A History of Religion, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

When my parents divorced, things took a turn toward the chaotic for me. We moved from the home where I had lived for 16 years, and I felt caught in the middle of my two parents who were competing for my attention and love, it seemed. I began skipping school, and I became determined not to be the goody-goody that everyone had always expected me to be.

During the summer between high school graduation and my freshman year in college, I started binge-drinking and I became loud and promiscuous. I'm sure I was an embarrassment to many of my friends. When I went away to college, things didn't get much better. I was lonely and homesick, and in between parties and one-night-stands, I would try to attend church. I finally began going to a non-denominational church with a girl from my dorm, but my heart just wasn't in it.

I left that university and came to attend school in the town where I live now. I fit in better here and I started living more responsibly--no more binge-drinking, a steady boyfriend, less attention-whoring. Throughout the remainder of my college years, I went to different churches sporadically, always Baptist churches. By the time I graduated from university and got married the first time, though, I wasn't going to church at all. We didn't even get married in a church--we flew to Vegas.

After I got divorced, I met a guy and we really hit it off. OK, let's be honest here--I was crazy about him. Crazy. After we had dated for about three years, he proposed. We decided that we should probably find a church to attend because hey, we'd need a preacher if we were going to do this wedding thing right, right? So, we began attending the Presbyterian church in our town. We chose that church for two reasons: #1, it is the most beautiful church in town (me), and #2, the congregation did not do the "greet your neighbor" hand-shake thing at the beginning of the service (him).

We were thinking of having a smallish wedding, something not nearly grand enough to warrant the use of the church's huge sanctuary. I had never seen the chapel, though, and I really wanted to check it out before we decided to throw a wedding there. So one afternoon, I slipped into the chapel and sat down on one of the pews. It was cozy, yet airy, with some of the same ornate architectural features of its larger and grander counterpart. It would most definitely be a beautiful backdrop for my eventually, one-of-these-days, upcoming nuptials. As I sat, I thought that since I was there already, I should probably pray or something. So I prayed. I prayed that God would guide my fiance and me down the right path. I prayed that He would help us make the right decision.

Two weeks later, my fiance broke our engagement.