the Plunge

I didn't post this in time to make the grade (I'm really sorry about that, Professor) but I won't deny my partner the opportunity to get his grade. So here's my rough draft, unedited. Enjoy, it's kinda personal...

***

There was only one word going through my head at the time.

And that word was "jump"

Standing on the twelfth floor balcony of a luxurious ocean-side hotel, splattering myself over the pavement far below me should have been the last thing on my mind. I had never done anything like this before, never ventured out and certainly never hung myself out to dry like I had those past four days. It seemed so simple, the logic so clean, at that moment in time that I actually considered getting onto the railing that separated me from my great plummet and following through with it.

When most people talk to God, they get a variety of answers. I know a guy, a great guy, who swears up and down that God told him to be a Youth Minister. Devoted Christian his entire life. I know another who has overcome great trials and impossible struggle through the strength of her faith, been baptized two years. I knew, and still know, that it isn't a numbers game when it comes to how long you've been a member of your community-- the quality of those years spent always trumps the quantity.

Me? I'd been attending my church for 2 years at the time coming from a non-religious family, having never spent more than two nights away from home, still trying to wrap my head around the whole thing. In those two years, I'd come to love and appreciate a community that I included myself in wholeheartedly. So much so that I was willing to go on a four-day trip to the beach in frigid December to participate in our annual Winter Beach Retreat. The only problem being that, as a non-religious person, I had an understandable sense of not belonging.

However, despite that, I battled intensely with my own beliefs, trying to emulate all the wise words of Pastor Jackson while hiding my conflict from rest of my church and remain a positive atmosphere within the group. Nevertheless, I felt pretty low. 

But you have to understand, I had heard amazing things about the Beach Retreat. Another good friend of mine had become a Christian the year before at the same event along with several others. And everyone described it as a moment of such clarity, an epiphane that was impossible to ignore. It sounded perfect to a skeptic who wanted nothing more than redemption, someone for whom all else had failed. So I resigned to myself that if it, that magic moment I had been searching for, was ever going to happen that it would happen there. On a cold sandy beach, that was where my rebirth was to take place.

And I did witness amazing things over the course of the trip. Eight people were baptized out there, in the freezing salty ocean, as a testament to their faith and devotion to their God. I was jealous of that closeness, that sense of connection they must have had with God. A classmate of mine, whom I had a hand in coaxing towards our community, was one of the first baptized; I thought to myself, "Why not me?"

So amidst the longest, coldest, wettest days of my life, I redoubled my efforts to become a Christian.

Where I had been attempting to connect with my peers on a spiritual level already and for quite some time, I bolstered those attempts like never before. I led small student groups where I could, but otherwise I just sat back and absorbed everything I could. However as time passed and questions went unanswered still, I was felt dejected. All around me, people were getting saved and baptized left and right. Heartwrenching testimonies and tears of joy flooded from all directions-- and there I was in the middle of it all, looking like I was trying to do Calculus in my head.

On the third night of our retreat, I snuck out of bed and tiptoed out onto the balcony (for fear of my assigned room mates or counsellors hearing me) for some fresh air. I couldn't sleep, and all I really wanted to do was feel sorry for myself. I did what anyone else would do in my situation, I prayed. Prayed for answers, I prayed for a sign, I prayed for something that I couldn't denounce or misclassify.

And I got "jump."

Needless to say, I didn't. Nor would I, though I did contemplate it for a moment. I went home sad and bitter from my experience at the Retreat. Though, who could I tell the truth to? What would they think? That I was crazy? Suicidal? How could I possibly explain that one, I wasn't a Christian, and two that I was told to jump off of a hotel balcony by a voice inside my head that I thought was God? It turned me off of my church for a long time afterwords, I started bringing other people with me to avoid long drives home where I felt like a hypocrite and a monster.

It would take me a whole year to even be able to discuss my struggle with anyone other than a dear friend of mine (ironically, the one who started my church regime three years earlier), and even then I was reluctant to discuss any of it with my pastor. However, after much deliberation, I divulged him in the entire truth. I was met with open arms and noncircumstantial acceptance. 

He sat me down and told me about how much he had seen me grow since I had first walked through the doors, not just in age but in depth. He admired my integrity and told me that, despite whatever hangups I was experiencing, he was still proud of me and whom I had become. We talked for a long time, me asking questions and him answering them the best he could, before concluding in a prayer.

And I realized, after having just recounted a severe crisis of would-be faith, that my struggle has been a long one: three years and counting with this event serving as the most drastic. In that time, I have evolved from an extroverted attention-seeker (in all the wrong ways) to a tolerant, though agnostic, person whom earnestly wants the best for everyone around him- feeling bad for trying to change myself for a group that loved me anyway.