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Before I go straight into the details about my experience with the cult, I feel that in order to better understand my feelings, I should explain a little about myself first and my history with religion.
Even when I was young, I have always considered myself to be a rational and logical person, as well as kind and loving. Of course, I suppose most persons feel this way about themselves, regardless of whether or not it's true, but this is something I was always proud of myself for.
Of course, that is not to say that I didn't have my flaws. Especially when you're little, you're going to have many. Like most children in the U.S., I was raised a Christian. My family was all Christian and we belonged to a Protestant denomination. But while this was the case, none of us were ever super religious. We did go to church just about every Sunday for about an hour and we all did have a firm belief in God, but that was about it. We were never strict with the Bible, and we didn't evangelize or do anything radical like that. Of course, when you're so young, you believe what you are told, and I grew up with a firm belief in God, along with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, and many others. I even believed Superman was real.
I didn't know it at the time, but my beliefs about God differed somewhat from my family and most other persons. I was always so imaginative and spoke to myself very often, sort of living in my own world, thinking deeply about things, and I always had my own way of believing in God. Before I was about twelve years of age, my thoughts and beliefs in God were basically that there was some magical man living in the clouds who had made everyone and everything, and he was loving and perfect. He also had a son named Jesus. To me, Jesus was not God, but simply his son who came to Earth to teach us about his father and to do good things. I didn't know anything about salvation or the meaning of Jesus' death. My belief was that when you died, God would send you to Heaven if you were a good person, and to Hell if you were bad. That was it. You could also pray to God and ask him for things, and he might give them to you. Now that I think about it, probably a lot of children often thought of God in these ways. Even though my beliefs might have differed than most persons', I didn't really know that at the time. In fact, I believed that the belief in God and Christianity were universal concepts. It did not even occur to me that there were persons out there who didn't believe in God. I believed everyone was a Christian.
At this point, I had never read the Bible, but I believed that it was true without question, and that it was the book that had all the knowledge we needed about God. I believed that the Bible taught how good God was and that it provided everyone with moral instructions on how to live our lives. It was easy for me to see God as a perfect and loving guy, as he obviously must have had the same morals I did. I mean, after all, I considered myself to be a good person and I knew what was right and what was wrong. Surely God would agree with all of my ethical views.
I would talk to God very often, and would go few nights without saying my prayers. I saw prayer as more than just asking God for things, but I also saw it as a kind of a necessary thing to do. I felt that he wanted us to talk to him and thus prayer was sort of a necessity. I felt bad if I skipped a night. But it wasn't just asking for things. I just liked talking to him, and having conversations. It made me feel less lonely and I took great comfort in this.
Around the time when I became thirteen years old, I even began my Christian confirmation process. I didn't really want to do it, but was promised a party and gifts after I completed it, so I agreed. I actually quite enjoyed it. I would go to a class every week and learned more about God and the Bible, memorizing the Ten Commandments and stuff like that. But to tell you the truth, I really didn't learn much more than what I already knew or thought I knew. The most that happened with me from this experience was not so much an increase in knowledge about God, but my devotion to him. Going through confirmation, I became a much stronger believer, having no doubt in my mind that he was real. I pledged to be his devoted follower, living for him and fighting for what was right. I wanted to spread the knowledge of God and how much he loved us.
I had a silly idea. Unlike most Christians, I felt that if I was going to preach about the Bible to others, that I should actually read it, and I wanted to read it, because I wanted to know all I could about God. Reading the Bible is something no Christian should ever do if they wish to remain a Christian. But I didn't know that at that time. To me, I already "knew" that the Bible was a perfect book. I just needed to read it so that I could properly teach it and know all I could about God.
So I requested a Bible to read, and my father gave me one as a present. I was excited, filled with such anticipation. I had only read snippets from confirmation class, and now I could read the whole thing. Quite a large book for a young person, but I really wanted to read it.
So I opened it up and began to read. I didn't make it past the first few pages before I was completely shocked by what I was reading. In fact, I was disgusted by nearly every page. This was not the religion that I believed that I was a part of, and this was not the God that I believed in. I just didn't know what to think. I was left feeling so confused. Here, I was reading what was supposed to be the source for all Christian knowledge, but it was clearly in direct conflict with everything that I believed and was taught in church. Was I missing something? How could this be the book about God? God was loving, not cruel like the Bible was making him out to be. I was so confused. I didn't know how to handle this. I very much believed in and was devoted to God, but I just couldn't accept this as his book.
Of course, you have all of the murder and torture that God was practicing in the Bible, which was bad enough, but I also couldn't believe the way he treated girls, and probably what affected me the most was how much he advocated animal abuse. It seems on every occasion, God developed some sort of lust for an animal sacrifice, and I couldn't believe how God, who was supposed to be the most loving being of all, could care so little about the weakest and most innocent of his creations.
I did try to keep reading the Bible, and I did what many Christians do when faced with such Biblical conflicts. I made up excuses as to why the Bible would say such things, and I tried looking at the texts in different ways and even tried looking at it from God's point of view. The concept was simple. When I saw a Biblical text I didn't like, I either made an excuse for it or I tried to rationalize it, with only the intent on making the Bible still worth following.
For instance, when God commanded someone to kill an animal, I just tried to believe that there must have been a reason for it that I didn't understand, and that I had to trust in God. You see, I was already learning how to become a master of the Christian game, to modify my religion according to my own personal beliefs. While all of this helped a little, I was still having a hard time with it. I remember one day after reading more, I just threw it across the room. From that time on, I just kind of considered the Bible to be a guide for Christians, but I couldn't accept it as absolute truth.
But it wasn't just the immoral things, it was all of the inaccuracies of the Bible as well. I found it confusing when God would tell his people to not kill, but then a few pages later tell them to not only kill, but to torture too, with explicit instructions on how to do all this. Not only was that immoral, it didn't make sense and was inconsistent. Another example is how the Bible teaches that the Earth is flat. I know that not even Christians believed that anymore, yet it was there in their "perfect" book.
I admit that I was stupid for believing in God in the first place, but I wasn't that stupid. I didn't need the Bible to tell me what was right and wrong. I knew what was right, and I knew that the Bible was wrong. I trusted that I was a good and loving person, so I didn't need the Bible for that. Also, I felt that everything that I was doing before and my relationship with God was fine the way it was. I didn't need to read the Bible to believe in him or to make him love me. All that mattered was that I believed in him, that he was with me, that I could talk to him, and that I was a good person. That was enough for me.
Despite the setback with the Bible, my passion for God did grow. Around fourteen years of age is when I reached my Christian peak. It's kind of ironic, how out of everyone in my family, I am the most anti-religious, but at this point, I was more passionate about and devoted to God than anyone else. It was a joy. But at the same time, this is also where things were very much starting to get complicated for me.
For starters, I was finding it difficult to balance my belief in God and my disbelief for the Bible. This especially was a problem when I would try to tell others about God. I would tell them things that I really believed about him, but the Bible would constantly contradict me, and I had nothing to show anybody to back up what I believed.
In addition to that, I was learning more and more about the views of mainstream Christianity, views which I didn't even know about, things which Christianity was apparently against. Remember, it was my understanding that my religion was all about living a life of love and morality while serving God. But, it was just looking more to me like a religion that just wanted to hate everything and everybody. For instance, I already knew that the Bible advocated animal abuse, but I also knew that few persons actually followed everything that the Bible said, yet I learned how Christians still saw no reason to treat animals with kindness, because apparently, they were created for humans by God. I also learned that Christians apparently hated homosexuals. I couldn't understand why that was such a big deal. I learned that they hated pornography, which I couldn't understand either as to why they thought it was immoral. They were against abortion, which I could understand, but it was always because they felt that the Bible preached against it, not because they actually cared about saving anyone. I also learned how in some churches, women were not even allowed to be pastors, or teach, and how they were expected to not work and to only serve their husbands. All of this was wrong to me.
I was also learning about things that weren't even true, and just made the religion look bad. For example, I could tell from a young age that animals looked alike and that we all were somehow related, and this was way before I learned of evolution. Yet despite all of the rock solid evidence, Christians wanted to deny this truth. I did believe that God created us, but I also couldn't deny evolution, and I also admitted that I really had no evidence to back up any statements which stated that God made us. Another example is how they believed that the Earth was only about six-thousand to twelve thousand years old, and that was just ridiculous.
These were Christians. And these were the persons I surrounded myself with and it was this religion that I associated myself with. Yet, I was nothing like those Christians and I did not follow their religion. As time went by, I had to constantly modify my understanding of the Bible in order to make myself a believer. I hardly had a use for the Bible anymore, and I kind of retired it. And at this point, I had to admit that I was simply put, a very different kind of Christian. I didn't believe homosexuals were evil. I didn't believe that porn was immoral. I didn't like abortion, but it wasn't because the Bible told me not to like it. I also believed that women were to be treated with respect. And while the Bible said animal abuse was okay, I said the Bible was wrong. Sometimes I would think to myself, that if this was God's way, who was I to question him. But then I thought, maybe it was God who was wrong. Maybe he wasn't perfect after all. Or maybe the Bible simply did not accurately reflect God's views.
In any case, I was too good of a person to be that kind of a Christian. But it made me feel so isolated from the rest of the Christian community. I felt that I was really alone. I felt that it was just God and me. But was that the truth? Was God really on my side? I just couldn't know. I couldn't know anything for sure.
Now, I was completely able on my own to develop an ethical understanding and I was able to break free from the immoralities taught in the Bible. But, I was still unshaken from my unreasonable beliefs in God's actual existence and all of the things I believed about him. It wasn't until I was about seventeen when I finally started to break free from this as well, though it would be a long journey.
I have always believed that morality develops faster than intelligence, but even still, why did it take so long for me to develop my sense of reason? The answer is due to Christian training. When you are taught and trained from a young age to accept silly things without good reason, it becomes very difficult to undo those teachings and training. Your mind is molded to believe what others want you to, and it often sticks with you for the rest of your life.
Like I said, it wasn't until I was about sixteen when I really started questioning my faith in God. But I didn't do this alone. I had a friend who was an atheist. Until this time, I had never heard of the term and found it difficult to understand the concept of not believing in God. I tried to tell him that God was real, and he tried to tell me that he wasn't. While I didn't appreciate it at the time, I am glad that he did so, because for the first time, I was being challenged and forced to really think about my beliefs. Thinking is not a skill that Christians are encouraged to develop. But it was this challenge that I believed help greatly in overcoming my superstition of God. I began to think if it was rational to believe in something which I really had no evidence for.
As the years went on, I learned to think more and more critically, and I was dramatically increasing my levels of wisdom, rationality, logic, the ability to think deeply, as well as my over all knowledge. I was also continually being challenged by others who did not share my beliefs. At this time, I was finally starting to seriously question my belief in God. When I was about eighteen, I was so disgusted with the Bible and mainstream Christianity, that I no longer really believed in the Bible at all and I distanced myself from those "other" Christians. But when I was about nineteen, I began to realize that without the Bible, what did I really have to base my beliefs on? I no longer believed in the Bible, and I knew I had no evidence. All I had were my feelings, but I no longer felt that was enough. I had to admit that my entire belief in God was now all on faith. I believed in him only because I wanted to, and while I didn't know it at the time, my belief in him was more for the comfort that it gave me, and because I was so accustomed to that lifestyle.
But I was no longer a Christian who cared about spreading the "truth" of his existence. I accepted the fact that you had to accept the reality of God on your own personal level, and nothing could really prove his existence. The Bible was an inaccurate and immoral book, not to be trusted. I would not believe in what other Christians believed. I would continue to believe in God, but I would never become like one of them.
In fact, I often found myself on the other side of debates, where I was always siding with the atheists, and fighting against "my own kind". I can remember debating on the internet with Christians who were trying to call homosexuals evil. I rarely felt like a Christian anymore, but I had to do what was right.
As time went on, while I still believed in God, it got to the point where I was only calling myself a Christian because that was the only way I really knew how to identify myself with. I knew I wasn't really a Christian, because I didn't believe in Christian ideologies. I didn't believe in the whole Jesus thing. I didn't believe in all of the inaccuracies and immoralities. But I believed in God. I didn't know what else to call myself. If I wasn't a Christian, what was I?
This went on for years. And with every year, my belief in God faded away and became so weak that I didn't even really think about him anymore. I stopped praying. I had stopped going to church several years ago, but that was due more to laziness and the fact that it no longer fit in my schedule. But years later, I realized that I could no longer go to a church that obviously believed in things that I did not. In any case, at this point in time, I dismissed the Bible completely, I was questioning God's existence, I stopped praying, I didn't go to church, and I could tell that my beliefs were now dying quickly. I was a bit afraid, but I couldn't stop it. It was just making less and less sense to believe in God.
I believe I finally stopped believing in God when I was about twenty-four years old. But it's a funny thing. I didn't really know this. Believing in God was more like a habit, or something that was just to be assumed. The truth is, I didn't really believe, but I believed I believed. It's all a bit confusing, but it's the truth. But I really was just calling myself a Christian because I knew of no other way. It wasn't until about three years later after separating myself from those superstitious beliefs that I realized I no longer believed in God. But even funnier, I still couldn't admit it. No, not believing in God was not me. I was a Christian. I wasn't an atheist. I just could not bring myself to admit that I was an atheist. It was like a bad word to me. It was a scary word. And it was a scary thing to be. I had lived my whole life identifying as a Christian, and this would be a serious shift in belief systems, even if I had already slowly made the transition, which I was still not really aware of. I knew atheists were not liked. I knew if I had "become" an atheist, that I would then be "hunted" and "preyed" upon by the Christians just like homosexuals were.
So I went from denying Christian beliefs to denying that I was an atheist...fighting it, trying not to make that transition, but it was unstoppable at this point. I just could no longer justify my "Christian" beliefs. I had become just too rational, and found it sickening to associate myself with a religion that was hateful and just overall immoral. I found it improper to identify myself as a Christian when I knew darn well that I was not. I no longer believed in God. I had no reason to. Nobody did. I remember the day. I was twenty-eight, and I finally admitted to myself that I was an atheist. It was sort of scary at first, but at the same time I felt so free. I didn't feel as sick anymore, because I knew I was no longer on the wrong side of society. I was a free man, and I was a moral man, no longer bound by the evils of Christianity.
But still, giving up that belief was going to be a little shaky. When someone grows up believing in God their whole life, developing such an attachment to him, it's very difficult to abandon. If there was no God, what was life going to be like for me? How would not having God in my life affect my happiness in life? How would others view and treat me?
I decided not to worry. I just continued to grow and to ignore the past. But my story does not end there. I continued to become much more disgusted with the Christian religion, and all religions in general. I hated all Judeo religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. And I had little respect for Hinduism, or other such religions too. But that doesn't mean I hated every religion. Even now, I can respect religions like Buddhism and Taoism, and while I think most forms of Paganism and Wicca are silly, they are not immoral like the Judeo religions I so much hate. I just trusted that everything would work out, because I was a moral person and because I knew that the world was progressing in the direction I was going. In other words, Christianity and religion in general were already dying, and atheism was growing.
But I was never the kind of person to just sit back and do nothing. I knew that if I wanted to make the world a better place, that I had to join in and help. Christianity and all Judeo religions were a serious threat to my planet and to all peoples. I knew that they had to be stopped, and as the time went by, I continually became more and more sickened by religious fanaticism. The only problem was that there really wasn't much I could do. I didn't know how to make any changes. I always planned on doing things in the future, but at the time, I really had no way to do so. This was around the time when I realized that it was important to vote, so I voted for non-religious persons. When given the opportunity, I would talk about why religion is dangerous and immoral. But, there wasn't much else I could do. But like I said, that would change one day.
This is how it was basically for the next two years. I wish I could say that that was the end of my Christian beliefs, but unfortunately, things got complicated. I am ashamed to say that I suffered a temporary setback and experienced something that would change my life forever. It actually started when I was around twenty-six. Remember; this was when I had already abandoned Christianity and realized I no longer believed in God, but just couldn't admit it.
As I mentioned before, I always considered myself to be a good person. It is my nature to be caring, and my greatest dream has always been to help the world in some way. Naturally, when I see persons in need, all I want to do is help. This is the way I have always been, and this was true even before I really learned anything about religion.
Anyways, I met this one person who was having a hard time in life. He had lost his father, was jobless, didn't get along with his mother, and had no money. But we had a few things in common and he was a pretty likable guy. Plus, I didn't have that many friends at the time, so I hung out with him on occasion. I wouldn't have necessarily called him a friend, but I did see him quite often. Unfortunately, he seemed to be involved in some questionable activity. Though I didn't know the full extent of this activity at the time, I knew that he engaged in shoplifting and drugs. This was the kind of person that I always stayed far away from.
But as I said, I didn't have many friends, and though he proved to be a shady character, I tried to believe that he was a decent guy inside and wouldn't be the way he was if his life wasn't so difficult for him. I actually saw this as an opportunity for me to help someone who I felt was in need. I had always stayed away from persons like this, because the kinds of things that he was involved in were not me. I never did drugs or steal, but I felt sorry for him and thought that I should try to do what I could to help him turn his life around. So instead of turning him away, I decided to help him get his life back on track.
Through the year, we hung out quite a bit, and while it was still difficult to call him my friend because of his troubles, I actually quite enjoyed the time we spent together. I enjoyed buying him something to eat every so often, and as he didn't have a car and couldn't drive, I happily drove him to places he needed or wanted to go to. He didn't have a phone either, so I let him use my phone too. Sometimes, I would even slip him a few bucks. I was quite proud of myself. I believed I was helping.
But now I'm not sure if I had helped him at all. I tried to give him advice and helped to get him a job, but he really wouldn't listen to me, and I began to realize that many of his problems were created by himself. Despite us getting along most of the time, sometimes he just made me angry. Sometimes, he'd smoke in front of me, even when I told him that I did not want him doing that. I also didn't like how he'd act around others sometimes, just being so disrespectful. Unfortunately, the more time I spent with him and the more I got to know him, the more I learned about his dark side. It seemed that he had no real intent on ever changing his life, and I began to wonder if I was helping him at all.
Just to give you a few examples of his character, he once stole a children's bicycle just to meet up with me. I tried to get him to take the bike back and even was going to drive him back to where he took it, but it would not fit in my car. That really upset me. One time, I drove him to the mall, and he came out with a stolen DVD. I wanted him to take it back, but realized that he would get in trouble, and I didn't know what to do about that. He would sometimes come over acting like an idiot, high on drugs. Sometimes I wonder if I was only making it easier for him to do the things he was doing. For instance, if I never took him to the mall in the first place, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to steal.
Through all of this, I could see that I just wasn't helping him or getting through to him in any way. He just didn't care for others, and certainly didn't have the same kind of natural caring that I did. I didn't know what to do, but I felt that I couldn't just abandon him. All I could do was discourage him from this kind of behavior. But unfortunately, it just seemed that no matter what I did, I could not help him get on the right path in life.
But even though I was angry with him and disapproved of his lifestyle, it was difficult to let him go because I still felt sorry for him and I didn't want to believe that I had failed him. Plus, I have to admit, it was nice having him around because like I said, he was a very likable guy, despite himself. And again, I didn't really have any other friend that I was able to hang out with. So I guess I was partly willing to overlook his flaws simply because I desired friendship. I just had a feeling though that this would lead to something bad.
But I guess it didn't matter, because after a while, I stopped hearing from him, and later learned that he had been arrested and sent to prison for a couple of years for burglarizing a jewelry store. I knew that he could be a bad person, but I didn't think of him as being someone who would do something like that. I was quite shocked.
After a while, I wondered if I would ever see him again. After about a year, he once again visited my place. At twenty-eight years old, I was now an atheist. I didn't know how the prison system worked back then, and I guess he had gotten out early on good behavior. He had come back to me for more companionship. I knew it was probably best that I stay away from him, but he had just gotten out of prison and needed help. I couldn't turn him away. I asked him about the burglary, and he said that he wasn't involved, but it was his other friends that did it, and that he got caught in it somehow. I believed him. But I told him that he really needed to change his life around, and that I would help him, but he had to be willing to change.
So here he was again. I reprised my role as his helper. This time though, I felt that things were really going to be different. I saw he was now being nicer to his mother. He promised not to talk about drugs around me anymore. He promised not to steal anymore. And he even got involved in a project to help former convicts get work. I was actually quite proud of him.
But unfortunately, things started to get ugly again. He left the project that he was part of because he got angry at those in charge. He started treating his mother poorly again, and I would still see him high on drugs. I was very disappointed. But perhaps the most disappointing was when he admitted that he did in fact help to burgle that jewelry store. I was furious. But, being me, I felt I had to forgive him, and forgive him I did.
But things only got worse. One thing I started to notice was that he would bring things to my place that I never saw him have before, and they were things which I knew he didn't have the money to buy. They included things like notebook computers, digital cameras, camcorders, cell phones, and video games. Once, he even came over with several hundred dollar bills. I would ask him where he got all of these things, and he always had an answer. Sometimes he would tell me that his mother gave them to him, or that he had found them in the garbage. While it sounded suspicious, I believed him. I'm sorry to say that part of the reason why I believed him might have simply been because I wanted to, and not because I actually did. It's like, if you suspected your child of stealing and he told you that he wasn't, wouldn't you want to believe him?
For me, the worst part was how he was trying to get me involved in his troubles. I had suffered depression when I was a kid, cut myself off from society, and I had never really learned much on how to survive on my own and be independent. I never really felt like I grew up. These are reasons why that at this time I was still very naive and impressionable. He was starting to get me involved in things which I tried to stay away from. I was trying to help him get his life on track, and unknowingly he was taking my life off of mine. Unfortunately, I made some errors in judgment, but I never gave into many of his attempts to make me like him. I never stole, I never did drugs, and I never would. I was able to make the realization that the situation was getting to the point where he was just out of control, that there was just nothing that I could do to help him anymore, and that this was not a healthy relationship.
One time, the police came to my door, asking where he was. I didn't know how they knew to come here to look for him, but later I had even gotten mail that was addressed to him! I was getting scared. I didn't know why they were looking for him, but I knew it couldn't be good. It was getting close to that time when I had to tell him that I couldn't be his friend anymore. I mean, not only was he acting up again and getting worse, but now I even had the police here. As much as I could enjoy his company, I decided I could not be around someone who behaved this way, and I was getting afraid that he might get me in trouble some how.
But I never got that chance. My fear was about to become reality. I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about what happened, because it is rather painful to talk about and I don't like anyone thinking of me as being in the kind of mess that he had gotten me into, but I will say that he managed to get me in trouble after all.
I'll never forget it. We were both walking during the night, talking about things in his life. My "friend" had walked away for a moment. After he had left, a cop car drove by, and the officer asked me what I was doing. I told her I was just out walking. Then my "friend" came back. As soon as she saw him, she told us to get against the car. I was so confused. I didn't understand what was going on. When she told us to get into the car, I knew it didn't look good. But what did I have to fear? It's not like I did anything wrong. To make a long story short, this guy attacked the lady officer, and I was left mentally traumatized. Before I knew it, more police cars arrived. We were both handcuffed and taken to the police station.
I shouldn't even have to mention that I was scared. The police treated me like crap. They were so mean and they acted as if I was already guilty. They were calling me a burglar. I was interrogated for three days, stuck in a jail cell that resembled a dungeon, living on nothing but juice until being transferred to a slightly better place where I was treated somewhat better. I cannot tell you how traumatized I was, as it is difficult for me to even find the words to describe it. I had never been in trouble with the law before. I didn't know what to expect. I didn't know that they could treat you this way. I didn't know that they could lie to you and get you in trouble for things you didn't do. But apparently that was the case.
The police detectives accused me of being this guy's accomplice to several burglaries of several homes. They accused me of providing his transportation to the houses and being his getaway car. They were trying to get me to say things that weren't true, and with the state that my mind was in, they were manipulating my memories and I had difficulty knowing what was real anymore. I said things that weren't true but which they wanted to hear. They told me that I wasn't getting out of here until I told them what my involvement with the burglaries was. I was so tired and so beaten up. I just wanted to leave, and it got to the point where I was saying things just for them to let me go home. I know it was stupid, but a traumatized mind is often not a wise mind. I did not realize how deep in trouble I was getting myself into.
Anyways, I had found out that this guy was burglarizing a large portion of the town we lived in. I also found out several other crimes he was committing that I don't even want to mention. But basically, he was a sick person. I was so disappointed, both in him and myself for not staying away from him. But now here I was, getting in trouble for what he did, even after all I tried to do to help him turn his life around. I mean, I wasn't perfect, but I didn't deserve this.
While I knew that I wasn't a perfect person, I knew I had done nothing wrong regarding his crimes. But despite this, with everything I was being told, I was convinced that I was probably going to go to prison for the rest of my life. It would appear that I was "guilty by association". I felt I was doomed and that my life was over. All of my dreams were destroyed. There was nothing I could do. There was nothing I could say. I was helpless. Since there was nothing I could do or say, I did the only thing I could think of...I prayed.
I felt ashamed to be praying to God after claiming how senseless it was to believe in such a concept. But at that moment, I didn't care about that. I ignored reason and cared only about the state that my life was currently in. After all, it wasn't that long ago that I still prayed to and believed in God, and I considered the possibility that I was wrong to have doubted him. While praying, I felt that I didn't have any choice but to believe. Maybe I thought, he was still there after all, watching me, listening to the words I was saying to him now. I had tears. I asked him to get me out of this. I told him that he knew I was a good person, so to please get me out of this situation. I knew that I wasn't perfect and had done bad things before, but I didn't deserve anything like this. I just gave up and let myself go, as if I was giving myself back to God, placing my life back in his hands. It felt good. It was the only thing that gave me comfort in this time. I had asked God to come back to me, to forgive me for every wrong I had done, and that I was sorry for abandoning him.
And wouldn't you know, it was not long after that when the police told me that I could go home. They told me that I was not going to get out of this without consequences, but they said that I could go home that night and that I would be expected to testify against the "other" guy. I agreed. I was so relieved! I was able to go home. But after talking to a lawyer, I was told that the police lied to me, and that I was facing serious trouble. My fears came back, and I once again was praying my heart out to God.
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