Getting back to the subject with life after the religious fireworks, the greatest thing I have is peace. I feel like a normal person. I like the fact that I am shocked when I come upon a Pentecostal and their mannerisms, which disgust me – the religious stuff, not the personal, family mannerisms. They appear to me as children who need to be tolerated because they have not yet grown up. I feel like the adult, even with Pentecostals much older than me. I find that they reach a glass ceiling in their careers in many cases because they have turned responsibility to make things happen over to God in general. I know now that I must MAKE things happen, if anything is going to happen.
My career I think had gotten better after Pentecostalism because I no longer have strange gestures, peculiar to Pentecostals, or the strange interpersonal habits that appear icky to outsiders, like the easy familiarity, or the smile that is just a little too much, or the praise that is way over the top and inappropriate.
One interpersonal thing I find different is that I do not feel that people are out to get me. There is no Pentecostal paranoia that people are possessed of the devil and will somehow try to destroy you personally. This eases the conversations, and I can talk to people in an easier way. These conversations open up new opportunities.
Ultimately, in life, the little things matter many times. In Pentecostalism we were obsessed with this big thing like the rapture, or winning the world, or being a great hero in the “work of the Lord.” Well, welcome to the real world, I can say, because all these big Pentecostal ideas are not worth a hill of dung because they are deluded fantasies. We are not as important as we fooled ourselves into believing. We are all part of humanity – we are in this thing called life like everyone else, and there is so much life out there outside of these extremist churches with their narrow way of looking at things.
So, to me, what is life after Pentecostalism? Life MORE abundantly. I feel like I am contributing something in my family and on the job. My former life as a Pentecostal is a fading memory that I have to strain my memory sometimes to even remember. I like it that way.
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JP Istre
1 comment:
I can relate. I'm becoming more withdrawn from people that are outside the church. Im almost afraid to talk to and spend time with people who dont believe like what pentecostals preach. I know this isn't normal. Ive lost friends and feel very lonely. I used to be a really fun, easygoing person but now Ive been conditioned to have fear about the outside world. After being told that anything from misplacing my car keys to having a cold is an "attack from the enemy", I constantly have trouble trusting anyone in the outside world of the church. Ive only been attending AoG for 2 years but have felt socially crippled because of it. I comment anonymously on a few other posts recently. I just hope some of the strange beliefs havent been too ingrained into my pysche. I want to feel "normal". Im tired of thinking everything that isnt religious must be evil. I dont understand why they say "the enemy" must be in everything. Ive watched a pentecostal family member cuss and verbally abuse their family only to then turn around and blame it on "the enemy". Its nuts.
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