Where Do I Stand?

This is a topic I've been avoiding for about 3 years now, but it is something that is becoming very important since I've been communicating with my mom much more in the past few months.

Where do I stand with God.

Frankly, I have nothing against God. I kinda like the guy. Jesus is alright too. What I don't like is religion and unfortunately, love of God has to be tied up with some kind of religion in everyone's mind.

I told my mom about my financial problems and she asked me if I've prayed. I wanted to say, Well, duh! because I'm one of those people who actually like prayer. Where it goes, I don't know. What the results of the prayers are has been me in the straits I'm in, but I've never fallen through the gaps. It's definitely not my doing, though I do work hard to keep control of the strings I have my hands on, but so much is out of my control that I feel the prayer helps.

That's my mind, though. After 10 years of loving God but following religion, I finally had to throw off the shroud of religion. When I hear my mom telling me that if I follow God's teaching and if I do what He says in His Book (that's right, capital B), then I don't have to worry about my finances.

I already knew I didn't have to worry about my finances. We are two intelligent human beings that see what we are doing wrong and right and it is only in continuing the right and quelling the wrong that we have sustained ourselves. I think prayer is a comfort for me and in my head, I have this little thought that if there IS someone (something) listening and helping, they have grown used to my voice for the last 15 years and are offering some help. But it is a comfort and a superstition I'm okay with having.

I have a few books that I want to read that let me hold on to my belief in God while giving me the out to not have to go to church. It's a relief, actually, to not have to go to church. Though there are some things that having a church family could help. If I hadn't had a church family, I would never have gotten my first car for a dollar. Support for my writing endeavors also came from my church family, despite the curse words at times, because we were in the same family.

But what I do not miss is the recriminations and the "the only way it can be done, He can be followed, is the way I say it". If I were to ask my mom which "Book" she thought I should get my wisdom of God from, she would think it sacrilege to look anywhere but the Bible yet would firmly agree that the wisdom of God is in anything wise.

I can't win, so in my family, I'm not a Christian, just to make it easier. But one day I'm going to have to sit down and figure out where I actually stand, just for me.