WHY I QUIT BEING A CHURCHGIRL

I haven’t been in church for some months now.
And often when my mama asks me if I did
On a good day, I lie
On a bad day, I speak the truth
-the irony.
Now I haven’t been to church because I don’t
“Feel it” and if anybody didn’t get it I said
“I don’t feel it.” Yeah yeah I know God isn’t
about feelings and all that, thank you. I know.
But let me be frank it has nothing to
do with the church I belong to
but has everything to do with
me, what I am searching for.

My journey began last two years when I started having
what I will describe as a “faith crisis”. I woke up one day and told myself that I was going to stop all activities in church, I sang in the choir, I did drama and choreography but I began to see that being in the spotlight was not what my heart wanted, I wanted something much deeper, to be at church just one day and be lost in the activities where I wasn’t part of any of them, to sing without being the singer… So i stopped. Just like that. I was what they call a shepherd
I left the sheep because I was in need of a Shepherd too.
And some people questioned but I just couldn’t give them the reason. Some even asked why I wasn’t using my “gift” of poetry to write Christian poetry or perform at church… but it wasn’t about that if only they could see.

The only place I got spiritual satisfaction from on Fridays at a girls meeting called “Not easily Broken” led by Jeremie and for once in my entire life i felt very much
safe in a place like that. The stories, the struggles, the journey, the women, these people thought me what it was with their on high and low moments and Jeremie alone
was a gospel. Her life was a sermon. it was a safe haven for me.

For sometime now, the only reason I show up at church is because I miss some few friends, I just want to be there because it has been a long time, or I just want to take communion in the presence of everyone to redeem myself that I was still a Virgin at the age of 27 ( you think I shouldn’t say this) but I want to be honest with you and that still gave me all boldness to take it, after all what’s the easiest tag we place on people who miss the communion? fornication isn’t it? Well I just need(but do I really?) to prove my innocence because I know how erotic my poems sometimes could be, and yeah I admit I fear being judged and being misunderstood or misinterpreted. Yeah you heard me.

For some time I have been wanting to leave my church ( I am not running from a problem I must tell you before you come at me with a long sermon, lol) and I began to ask questions.

Why did I truly want to leave?
Because I know within, I am convicted I must go…
of course my dad is a pastor at the church of Pentecost and all these things I am writing I haven’t shared with him, but I have subtly indulge his conscience somehow before.
And then the hardest question…
“Why don’t you want to leave?”
And to be honest the reasons of choosing not to leave
was because I was concern of which church was going to represent me on my wedding day, will they show up? Or whilst I am in transition should anything happen will the church see me as their own??

Then I paused and looked at me and realized that
It wasn’t even about leaving,
It was all about staying for all the wrong reasons I could ever have in this world.

I thank friends like Kwabena Eddie, Fafali, Nana Esi, Blessed and Selorm, I call them my inner circle
Who have been constantly there for me, reminding me of the unfailing love of God and how He calls us to partake in our journeys.

I want to spend the rest of my life, talking about my journey, the struggles and the victories into really understanding what falling in Love with God truly means.

And I am ready to accept being judged, misunderstood, condemned and even worried about..

I once saw somewhere that if there is a story you would love to read but it isn’t written yet, then you be the writer of that story.

And so I choose to write my story, not to get likes and comments or be popular because the way I look at it being vulnerable with your story isn’t popular neither is inviting people to be witnesses to your life famous.

But I told you I was a preacher’s kid right?
My dad preaches on the pulpit

I do here. I do it here because I believe that somebody might need to know that they are not alone.

So I am not looking for church a church
I am looking for a sanctuary, a hospital, where
people like me will feel safe in our predicaments.

September 22nd 2019
At Home
Alone
Reminiscing where all the years went.

-Jo Nketiah