How many people here are both isolated and alone and also have the Christian faith?

I had a very strong faith when I was younger, and felt very alone.  I believed that I had God with me, but I needed "someone with skin on."  There were issues with my home life, school was hard, but I felt it worst at church where people were supposed to be a spiritual family, and I used to sit around after ther service being completely left out.  This happened in a few difference churches.  I just didn't know how to join in.  There was even one where I tried to join in a group of people talking in a circle and they just closed the gap in front of me with their bodies so that I was left staring at their backs.  

There have been some Christians who have shown me that it's not all like this.  I went to a multicultural bible college and that was good because everyone there had different experiences, ways of doing things and talking.  People made an effort to include everyone, and my efforts to join in were noticed and accepted.  But that was very much an unusual experience.  

Generally I think I make a lot of Christians with traditional values uncomfortable.  I dress like a goth, I'm autistic and queer.  It makes it very hard to find a place where I'm accepted.  My faith has mutated over the years and I now find some expressions of faith very triggering.  

I had a very strong faith when I was younger, and felt very alone.  I believed that I had God with me, but I needed "someone with skin on."  There were issues with my home life, school was hard, but I felt it worst at church where people were supposed to be a spiritual family, and I used to sit around after ther service being completely left out.  This happened in a few difference churches.  I just didn't know how to join in.  There was even one where I tried to join in a group of people talking in a circle and they just closed the gap in front of me with their bodies so that I was left staring at their backs.  

There have been some Christians who have shown me that it's not all like this.  I went to a multicultural bible college and that was good because everyone there had different experiences, ways of doing things and talking.  People made an effort to include everyone, and my efforts to join in were noticed and accepted.  But that was very much an unusual experience.  

Generally I think I make a lot of Christians with traditional values uncomfortable.  I dress like a goth, I'm autistic and queer.  It makes it very hard to find a place where I'm accepted.  My faith has mutated over the years and I now find some expressions of faith very triggering.  

Thank you, Glitter.

My faith got stronger when I eliminated the middle men and petitioned God directly for guidance so I could be a part of the plan.

I'm quite unreligious past the basic insistance that I did indeed find enough evidence to convince me that we are living in a creation.

Life has knocked a lot of the arrogance out of me, such that I realise that there's no way I can actually understand the plan or have a meaningful discourse with God, any more than I can with a snail, but I'm bright enough to know that if there is a creator then there is a reason for why people get cancer, or die in war etc. and I'll get an explanation in due course, but for now my "job" is to try to believe in a creator and love my neighbour as myself. 

I'm sure I'm as much of a sinner in the eyes of God as you are, I possibly just have different less visually obvious quirks to account for.. 

It is clear across the board whichever religion you adopt (even satanism!) that God has a requirement that we believe in him as a creator and a provider. Perhaps it was a sin, but I insisted in being given adequate information directly to assess the matter for myself. That it took me so long, and I had to experience so much suffering along the way, is partly my fault directly and partly seems to be "the way it works". 

If Christians take against you because your are gothic queer and Autistic, is it the faith or them that has the problem. Read the gospel of Matthew when you have a bit of spare time, and consider how would Jesus have treated you if he met you? Would he have looked down on you for your gothic autistic Queerness??

Or would he have drawn your attention to more important matters perhaps, and it not even been an issue? 

Unlike many people I can't claim to know very much or speak on behalf of anyone, but I can keep trying to stick with the plan, as fast I discover the little bits I can understand, and which do make sense. 

God made me the way I am and I need to know WHY I am doing something, not just enough to know how to do it to a minimum standard.. It took me twenty years of asking all sorts of both secular and theological  questions to get to a position of functioning "faith" but it has delivered satisfaction in a way that thirty years of effort expended in the field of aviation and other so called high end, priviledged secular stuff, did not. 

I've learned that most of what we desire is actually useless to us when we get it. I didn't even realise how fortunate I was at the time, either. That's the nature of "godlessness" it seems. It's like trying to sail or glide* when you have no knowledge of the medium in which you propose to travel.  

Many people do not know this, but even a hang glider can be kept aloft with nothing other than knowledge of meteorology, and a suitable launch point.

You can sail across the atlantic with no engine, but you need to know a bit about the wind and water and how your boat works first..

Religion tries to be a "how to" manual for everyone, but just like learning how to glide or sail (metaphors for getting through life without an "engine", I guess!) you can teach yourself, or find someone who knows and learn from them, the main question is can we be bothered to learn these skills or are we happy to just keep our feet on the ground, and stay where we are, doing what we do?

And now I need to go practice riding the unicycle. It's way easier than believing in God and loving all of you as myself...