My birthday is approaching, and as the anniversary day of my birth approaches I use this time to reflect upon the past year of my life. I will be twenty-five. I feel older then twenty-five. In the past three years I have had more life experience when it comes to the human condition and tragedy then I thought I would encounter my whole life. It has changed me, molded me, and set me on a different life course.

On Saturday I came out of the closet on something dear to my heart, my spirituality. I feel it is only fitting to share this in my journal, publicly and privately. I have written about my struggles on the Christian faith, feeling condemnation, and my confusion to seek out something else. For the past year I have searched for truth, and what I found scared me, left me in tears, and made me conscience of how much religion has deeply affected my life.

On May 1st, Beltane , I renounced my Christian faith, something I've held to since the age of 9, a faith I was raised in my whole life. I no longer want to live my life according to biblical principals, have the mind of Christ, or worship the Judeo-Christian God. Just saying that a loud and writing it brings on fear. Fear of going to hell, a fear that has been brainwashed into me since an early age. Fear that my family and friends who are mostly Christian will now reject me, will no longer love me, or want to participate in my life. So far I have not been greeted by any of that, but the fear is still there. I have no idea what spiritual path I may take, I see many roads before me. I just know that I am a spiritual person who believes in some deity and that there is much more out there for me to learn and experience.

My husband is very supportive of me. Jeff is a deist, and really doesn't believe in hell. So this is not going to be a problem in my marriage. He has told me though that he really does not want his family to find out about my search for a different type of religion or spiritual path, especially since one of the ones I have been heavily studying is the Craft. They all think we are a nice middle class Christian family living in the big city, and he would like to keep it that way. I will try my best to keep his wishes. I'm not to big on hiding who I am or what I do, but I will do what has to be done. Plus I really do not want to endure any lectures on fire and brimstone.