Honesty.

Some people might call this airing my dirty laundry. The synod candidacy committee might call it "baring my scars." I kind of just want to call it honesty.

This isn't an attack. This isn't to make people feel sorry for me or make them feel guilty. You will know if I am writing about you, but that's not the point. This isn't about you. This is about my faith journey and the things that have torn me apart and the God that is piecing me back together.

Honestly, I don't really know what I believe.

I know what I am supposed to believe. And I know in what and in whom I am supposed to have faith. But you know what? I don't. And I don't know if that's okay. I don't think it is. But I'm tired of holding on to this and not being able to express it.

I was cheated on about a year ago. I had been dating the guy for over two years and I was madly in love with him. Spend the rest of our lives together, do anything for him, talk about him all the time, can't imagine a life with anyone else - madly and crazily in love with him.

And he cheated on me.

If you've ever been cheated on, you know what it does. Or you're still learning the effects of the heartbreak. I felt disgusting. I was convinced that I had done something to make him cheat on me. I wasn't good enough for him to love. I wasn't a good girlfriend. Or I was ugly. I was somehow a broken person that, if he couldn't love - someone so amazing and pure and perfect - then no one could love.

I believed that with every part of my broken, ugly, flawed body and mind.

So I threw myself at anything that would love me. Or at least want me in one way or another. I threw myself at guys, work, projects, charities, parties, alcohol. Anything that would numb the hurt or make me feel loved again.

But everyone wanted something in return. If I wanted to feel wanted, I had to give them something too- whether it was mutual want (which I was physically and emotionally incapable of), or work, or sex, or some other type of benefit. I knew that if I wanted to be wanted, I had to give something to someone.

As if that wasn't enough- feeling completely inadequate with who I was as a person- God put it in my heart to forgive him. Not only did I know I needed to forgive him, I knew I needed to give myself back to him. We had to start from the beginning and do this all over again. This broken trust thing, this crumpled piece of paper of a relationship. It hasn't been easy, but all three of us (God, me, and my boyfriend) are working really hard to get better and love greater.

In the midst of this work, about five weeks ago, my entire world shattered again.  I was told that I had been betrayed by the two people I care most about in the entire world. For over twelve years I had been lied to. Not openly and only to protect me. I know that in my heart. But they were lies of omission. They were lies that would have completely changed my childhood. And I was finding out about them twelve years later.

So to recap: I was betrayed (overtly and intentionally) by the one person I loved more than I loved myself, and for longer than that I was betrayed by the two people that were supposed to love me more than themselves.

So there's that.

That's why I am struggling so much with my faith right now.

That's why I'm struggling with my friends right now. That's why lies of omission hurt so badly. That's why little betrayals that don't seem like a big deal to someone else completely break me apart. That is why I have trust issues and I constantly feel as if people are hiding things from me. That is why I can't believe that people can or ever will be truthful to me when it seems so much easier for people to lie. That's why I am so angry all the time about things that other people just "get over."  It has happened too much. It has cut too deep. And now I don't know where to go with any of it.

After all of this, I can't believe in a God that loves me just because He loves me. Because I breathe. Because I am His creation.

I want to. I desperately want to believe in a God that has mercy and forgiveness and endless love. I want to believe that so much. But I don't believe that someone can love me just because I am me. It has been proven to me over and over again that people like that don't exist.

And I know- God isn't a person. He is capable of things that no human can even imagine being capable of...

I know. I know all of this. I can preach it, I can explain it. I can convince other people of it on a regular basis.

I just don't believe it.

I want to believe it so badly because if I believe that God can love me for me then maybe I can start believing that other people can love me for me. No motives, no needs, no mutual exchange of goods. Then maybe I'll feel whole again.