what I learned from 22 years of rebellion

I can’t pin down where it started. I can’t pin down where it ended, or if it even has. What I can do is identify almost every moment in my adolescence and ascent into adulthood that had some sort of effect on how I view men, a patriarchal society, and my constant struggle for independence.

My parents raised three girls. They raised three independent, pain in the neck, sassy girls. My father was adamant that we would never need a man to be able to survive. He taught us basic 21st century survival skills. How to change a tire, how to change our oil, how to barbecue a feast worthy of a king. How to understand basketball, how to make the best breakfast spread this side of the Mississippi River, how to truly enjoy country music with the wind in our curls. All seemingly harmless things, right? All the while, my mother taught us how to think for ourselves, how to keep a house, how to be a good wife and mother, how to understand football. I don’t think these were discussed as the specific attributes each would teach us. I think it just… happened.

My whole life, I found my identity in the boys I liked, and the girls I didn’t. Friendships were forged based entirely on judgment of a girl who passed by. I was a mean girl, and no one was safe, not even my mother. My life was created entirely so that I could hate and be hated by as many people as possible. People who encouraged me weren’t ever going to stick around long so why bother getting close? 

College was a doozy. It was there that I truly embraced my rebellion. College became two years of “try it all and forget what could go wrong”. I did everything my parents ever told me not to do. Y’all, I was a mess. My friend group consisted of my roommate, her boyfriend (who was my best friend), our token gay friend, and the guy that taught me to party. We were a motley crew of kids trying to figure ourselves out. People either hated us or wanted to be one of us. And we were all fine with that. My need to be independent, my desire to be “my own” person really took off under these 4 friends. One day, I was in Eric’s dorm watching him play video games, and he asked me a question that ruined me. The simple inquiry of “Why is it that you believe what you believe? All of that Jesus stuff?” That rocked me to my core. I realized that my faith wasn’t my own. It was what my parents, my grandparents, everyone back home had wanted for me. I’m sure I made up some answer on the spot, something I’d been trained to say, but that was the day I walked away from my faith. From that moment it was bad decisions, wrong guys, and not a second thought to permanent repercussions. 

I dated a boy named Jacob. I rushed into a relationship, excited that it was my first one with no God. No distraction. We dated for about 3 weeks. He sunk into me so deeply. He became my identity. When we broke up, I was crushed. I had believed in us so deeply. I was stuck on our very dysfunctional cycle. I continued to see him after the breakup. I went over to his dorm to visit, I never told anyone where I was going. I put my phone on silent, sometimes even turned it off. I was at his beck and call. And then one day, I stopped mattering to him. Not that I think I ever did in the first place. But I became a toy. And the day I realized that was the day he stopped taking “no” for an answer. 13 minutes and quite a few tears later, I ran. I picked up everything I owned and ran back to my dorm, locking myself in the quiet blackness of the dreary Sunday afternoon. I didn’t speak to anyone. I didn’t tell anyone what happened. I think it took a year or so before I could even force myself to say the words of what had changed my life so drastically. Even now, I avoid the words as much as possible. My response to this? Aggressive feminism. My God, whom I had abandoned all thought of, had (at least in my mind) let me down. So I did what any “victim” would do. I neglected the emotional and social issues that came with this assault, and began to pour myself into half-witted feminism and fake social justice. I learned everything I needed to know to be an independent human in that respect. I swore off men for awhile. I swore I wouldn’t let that one incident be my one experience. My rebellion took full force. I was THAT girl. The one you didn’t want to talk to, because everything became social justice. The one you definitely didn’t want to bring up politics around because I could feed you a bunch of very liberal reasons that our government was failing. The one that almost voted for Hillary, solely based on the fact she’s a woman. 

This was my life from October of 2013 to October of 2017. Four years of aggressive feminism. No worries, I found the church again. I even began to pursue ministry work. All the while, refusing to abandon my feminist ideals, instead trying to mold my Bible to fit back in. And then, in a quick moment, almost as fast as the initial creation of Kate the Feminist, I was broken down. God used my friends and my jobs to call me out of where I was. To point out my pride, my identity that was found in my label. I was mindlessly reading my Bible. Ephesians 5, you know, “wives submit to your husbands”? Boy did that passage always sting. A God that sent His Son to die for me was going to require it of me to be a submissive wife? How dare He. There were moments in my life that I remember finding eternal singleness a more appealing option. Then, after reading it again, coupled with 1 John and a few life experiences, it hit me. I would be blessed to find someone that I loved so much that this wasn’t a command, but a willing step in a relationship. In that week, late in October, God showed me how to humble myself in order to admit my faults. He showed me that His love makes all the difference in our actions. He showed me that I didn’t need to rebel. To be different for the sake of drawing attention. My identity is not found in how many people I can turn away, how many bridges I can burn. My identity is instead found in the wonderful, immeasurable love of Christ. I am called to love Him so deeply, to be loved by Him so intensely, that there is nothing but love pouring out of me. It’s not an easy transition. Do you know how many people I’ve turned off to the idea of Christ? It pains me to think about it. The years spent claiming Christianity but acting otherwise. The years spent spurning Christianity and accepting being a lost soul.

I write all of this for what point. A pity party? A desperate plea for attention? No. I write this to show that no matter how stuck in yourself you are, no matter how deeply entrenched in your ideologies you claim to be, the love of Christ moves past that. Stirs things deep inside of you that you may not understand. God’s love means more to me than anything else in the world. And showing God’s love to others has become a way of living.