I had a friend, a true friend who would never leave me nor forsake me. But in the months and years to come, that feeling would fade and be eclipsed by the fear of an eternal, fiery, and demonic Hell.

I blame no one for my transition from assurance and love in Christ to the fear and insecurity I experienced most of my Christian walk. I believe there were two reasons for my slide into Christian despair. First, the type of Christianity I was introduced to focused on the possibility of one losing their salvation and thereby gaining Hell despite giving their heart to the Lord sometime along the way. I understood this to mean, in my child-like mind, that if I committed a sin and did not ask forgiveness promptly for it, promising to repent of it, and if I died before I did so, I would go straight to Hell. Thus, every night I would pray off a list of sins that I thought I'd committed during the day before I went to sleep, and just in case I missed one, I would finish my prayer with, "Lord forgive me for any sin I committed today that I cannot remember." But I never felt like I'd done quite enough. The second reason, I'm sure, has to do with my messed-up brain chemistry, which, despite my reluctance to admit, probably should be the primary reason. Be that as it may, these two reasons were a bad mix for me.

Then came that fateful day, with that horrible sermon about the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. Up until that day, I believed that even though I sinned daily, I could ask God to forgive me of any sin and He would. But now this new thing. I was only eleven-years old--three months a brand new Christian, with much still to learn. I had already internalized well the horrors of Hell because Hell was a favorite topic for my Pastor's sermons. He was descriptive, and I had a vivid imagination. Often as he preached, I would see myself crying out to God, too late, in an eternally burning pit with no chance to ever be set free. Forever burning, forever tormented...forever...if I did not repent now and everyday. But then one day to hear that there was one sin that God would never forgive, that after committing it, the sinner who pleaded to God for forgiveness would receive no forgiveness--that for this sin there would never be forgiveness, upon learning this, at that moment the ticker-tape started running across my mind. I could see the words. I could hear the words whispered in my consciousness, "Holy Spirit, I ha..." (I cannot write them. I will never write those words). I responded right away to what I felt sure was the Devil himself whispering into mind by muttering against it, "Holy Spirit I do not hate you! I love you!" Muttering to myself (the ticker-tape always running) at school, at church, at home, everywhere. I was always muttering.