Scarred by the Blood of Jesus

Content Warning: Religious Trauma and Eye-Strain I grew up in church. That’s how it was for me when I was born in raised in Alabama, under the Bible Belt. I had some good memories in church, like Blue Jeans Breakfast (youth group leaders would serve the youth group breakfast and everyone got to wear blue jeans), volunteering at VBS (Vacation Bible School), and going on youth trips. I even believed that I was a princess of God and called myself “God’s Jubilant Princess.” However, as I grew older, I took the rose-colored glasses off and started to realize that church and the idea of God was not very welcoming. Messages of God’s wrath. My mom telling me one time I made God cry because I said “I don’t want to go to Bible school. Bible stinks” when I was a kid. Intrusive thoughts about Jesus and the Holy Spirit that I thought for sure were my own (later found out that I’m not my thoughts). Sermons encouraging homophobia and transphobia. Plays that showed scenarios of people literally getting dragged to Hell for not accepting Christ as their Lord and Savior. Chick tracts doing the same thing plays did. That’s why I don’t go to church anymore. That’s why I sometimes get intrusive thoughts about what could happen after death. That’s why I hate my grandparents and my pastors for what they did to me, how they taught me to be a Bible-thumping monster that hates those for simply living their lives. That’s why I renounced Christ as my Lord and Savior, destroyed my relationship with God (which since to me, He doesn’t exist) once and for all, and became an ex-Christian. “When you look at someone through rose-colored glasses, all the red flags just look like flags.” - Wanda (BoJack Horseman)