When I grew up in church, there was a lot of talk about Jesus filling “the hole in your heart.”  The implication was that before becoming a Christian, you were empty inside, and after, you became full.  This is an incredibly dangerous theology, because it is absolutely not true.

In middle school, I went through a period of pretty significant depression.  I would pray for God to kill me, because thankfully I was too scared to do so myself.  A lot of my pain came from the fact that I carried an enormous amount of guilt.  I was a Christian, so why wasn’t I perfect?  If God had filled me up inside, why did I still want so much?  Why did I long for a perfect life, perfect relationships, and perfect experiences?  If Jesus was the answer to everything, why did I still feel so empty?

I wrestled with these questions alone, because I worried I was the only person thinking such things.  My doubts seemed to fly in the face of the salvation narrative I had been taught, so naturally, I thought perhaps I was not saved at all.  The combination of adolescence, evangelical guilt, and suffering alone put me in a very bad place for a couple years.  And honestly, I didn’t heal so much as I ignored my doubts in favor of legalism and distraction.  Continue reading →