My Jesus

My Jesus

By Andrea Tadpole-Broussard 

2/11/24

I read a post today that got my brain whirling. Instead of answering directly on the page I read it on I decided to write my own thing. So here goes...

I did not find my Jesus in a church, although I attended them almost every Sunday for most of my childhood. I know the Bible and could wow everybody with everything that was crammed in my head as a child and things that I have learned when I have seriously studied it as an adult. Yet, honestly, I see no point in doing that. Just because one can spout the Bible does not mean they are a Christian. I read a saying once that said, "Sitting in a church pew does not make someone a Christian anymore than sitting in a garage turns someone into a car." That is how I tend to think about it.

Before what I call my "rebirth day" aka my sobriety date, I was saved and baptized every time I told a lie, committed some kind of weird sin or whatever other gloom and doom the pastor was preaching about that Sunday. I wore the aisles out going down to get saved again. Yet, the pews were filled with the biggest bigots in the world in most of the churches I attended. 

For me, the worst place to find unconditional love was in a church. People in most churches kicked their wounded, instead of loving them and picking them back up when they fell. That is just me and my experience. Other people love church or what I call organized religion, and I am all for it...for you. It just does not work for me. 

Most whitewashed tombs AKA churches in our nation and cities today, especially in Tulsa, would not recognize my Jesus if He sat down next to them. They would probably throw Him out. I am sure He would turn the tables in the temple on His way out because of the way they have perverted and made a mockery of the message of love He tried to teach us.

When I finally truly found my Jesus, I was in my bedroom floor sobbing, wanting to end my life. I just wanted to find a way to stay sober and clean. I cried out to my Jesus, and He came to me, right there in my bedroom floor. I was 23 years old. I have been sober since that day. When I was about 30 years old, I had a near death experience. Yet again, my Jesus came to me. I have no doubt in the existence of my Jesus and the love He has for all of us. We are the ones that shut Him out. He is always there, waiting for us to let Him back in.

Do I live a perfect life? Absolutely not! Most days, I am a bull in a China closet, bumbling through life and breaking everything I touch. I am socially awkward and keep my circle small, mainly because I suck at peopling. Hell, one minute I can be driving down the road praying and singing praise and worship music, and the next, some idiot cuts me off, and I am cussing at them and flipping them off.

I am who I am. Most days, I fail greatly at the principles and values my Jesus taught me and that I aspire to. I am so grateful that my Jesus knows everything about me; good, bad, and ugly and loves me anyway. That is because His love for me is not about me at all. It is about Him and the unconditional grace and mercy He has for me and all of us. For too many years in my life, I tried to get good enough to come to my Jesus. At 23 years old, on my face sobbing in my bedroom floor, I finally realized it never mattered how good I was. He loved me face down in my puke, drunk just as much as He does with over 37 years of sobriety today. It is all about His unconditional love. It is always there. It is up to me to allow it into my heart and life.

When I was about 13 or 14 years old, my parents decided that I needed to attend a Bible study with them about Revelations and the end times. We went every week for the longest time. I absolutely hated doing that because the man who taught it made me afraid. The things he taught, made me feel like I had to dance on the head of a pin, or be careful not to step on a crack, or do something else wrong so that I did not screw up somehow and miss the "rapture." I carried all the things this man told and all the horrible pictures he painted around in my mind for years. That was part of the reason why I kept going up and down the aisles of churches trying to get saved. I was scared to death that I would be left behind!

After I got sober, for the first time in my life, I realized that it was okay if I had my own conception of God, my Jesus, or a Higher Power. Also, my relationship with my Higher Power was and still is very sacred and personal to me. It is not anyone else's business and is not up for judgment from anyone. For me, if I do not have a relationship with a Higher Power, I am going to die because I will drink again. And, for me to drink is to die. So, I am very protective of my relationship with my Jesus today.

Over the last 37 years in my journey of sobriety, I have studied every religion I can get my hands on. I have studied all kinds of spiritual paths. I have studied the Bible intensely. I have learned the history of religions, my Jesus, the writings, and various translations of the Bible, you name it. I have researched other gods. See, I believe that if my Jesus is so weak that I have to keep Him in a tiny little box and I am afraid to look at other concepts with an open mind, then I am believing in the wrong thing. I also believe that if I am living in fear of stepping on a crack or something and missing the "rapture," then I believe in the wrong thing.

Over the years, I have come to realize that my Jesus is all that is important to me. My Jesus is not a religious organization. My Jesus is not a certain translation of the Bible or denomination. My Jesus gets me like nobody else does. I do not have to be perfect. I do not have to worry about whether I take the mark of the beast or not; whether I scan my groceries with a scanner or allow my employer to digitally deposit my checks that I am goimg to miss the "rapture". None of that matters! Yet that kind of crap was crammed in my head as a young teenager. How crazy is that?! That is nothing to do with my Jesus at all!!!!

 My Jesus is very much my best friend. He walks beside me every step of the way in my life and very often carries me. There have also been times He has drug my ass, kicking and screaming all the way, because I get caught up in fear. When I look back at those times, I can see that I was looking with my fleshy eyes when I should have been looking with my spirit. Yet, my Jesus knew my heart and drug me anyway until I could get up walk alongside Him once again.

I am not writing this to impress anyone. Frankly, I do not care what anyone else thinks. I guess I just want others to know that my Jesus is not about all the lies and crap thrown around in so-called churches today. He is not at all about fire and brimstone , gloom and doom, and some getcha God that we should fear. The message of my Jesus was and still is very simple, "Love one another as I have loved you."