Losing my religion....
“That's me in the corner, That's me in the spotlight
Losing my religion, Trying to keep up with you
And I don't know if I can do it, Oh no I've said too much
I haven't said enough”*
Some days when I come home after work,
I feel like have really lost it.
I used to feel like I was a better person,
I felt like I lived right, and
lived what I believed.
I am a Christian, not just a "go to church on Christmas and Easter" churchgoer, but I believe with my whole heart that Jesus Christ died on the cross for my sins, and I have faith that his blood has cleansed me from those sins.
I was raised to believe that Christians live in a righteous manner. They don’t lie, steal, or curse, and the rest of the 10 commandments. I still believe that what you believe should affect how you act. But I have a real hard time reconciling what I believe with how I act at the call center. I cuss, I have lied on occasion, and I’m not always a very kind person.
It’s amazing the amount of pure evil that this place can bring out in everyone. The people that call in are sometimes in some difficult crisis or undergoing financial and physical stress. We ask people to spend money for services they need but don’t really want to buy. Others are trying to justify what they have done, and wont pay for what we have done for them. We do not get opportunities to see people at their best. Sometimes the atmosphere is the equivalent of tying 4 cats tails together and putting them in a bag.
I’m still trying to reconcile this with my own faith. One of the things I have determined is that I see even more than ever that no one is perfect, and that everyone struggles with sin. I also know that I am not a good person in anything I can come up with from inside me. More and more, I am leaning on the grace of God. I’m trusting less in Sunday school rules, and more on the fact that God loves me even if I am a sometimes lying and hateful human being. People have said Christianity is a crutch, they may be right. It’s more than that to me-I don’t have a leg to stand on, it’s my wheelchair, it’s my artificial legs, it’s my fixed hope that there is something good and lovely outside of this purgatory that I am working in now.
Many people really get the wrong idea about the Christian faith, they think it’s a bunch of rules and regulations for do gooders. No, it was made for liars, and adulterers, and murderers and the worst scum of the earth. So that we could throw away the rules, and depend on that blood to cleanse us of our filth. The good that I am able to do, I do because I want to show my thankfulness for what he’s done for me, not because I am scared of going to Hell.
This is the passage of the bible that means the most to me when work becomes too much to bear…
My tears have been my food day and night,
while men say to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
By day the LORD directs his love,
at night his song is with me-- a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God my Rock, "Why have you forgotten me?
Why must I go about mourning, oppressed by the enemy?"
My bones suffer mortal agony as my foes taunt me,
saying to me all day long, "Where is your God?"
Why are you downcast, O my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him,
my Savior and my God. **
*1 From REM-“Losing my religion” from the out of time album)
[I know some of you are saying, "hey,that's not what that song was about!" . Well, I'm taking liberties with it, because alot of their songs are so ambiguous-they could mean a lot of things, so don't worry about it. If you are that concerned-get your own blog-they are free..]
**2 Psalms 42:3, 7-11-New International Version
