For A While Now

   Even as a child I did not feel comfortable in a church. I used to find all sorts reasons not to go to church on Sunday morning. From anything to a stomach ache to a headache to I could not sleep. Anything that would get me out of church was a good idea to try. When I started getting older, I began reading the Bible. Mostly to see what all this crap I kept hearing was about. Some things made sense, if you lived several hundred years ago. Some things made me ask questions. I honestly asked these questions in the way a a blooming curious adolescent would ask. Some where with the sarcasm that I have since sharpened. Some were asked with mistrust. None of my questions were answered to my satisfaction. Meaning they did not mesh with things that I had read in the Bible as well as in history books.
   My Granny was a Sunday school teacher, but she was also a science teacher in the public school system. To me that meant she taught Creationism on the weekends and Evolution during the week. How could she do this? I asked her. She told me it was easy, she believed in both. How could this possibly be? She explained that to her both made absolute sense to her and who was she to argue with things that had been researched and determined to be true. How could both be true? Well, she smiled at me, It depends on who you ask. While that made a great deal of sense to me, it still did not answer my questions.
   I went on to look to my other influencing elders that I had contact with. It turns out that I got a whole lot of 'you should just accept it because it was written in the Bible.' WHAT?!? No. These were educated people, people of religious bearing. They did and wanted me to follow blindly, unquestioning like a sheep? How could I do that when my own mother helped to teach me to question everything? As very small children we are taught to look for things. Mommy hides your favorite toy behind a blanket. You know it is still there, and you can hold it and touch it, but it was there all along.
   As I grew and so did my questions. That the 'holy trinity' existed in so many religions. That satyrs are mentioned in the Bible, yet are a mythical and very Pagan being. That there are even unicorns in the Bible. The Bible is supposed to be THE infallible word of God. How can these things be? I have sent many a preachers sputtering back to their offices. The word unicorn appears many times in the Bible. King James Version of the Bible (Num. 23:22; 24:8; Dt. 33:17; Job 39:9-10; Psa. 22:21; 29:6; 92:10; Isa. 34:7). Nine times, as a matter of fact. In the Old Testament alone the word satyrs if found 52 times. How can this be, when mythology tells us that a satyr is a half man, half goat companion to Bacchus, the God of wine and merriment? What was his companions doing in the Bible? King James Version (Isa. 13:21; 34:14) (Lev. 17:7; 2 Chron. 11:15 — KJV) (see ESV — 2 Chron. 11:15) The latter one is where it actually signifies a pagan god that takes the form of a goat. And even if that were not enough there are even cockatrice in the Bible!
A cockatrice is a legendary creature, resembling a large rooster with a lizard-like tail, the cockatrice has wings. It was supposed to be born from an egg laid by a cock and incubated by a toad or snake. It is supposed to be able to turn you to stone.Found in four places in the KJV Isa. 11, 14, 59 and Jer. 8. And what sort of animal is or was the Leviathan? Why have we not found the fossils of these things? If they truly did exist and we should believe blindly.
  I was 12 years old when my Grandaddy died. And that shook my world. He was my rock, my center of being, my light. And suddenly that was gone. What made it worse was that I told a close friend that year was that he would barely make it until Christmas and we would be luck for him to make it to the new year. He died on December 31st at 10:30pm. Just one and a half hours before the new year. at first I felt like I had condemned him to this. I said it and it was true. I took him away from my family.
    I felt like the version of God I knew had betrayed me, hurt me. He was supposed to be all knowing, all loving and all forgiving. Right? Well how could he have caused me so much pain? Cut my heart from my chest? After his death I was on very shaky Christian ground. We got some new students at my school that year. A girl my age and a boy a couple years older than me. His name was Kristopher. Her name was Krystal. They were my best friends for a while. He became my boyfriend. There was a book in her backpack one day that was titled Wicca 101. I pulled it out and was hooked. That year we left my home. We moved to Oklahoma from South Carolina.

   So, now I knew the kind of people that I was looking for. I needed these people to be my friends. They are the ones that spoke to my soul. I found them. They were my best-est of friends for a very long time, and most of them still are almost 13 years later. One in particular I fell in love with. He taught me so much of Paganism and how to be a better me and how to be true to me. Granted I also gain a great deal of bad habits, yet I learned to be me. Another move and separation from these people. And another move and another. I finally went to nine different high schools and it took me forever to make friends. After a while I just quit trying and if someone came to me great, if not... I got books and joined online forums and became very depressed that I could not find what I needed. I would occasionally go to a Sabbat or a ritual that I had heard about in my area. But I never seemed to really belong. And this I long for. I feel like I need this. That a group is where I belong. I think that maybe I have been solitary for too long now. 
   And now that brings me to today. I have this strong urge to find my God and Goddess. I need a figure there to talk to. Over the years no one God or Goddess has ever spoken to me or pulled at my soul. I have heard how others have found theirs. Mine still seems to be eluding me. I have started doing research again, trying to fine that one. Maybe something will happen, maybe not, but it is worth looking to me. Hey, who knows it could be like my meeting my husband. We were on three of the same singles site at the same time and we were never matched. But we still found each other.