Having A Child Out of Wedlock - Why I Left The "Church"

For many of us, being raised in the church came with many redundancies, repetitiveness, programming, and, dare I say it, contradictions.

Yeah, I know this is a highly taboo topic; however, would it be Chloe if I didn’t, from time to time, throw a monkey in the middle of the floor and let it dance?

This writing may make many people uneasy, especially family members, people I grew up in the church with who still attend regularly, a few preachers and pastors in my friend list, and most definitely those who are holier than thou. It is to them, I say – absolutely nothing. No, change that. Call me a heathen, damn me to hell (since you know God’s plans for people like me), and KEEP SCROLLING.

The thought of this writing came from two conversations I had with the same person. A while back, I asked someone who is a practicing Muslim if they would be okay with dating someone who identified with no religion. They answered that it was my soul, and we must find our way. I loved that rebuttal.

Here recently, in conversation, the subject, in a way, arose again in speaking about past experiences. And I confessed that the primary reason I left the church I was born into was due to a situation that took place when I was engaged to be married. I checked with my church but, to my chagrin, was told I could not be married in the sanctuary because I’d had a child out of wedlock nearly seven years prior. I was taken aback, stunned, shocked - however you want to label it - that is what I was.

When she was an infant, not quite four months old, on October 22, 1995, I’d left her father that Sunday morning, driven my sister’s truck to my mother’s home, dumped all the clothes I’d managed to bundle up in a shower curtain and throw in the truck bed onto her kitchen floor and immediately driven to church. That very morning, while holding my sweet baby in my arms and sobbing profusely, thanks to Pastor Francis Mills, refusing to allow the doors of the church to close until that PERSON she felt came forth.

"Baby, I feel you. God is speaking to me, and he's saying you are hurting. I cannot let these doors close until you come home. If you step out, I promise I will meet you halfway."

She repeated this. I was seated on the church's balcony. She had her arms outstretched. I hesitated. I was crying. She said, "Baby come on home. I got you. I'll meet you." I stepped out into the aisle. I heard her say, "Hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. Come on home, baby."

When I reached the bottom of the steps and turned the corner to that right aisle, as promised, she was waiting. I will ALWAY love her because of that. She was always there for me. She would call me and I her. She didn't judge me. I rededicated my life back to Christ that day. After all, I felt SEEN. I felt she knew all the turmoil I was going through as a new mother, afraid, alone, and fighting mental illness. I rejoined the church's Adult Usher Board, Tribe of Simeon, and became a cheerful giver.

As an adult member with real-world experiences, I noticed many things I didn’t like about my church. The old congregation and pillars of the church were making an alarming exodus, but I was newly back, dead set on changing my life for the better, most notably my daughter, so I was locked in. This was the only real way to salvation I'd been told my entire life. This was the ONLY way that I was guaranteed to see HIS face when I died - the destination I sought whenever my time came. I didn’t believe I could get there any other way than through the church's doors. And I needed to ensure I tithed my 10th faithfully. I read in unison every Sunday with the congregation like a Stepford wife as to WHY I tithed and was, again, a cheerful giver.

During this period, I also went through a series of occurrences that broke me down. Postpartum depression had a hold on me. I felt like I was losing my mind. And eventually, I had a nervous breakdown in the middle of training at AT&T. I was forced to deal with many things that had happened in my younger years, brought on by this sweet little girl I now had to protect from the world’s evils. They wanted to place me on medication – Zoloft - but I refused.

Instead, I found my love for nonfiction spiritual reading – specifically, Iyanla Vanzant. Reading her books opened my eyes to things I had not truly grasped all the years of standing, sitting, and kneeling in church, regurgitating what I was told to say and believe. I found the spirit within and in sync with the title of her book, One Day My Soul Just Opened Up. And not only did I find a level of spirituality and connection to God that I had not experienced before, but I also began to release so many things that held me bound “because” of the strongholds my “religion” had imparted in me since birth. I started my journey of becoming celibate and understanding the need for mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical cleansing each time you end a relationship. I still believe in this today.

Years later, as I began my wedding planning, the curtain fell from my eyes, and I began to build self-awareness and finally found my voice. To think for me, not allow myself to be fed the tweaked ideals, often skewed and sometimes ambiguous views of one or many men, and to not live in FEAR of God and what would happen if I didn’t follow the endocrine, I’d obeyed – to a degree - for 31 years - was jarring. Following my path to God instead of being led by man was scary. It was also empowering.

As a newly engaged woman, I went to the church I was a dedicated member of. Membership #287, 288, 289, 290 – I can’t remember because my mother, daughter, I, and sister were all in sequence, so one of them is my number. I think it's #288. Nevertheless, I went to my church to set a date for my wedding yet immediately was told that because I’d had a child out of wedlock, I could not marry publicly in the church I was born into, and by this time, was tithing roughly about $5000 a year to, not including all the extras that it seemed asked of me every Sunday. Tithing my 10th was not enough to cover everything. It seemed like every Sunday; I felt guilted and pressured into giving MORE!

The slap didn’t sting hard enough because I then asked about reserving the Fellowship Hall as an alternative to the sanctuary – where I attended Sunday School each Sunday. The place I went to every summer for vacation bible school, where you received punch and cookies at the end of the night and a fun trip to Six Flags or Lake Winnipesaukee, was planned to commence the end of the week session.

Again, I was told no. No, I could not have a “wedding” even in the Fellowship Hall – the same place where every year as a child, I would get up on “program” and in a puffy dress with socks trimmed in lace and patent leather Mary Janes and say my Easter speech. NO MA’AM! You will wear that YOU HAD A CHILD OUT OF WEDLOCK sign across your forehead like the letter A that Hester Prynne was forced to wear in the Scarlet Letter! The fact you produced a bastard child in 1995 will forever be used against you and thrown in your face – however, since you are a member and you do pay tithes and work in the church – you lowly servant may, however, be married in the Rose Room by one of the associate pastors.

And as bright as I sometimes believe I am, it still had yet to hit what was indeed being said to me. Instead, I decided to go and view The Medicine Academy, Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts, since he was an alumnus, but eventually settled on the Pristine Wedding Chapel. I told myself it was for the best because then we could party immediately after instead of having a stuffy reception in the church hall.

Thankfully I came to my senses, returned the ring to my fiancé, the wedding dress to JCPenney's, and the engagement was called off.

However, something else happened. I grew closer to God, feeling more spiritually connected to him through readings that were not preachy and talking AT ME but conversationally speaking TO ME. Not sounding judgmental but explaining who, what, where, and why. I also became an Eastern Star, which was a beautiful thing helping me grow closer to God and as a woman of strength and power, walking in femininity that I had been confused about. It’s hard to know HOW to be a woman sometimes when your entire life, all you’ve learned how to do is physically fight!

And I not only began to move closer to God but also began the journey of healing, setting boundaries, and learning how to love from a spiritual place instead of an obligatory plane I’d been taught all my life. No matter what someone does to you, you forgive and love them. Not forgive them, yes, but it’s okay to say PHUCK them too because YOU are the main priority.

And as I grew closer to God, I also became angry. Angry about the contradictions. Angry about the judgment. Angry about how things that were revealed confidently later, too often, were blasted to the congregation for everyone to know. I was angry that the place where I was most often asked to go above and beyond in donating MORE than my expected 10% of my salary but also was encouraged to financially contribute to the pressures of the building fund for a new church (I mean, why not since Eddie Long, Creflo, Kerwin B. Lee, Jasper Williams had them). I was extremely angry that I was often asked to give LOVE OFFERINGS for the church anniversary, the pastor's anniversary and everything else had told me NO.

Because I had chosen to have my baby and not abort her - you know, hide the evidence of my having sex resulting in it being acceptable for marrying in the church - now, I was forever tainted. A black ink stain on a white sheet. I would be punished by those who still walk the earth as humans, yet according to the teaching of the Bible, as long as I repented to God of my sins by confessional of my mouth and asked for his forgiveness, I would be made whole again. And yet, at that time in 1991, in the church’s eyes and to many who sat on the board and supported these doctrines upheld by the church, I’d NEVER be made whole again no matter how many times I prayed to the same GOD they prayed to, or was forgiven for the evil sins that had caused me to birth a beautiful daughter who to this day I still say, saved my life by coming into this world at a time where I was on the cusp of jail or death.

So, one day, I tithed to my home church my last tithed and said I was done. I left. My mother was appalled. She was pissed. She was extremely angry. She was disappointed. She wanted to shake the shyt of me. I was rebelling. I was now standing up for myself. I was making my own decisions – at the age of 31. I had to have lost my mind because I ALWAYS did as I was told.

Her: You can’t let this make you leave a church you were born into. That’s the family church.

Me: How can you be my spiritual leader, the one who is supposed to be my bridge to God, and yet you won’t forgive me for something God has? How does your opinion supersede the God you preach to me about?

Her: You don’t go to church for the preacher; you go to church for God.

Me: I can attend any church because God is everywhere, right? And besides, if I have a personal relationship with God, why do I need to go through someone to get to him? I can talk to him. Isn’t that what I do when I pray?

This back and forth went on forever. She even stopped speaking to me and would try to manipulate me into returning. I moved my membership to another church for a while. My daughter even enjoyed it. However, when the new helicopter rose above the church as we were leaving the early morning service, it hovered briefly before taking off in the direction of the pastor’s OTHER church less than 25 miles away to rush over there to preach and then would FLY BACK to finish the day with a 3rd service – it left a not so pleasant taste in my mouth.

I enjoyed the teachings – loved them, to be honest. However, even still, at the time, my car was days away from being repossessed; my teenage daughter had begun to FORCE me to let her help me pay bills because she was sometimes making more money than me braiding hair. I felt like a failure because I couldn't always keep the lights on alone, and here my child was, helping us survive. l watched as the helicopter I had helped purchase was now helping to put gas in shot off, heading south, yet the strongholds of tithing had me feeling guilty for only dropping a few ones in the collection plate. That day, I separated myself from religion and the pressures of sitting on a pew every Sunday, writing a check for ten percent of my salary, then asking Georgia Power, AT&T, and my car loan company for payment arrangements.

Since that time, I have parted the doors of the church often enough. I am not one of those people that dogs the church. I do not go into this long diatribe about how the church is only after money. I don’t knock down anyone’s religious beliefs or try to sway them. I would be lying if I said that when I do go, I leave church feeling invigorated and refreshed. Certain songs are triggering and pull at my heartstrings. But I also don't feel guilty I don't go regularly.

I am a praying woman. I have my phone alarm set to where outside of praying when I wake up and before sleep. I also pray at 11 AM and 6 PM. I pray for my daughter, mom, sister, and my family. I especially pray for those of my friends who are fighting cancer, depression, and mourning – I call each of you by name. I pray for myself and my inner peace to be a better mother, daughter, sister, and friend. I pray for my possible future husband, my enemies, my mental state, my health, the world, and peace; funny enough; I often pray for my child's father. She needs him more than ever, and I pray for that healing for her.

So no, I don’t identify with any set religion. I don’t believe God really cares, only just that I acknowledge HIM as the MOST HIGH and that he holds a place as the center of MY universe. He and I are super cool, and once I began to speak to and serve HIM from a spiritual perspective and commune with him directly without all the chatter, chastising, and equivocating that I felt from the CHURCH – my soul truly OPENED UP. Sometimes the strength of our connection makes me cry.

Hoping you all have an AMAZING rest of the week!