by Denyse INEZAFaith and religion are sensitive topics that are always handled with care. People believe in many different things and whenever you criticize a certain religion you offend people involved. In this piece I don’t want to criticize any religion and my intentions are not to offend anyone, I just want to share a deeply honest story of my experience with faith. My relationship with faith evolved from innocent to complicated to doubtful and then to a point where I was entirely confused. This is a story that goes back years to when I was baptized, I was one year old by then and I have no memory of what happened but I was told that on that day, the church officially welcomed me in a big family of believers and without being aware, I had already stared my faith journey.
I grew up in a Christian family, catholic to be precise. We went to church on Sundays and my favorite part was to go to priests’ house after mass, there was a white priest at our parish who carried sweets with him and gave them to kids. I always prayed we meet him, he did not only distribute candies he also distributed blessings, you know… the small sign of cross on forehead, I really loved this particular moment. I felt like a shower of blessing, straight from heaven, was falling on me. Apart from Sunday mass, there are other crucial aspects that can’t be separated from a catholic family, things like: the rosary, images of Jesus and the virgin Marry (his mother), statues of the saints, holy lands, etc. We had all of these in my family (we still have), we didn’t pray the rosary so often at home instead I remember my mother sending us to a neighbor, an old lady who prayed the rosary almost every day. We used to go at her place every Sunday afternoon to pray with her. I am not proud to say that I was never excited about it but this is the real truth, Prayers took eternity and a kid can’t stand being bored. I felt guilty of not being able to enjoy the 3 hours of rosary like our old neighbor. You could hear her telling my mom in an almost silent tone: “We had good times praying” Everything with catholic faith was normal and natural to me until I started school, I did my primary education in protestant schools, still Christians but things were different. They had a pastor instead of a priest and their pastor did not distribute sweets and blessings. They called Jesus, Yesu. At first, I didn’t know they were talking of our Yezu until I realized that Yesu and Yezu have exactly same stories. They preach that a true Christian should not drink alcohol, have her hair braided, wear min-skirts and so many other things I have seen my parents and people of my church doing. What chocked me the most was when the pastor said that praying the rosary, saints, Marry, memorized prayers and many other things we believe and respect in my church, are not biblical. He was like: “For us, we only do what the bible says is right.” I felt offended and I wondered what our old neighbor would think of these teachings. Every additional information made me more confused: I thought we were all Christians, we have the same bible, aren’t we supposed to have same understanding on faith? But this was before I learned the history of Martin Luther, father of Protestantism. As days went by and as I meet new people, I have been exposed to many different and sometimes controversial Theories. I discovered that the religion world isn’t just limited to Catholicism and Protestantism. There is a huge number of Christian and non-Christian religions. At some point in my life, I got lost amidst the abstractness and intricateness of faith. I was unsure of what to believe in or the right way to follow. How could I know who lies and who says truth? I almost lost my faith but now I have it bigger than it has ever been, I stopped to ask myself questions and I laid my faith in things that matters most. According to me what matters most is not the names we call God or the way we worship, the way we dress, it is not to pray the rosary, to go to church on Sunday or on sabbath. I think what matters most is the fact that I am alive and so you are, we didn’t choose to come on this world but we met here. There is a reason for that, it is because we don’t live for ourselves but we live for others. I can’t find the Accurate way to explain the way I feel about this, let me use Maya Angelou’s words: The thing to do it seems to me is to prepare yourself so you can be a rainbow in somebody else’s cloud. Somebody who may not look like you, may not call God the same name you call God- if they call God at all. Faith is complex, God is mysterious, there is a lot of puzzles around religions that I failed to solve. However, this will never prevent me from believing. I still believe but I believe in bigger things than what I used to believe in before: I believe in the ingenuity that is in creation, I believe in what I see when I look into my neighbor’s eyes, and it all humbles me. I might be smart or clever but there is a lot of things I will never understand. Everything I see around humbles me: the beauty, diversity, wisdom, science, art, technology, etc. Everything I can't understand humbles me. Everything I love humbles me. undoubtedly my whole faith is in humility. As I have written in the beginning, I didn’t write this piece with any intentions of criticizing. This is just my honest account of what I have been through in order to believe what I believe today. It is my journey from an innocent kid who believed in the only religion she knew to a messed up and challenged adult who was exposed to a million of options and didn’t know what to choose. Recently, I decided to follow my heart and to focus in what really matters and what matters most to me is love, kindness and humility. You might not agree with me and I am totally okay with it, everyone has his/her story with faith. This was mine.
11 Comments
Alvin
8/19/2020 15:48:30
Keep it up sis. May this honest ccount of u shine to every one and change many as possible.
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A
8/19/2020 16:01:18
Okay 💁
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Mimi
8/19/2020 19:46:23
Love;kindness and humilty😍I think i like that!!.thanks D
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Emma.
8/19/2020 23:49:31
I do like ingenuity in creation as well, God is so mysterious
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8/20/2020 04:16:47
Religion it is a touchy subject down the the very color of the being we call Jesus. Nevertheless you have to have some level of faith to navigate this cold cold world. Great work
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Papike
8/20/2020 13:11:25
Nice way to put it! Yes it's complex and what matters most is that you can notice and accept the diversity of faiths, and consider other people's opinions. Bravo! Good resumé
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Vladimir
8/24/2020 11:39:18
Great work, I really like how you became open on this delicate subject. Keep up the good work.
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Amatus
8/27/2020 15:37:52
Love,kindness and Humility 👌
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Urugwiro
8/27/2020 19:06:26
Love,kindnessand Humility is the real faith indeed👌🏾
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Joyce
8/27/2020 20:19:43
Love & kindness and Joy ....
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Mususa
9/2/2020 12:49:31
Thank you again for sharing your experience! me too i went thru the same experience as yours and it was way more complex than you can imagine but now i am happy that i found a way out, I am a Bible student and every single question that i have had is being responded continuously.
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Who's behind the blogHello, I am Denyse INEZA
My blog's name "ishyapluma" is made of two words ishya and pluma. Ishya from my mother tongue(kinyarwanda)means prosperity and pluma is a Spanish word for pen. Being very introverted, I started blogging because I was so inside my head and I needed a way to get out of it. later on, it became a way of reaching out to my audience. I now write to influence, to inspire and to give hope for a prosperous future to me as well as to everyone reading this blog. welcome to Ishyapluma! Contact: +250784266072 Archives
August 2020
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