I told you all last time that I would talk about my struggles with faith throughout the last few months.
I want to open by saying that I never once stopped believing in or loving God.
But I can’t say that it hasn’t been extremely difficult, and from several different directions.
Professional
My first hurdle occurred in the professional realm. I was told by an internship connection that I was never going to get anywhere in the professional world if I mentioned 1) anything about my writing and 2) anything about my faith. Which meant I needed to cut out every single thing I’d ever done in order to get a job: blog posts, editing, website building, etc.
My faith is the foundation of my life. To not mention it, to not allow others to see it? I felt like I was losing a huge part of myself. I felt like I was failing God by listening to what this person said.
Work
I love the people with whom I work. I try to be a light at work every single day.
However, when we do the computerized training, all of it tells me that I — as a Christian white female who identifies exactly as I was born — am evil.
And to talk about my faith? I use they/them pronouns for my coworkers (which honestly isn’t difficult now that I’ve gotten used to it), but any mention of God on the sales floor could cause me to lose my job. I’m all about respecting all people and supporting them where possible. I realize that I can’t push my faith on other people while at work, but everyone else’s beliefs are fair game and encouraged? I have a real problem with that.
And yet, for months, I suppressed every objection and my faith so that I didn’t make waves at work.
Church
This is the hardest one.
All of my life, I’ve never felt like I truly fit in. Most of the time, it happens slowly. I feel compelled to share, I start getting the side-long glances, and then I get to the point where I feel like I’m not wanted anymore.
This is all internal. It’s all false internal words that I accept into my heart and start feeling bad about myself.
Honestly, this time, the side-long glances weren’t even happening, but my brain told me they were because of my past.
What I did to fix it
So, all of this has contributed to my inability to hear God’s voice. (Plus the stuff I wrote about last week — read it if you’re curious!) Here are the ways I’ve moved forward with my faith:
- Realize that success with God looks different than success with the world (last week’s post).
- Realize that if a company isn’t willing to interview and/or hire me because of my faith, then I don’t want to work for them anyway.
- Put my website back on my résumé, full faith included.
- Seek jobs solely within the Christian community. I realize I need to carry my faith into other realms, but I need to be fully situated in the Christian faith, and trying to carry my faith while working with books that have a focus on everything besides faith, it’s never going to work. So I will stick with God and go out into the world to meet people who need Him.
- Be myself. God made me who I am, and stifling that to fit into a box that I think other people want me to fit within is a disservice to who God has called me to be.
- Get back into blogging and making videos that highlight my faith and hope.
- Seek another job. Prayerfully. And hopefully gain work as a freelance copyeditor.
The world is going to constantly seek to shove my faith down. Boston only has a faith community of about 3%. I’m going to be drowning if I don’t allow my faith to shine.
My advice to you: don’t compromise who you are or what you believe to fit in or keep from offending someone. I’m offended by the world on a daily basis, but I still love the people of the world, as God calls me to do. But living out my faith? That’s going to catch hate. And I can live with that.
What I can’t live without is my God.
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Brittany Stonestreet 