Why I Left The Church…Twice. (PART 3)

I was so disenchanted with the church that I started to regularly work on Saturdays. For anyone that doesn’t know, Seventh-day Adventists (SDA) believe that the adhering or “keeping” Sabbath is a pillar and prime indicator that a believer is a true worshipper and follower of God. We believe in keeping all of God’s Commandments, found in Exodus 20, because it is a reflection of His true character. According to the Word, the Sabbath is from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday (Genesis 2:1-3; Exodus 20:8-11; Leviticus 23:32). We are instructed not to take part in any occupational or self-sustaining work that is reserved for the other days of the week. So by choosing to deliberately work on Sabbaths, I was consciously choosing to denounce SDA teachings in my life.

If “I don’t care” was a person at that time, it was me. I was only now focused on how I could make money and live the life that I wanted to live. I picked up as many shifts and overtimes shifts as I could to try to make as much money as I could. I did not care about anybody or anything else and why should I? Who was going to take care of me if not me? As I was working at this job, I met a young lady that I thought was cool and we started to have conversations from time to time. I don’t know how it occurred, but in one of our conversations we started to talk about God. In that conversation, it came out that she was a Seventh-day Adventist. “Oh great”, I thought. Not one of those people again! It seemed like no matter where I turned I couldn’t get away from them.

Learning that she was a Seventh-day Adventist turned me off from talking to her. I would see her around from time to time and every time we talked, it seemed like it somehow ended up in a conversation about God and the church. She eventually invited me to attend the church that she was going to. I knew that I was never going back to church, but to humor myself, I asked her which church she went to, because I knew all of the Adventist churches in the area. When she proceeded to tell me that she was from the same church that I had broke down in, the same church that let me fall through the cracks, the same church that professed to be a place that would take care of me in my most vulnerable moments, I felt a rage like never before start to boil inside of me. But because we had a good relationship, I kindly excused myself from our dreadful conversation.

But you know how it seems like some people just can’t take a hint for the life of them? This is how I felt as it seemed that every time we talked, this young lady kept inviting me to church. She was relentless. She was annoying. She was persistent. She was exactly what I needed. As a matter of fact, I got so sick of her asking me to come to church that I finally agreed to come, even though I had no intention whatsoever to honor my pledge.

I remember I had made up my mind to just show my face so that she would see me and we would never have to talk about me coming to church again. I purposely went out to party the night before, because who wants to be to church on time? I was trying to be in and out of that god forsaken place as quickly as I could. When I finally arrived, the pastor was already speaking. “Great!”, I thought to myself. Mission accomplished. My plan had worked. I was so late that I thought I would just catch the end of the sermon and say hi to my coworker then leave. I could barely stand the feeling of even stepping foot back into the place that had caused me so much harm just three years before. I was disgusted by the smiles of all the hypocrites and Pharisees who told me the loved me, but never seemed to allow their actions to speak louder than their words. I was ushered to a seat next to more people I didn’t know or care for, but was just going to do my time until the pastor was done preaching. I was slightly hungover from partying the night before, so I felt that the pastor’s sermon would be just the bedtime story I needed to get a quick snooze. It felt nostalgic, as I used to get some of the best sleep in church during the boring sermons when I was a kid.

But then that’s when it happened…