I don't go to church

I've been a delinquent little blogger... I want to post more pictures but it feels like when I get home to my laptop where all the pictures live, I don't want to be doing anything on the computer anymore. So here I am, blogging at work again without any pictures.

The other reason I haven't blogged in a bit is that the things I'm thinking of blogging about are kind of tricky and I'm not sure how to get them out to the best effect. But I'm going to try to open the door on one of those things now anyway. So here we go.

I was showing an acquaintance some pictures from a friend's recent wedding and there was a picture of me and another friend's daughter. I really like this little girl, she's super awesome. So I said to my acquaintance viewing the picture with me, "Ya know, if I knew that mine would come out like her, I'd be way more inclined towards the idea of having kids." By which I essentially meant, I'm not particularly fond of hanging out with kids these days, but this one here is really neat and I like her.

My acquaintance however, took it another way and responded by saying, "Well you can pray about it and the Lord will give you the desires of your heart."

Well hmm. That's not exactly what I was expecting to hear. I certainly didn't mean to imply that I secretly had baby fever but I was just nervous about how my kid would turn out, which is how she seemed to interpret it. So I just disregarded the statement and moved straight ahead to the next picture.

I'm not sure exactly how this happens, but it does from time to time. People I've met since moving back to WV eventually discover that I used to work for a church, a church where I was an active member for a time as well. Now, when this information comes out I try to emphasize that I don't do that anymore. As in, I don't go to church, I don't read the Bible, I don't pray in Jesus's name, and I currently have no desire to recommence any of those activities. I have a lot of good reasons for that and if you want to get to know me better you'll eventually hear about it I'm sure. With certain people though, the second half of that doesn't seem to sink in. They only hear that I was part of church where I used to live. I guess they assume that I just haven't mentioned what church I go to now, or maybe I'm still looking for one I like.

It has definitely been a sticking point with my grandparents (as noted briefly here). And part of the problem is that I never know how to handle it when it comes up. When someone says something that implies that they think I'm into Jesus, how far do I go to correct them? And what if that's just how they're going to talk? Perhaps my acquaintance just suggests prayer to anyone. I don't know. It's not like she said anything inherently offensive. But it irks me, ya know?