Repentance: not what I thought it was

So, I thought repentance meant being aware of your sinfulness/worthlessness at all times, that ever feeling like you were good for or at anything, having any self worth or self confidence was a sin and meant you were not repenting properly

 One of the reasons I ditched Christianity was that I couldn't reconcile this with the fact I didn't start healing from a lot of my trauma till I started feeling like I was worth something, till I started feeling like I was a good person and wasn't worthless all the time. Having some sense of self worth, some sense of pride in myself (however shaky it may be sometimes) is a vital component in keeping me as mentally healthy and stable as possible, and I couldn’t reconcile that with a Christianity that said pride was a sin worthy of hell, and that thinking I was anything other than worthless made me a bad christian. (Like seriously, when I was a kid whenever i was pleased with anything Id done it would ensure screaming from my mother about how dare I be proud of anything, I had nothing to be proud of, whatever it was I had done was rubbish anyway, and feeling like that about myself meant I was going to hell)

But I was reading my Gospel chapter today and it was Matthew 3.(The one about John the baptist baptizing Jesus) And it starts

  In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

 I have an NRSV study bible with notes in it and the notes for verse 2 say  that in this context repent means “to change one's mind for the better” I looked around elsewhere and all the various interpretations of repentance, are about turning around, turning towards god, realigning oneself more fully with god. Maybe all the times the bible tells us to repent, maybe that is God saying “leave that behind, this is better”  not God saying “you are terrible and you need to remember that all the time or I won't forgive you”

There's a quote by Maya Angelou that is used a  lot  in secular social justice circles which is  “when you know better, do better”

 Maybe be that's the heart of repentance, learning and acknowledging that something you are doing is not good for you or not good for other people, and  trying to do things that are good for you and other people, turning away from the damaging things and towards the healing things


Maybe  repentance is coming to God and saying “Hey God I kind of failed at being a person there, how can I do it better next time?” and then honestly trying to do it better next time, not because if you don’t it means you will be eternally punished but because it will help you be the best person you can be and will help you be more fully aligned with God

Devoting Time to God: Scripture

The church I grew up in, and pretty much every church I've ever spent any time in always suggested that setting aside part of every day for bible reading and prayer would be good for your spiritual life. I think this is an excellent idea, how else do you get to know some one other than spending time with them? The only thing is I am amazingly, unfailingly, phenomenally, bad at it.

Secretly I think most people are somewhat bad at it, we live in a culture that increasingly values busyness signaling, and doesn't really value taking time out of your day for quite spiritual practice. But I think because I am an emotionally and cognitively chaotic person I am extra bad at it.  I'm really bad at building and sticking to new habits. I have the impulse control of a drunk puppy, I get bored and impatient with things that don't have immediate results or trade offs. I get distracted by other shiny things and ideas, I always have great ideas for doing stuff that lasts about three days and then I jump around onto the next great idea, which is like totally going to change my life! and make my brain work properly! and make me happy! and organised! and not crazy!

I also have an obsessive streak so I have a habit of wanting to know All The Things!!! Right Now!, which often just leads to burn out and tying myself in knots

In the last year and a half though I have grown up and calmed down a lot and have managed to make sustainable changes and build habits that make my life work better than it did before so I think I can bring what I've learned from them to my devotional life.

There's still a lot of confusion and anxiety and fear and grief and  stumbling about in the dark with God, but I think the only way to work through all this is to give it time and patience, and know I can't know or understand everything now, or even ever, that I wont be a bad christian if i don't ever have all the answers.

I still have this enormous fear of Not Being Good Enough for God and I don't really understand how to work through that yet except that its probably something I have to chip away at day by day and the only way to do it is to actually do it and it's something i have to work on on both spiritual and psychological levels

One of my other problems with daily devotional stuff is the unfailing naffness of so many devotional resources, I find a lot of them just twee and shallow and they make me roll my eyes in annoyance. But I think I might have found some that make sense to me and that don't annoy me. I will report back on that sometime in the future

In the mean time i am going to try and incorporate my devotional time into my morning schedule. Which is basically: getting up, feeding the dogs, having breakfast, doing my shoulder exercises (I'm supposed to do basic shoulder exercises every morning to strengthen and protect my rotator cuffs because of all the rolling I do in my wheelchair.) Then  the plan is to read one psalm and one chapter of the gospels every day. A psalm because entering the bible through poetry is a safe thing for me, a way of communicating I understand. And a gospel chapter because I want to look at from where I am now, what they really say, what Jesus really did, what he really said

Probably I wont do it every day, probably I will fail at doing it more days than i manage it but I'm going to try it till Easter, and if I miss a day, or two, or even more, I'm just going to pick it back up when I can and see if it changes anything, see what I learn about God, myself, scripture. If it gets to Easter and I don't feel I've got anything from it, well then I'll try something else.