The story so far: I was raised as a conservative Christian in the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS). This meant I was surrounded by a community that emphasized shared belief, which was great most of the time although I had to compartmentalize pretty heavily once I realized I was bisexual.

But the joy and community were only one part of my experience. To give you some context,  here are some of the key messages that I absorbed as a kid:

• God is all-powerful, omniscient, and omnipresent.

• God created me, and the world, and saved me through his son Jesus Christ, and He offers salvation by grace through faith to everyone so that after we die we can be with Him forever in Heaven.

• In order to live an ethical life and to go to Heaven, I need to follow God's Word, the Bible (as interpreted by the LCMS).

• God is happy when I follow His Word, and he is sad when I don't. When I sin, I must sincerely repent to God and strive to do better, and He will forgive me.

Those messages shaped my day-to-day experience as a Lutheran:

• I was constantly worried that I wasn't doing enough to please God.

• I tried to follow the Word as best I could, but I kept making mistakes and committing sins. Every week in church I spoke together with my community confessing to God: "We have sinned against You in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone." It was SO easy to sin! Trying to control my thoughts and words and deeds all the time was really difficult.

• Every time I committed what I felt was a sin, I was wracked with guilt and angry at myself for disappointing God / my parents / the Church.

"But Kit," folks who are familiar with Christianity might reply, "What about God's forgiveness?"

Every week at church, confession of sins was followed by a declaration from the Pastor that God had forgiven our sins. I knew that I was forgiven, the same way that I knew that Egypt had pyramids: it was a fact, regardless of my own personal experience. But on an emotional level, God's forgiveness just didn't feel real. I didn't feel connected to it. I rarely (if ever) felt any kind of physical sensation of relief or absolution after hearing my sins were forgiven. 

And what happened next? I would leave church, resolving to do better, and then…I would mess up and disappoint God YET AGAIN.

He's everywhere and He knows everything! I can't hide. He's going to know what I've done (or not done), or what I've thought (or not thought) and it's going to make Him sad and disappointed and how could I possibly do that to the loving Creator of the whole amazing universe OVER AND OVER?

Found: A collection of intense, challenging feelings. Condition: Well-used. Clearly someone has been holding very tightly to these for a long time. 

Forgiveness didn't "feel" real. But those feelings of frustration and anger and despair and worry? I could feel them in my body. They felt very real. Fortunately, I wasn't actively feeling challenging feelings all the time! But even when I wasn't focused on them, there was still a part of me that was holding onto them and carrying them around with me. (In my IB Psychology class in high school, I remember reading about generalized anxiety disorder and thinking "Huh, that sounds like me," although I wouldn't be officially diagnosed until college.)

The first time I shared this aspect of my Lutheran experience with a therapist, I remember her trying to tell me that other people have very different, more positive experiences with Christianity. (She didn't explicitly say "not all Christians," but that's kind of the vibe that I received.) I'm sure she's right. But it doesn't change the fact that that, for me, being raised in the LCMS was growing up in a miasma of fear and guilt regardless of whether my Christian experience "should" have been that way. 

For a long time, I didn't know why this was my experience of being raised LCMS when so many other people seemed to have much more positive experiences with Christianity than I did. 

Remember how I said I've come out so many times about so many aspects of my identity? Last winter, as an adult in my mid-40's, I learned that I'm autistic. (Surprise!)

Understanding my own neurodivergence has given me a whole new lens for looking at my life, and it's helped me make sense of things that formerly seemed illogical, random, or otherwise inexplicable. Next time, a closer look what my autism is like and how it helped shape my experiences of the LCMS.

Thanks again for listening and for joining me on my journey!