The Alternate Reality of a Born and Raised Worldwider

What was real.

It is wholly impossible for me to relate to you the power of the perceived perceptions that we who were born into the church had. It's difficult to even make an analogy to it, but it's my job as the writer of this to try to convey it to you.

Imagine that you were born a prince to a small nation. You were born to a king, and you were born to a queen. Not only were you born to a king and a queen – you understood that you, yourself, were a prince – and that there was a great unseen God that had specially picked your parents to understand His master plan when absolutely nearly everyone in the whole world did not. You were special. You were a child of the Worldwide Church of God.

You were protected, after all. You knew that absolutely nothing could ever happen to you that was bad, so long as you were a part of the church. God had a special calling in your parents' life – and he wasn't interested in the lives of anybody else like he was interested in your family's. God was not trying to save anyone else – they were a sinful, rebellious, uncaring, and evil society. So long as you were a part of the church, you weren't a part of them, and you didn't have to worry about or have a concern over them. After all, they'd get their chance after Jesus comes – he could care less right now.

You couldn't really talk about this special royalty of you and your family – the fact your dad was a king – and the fact your mom was a queen – or tell them how special you were that you were a part of God's one true church – because they wouldn't understand it. They wouldn't get it – and they'd laugh at you. So you kept this special, unique, private knowledge to yourself on the inside. It was okay, knowing what you know, to mockingly jeer at them on the inside for going on in their lives, them not even knowing or even caring that it was a Sabbath, or it was a Holy Day, or that you were supposed to do this or do that with their lives. You were doing it right – they weren't, so you focused on yourself and labeled them as an unworthy, rebellious, and sinning member of a world ran by Satan.

Speaking of the devil, that was the one entity – and his demons – that we were to look out for constantly. We believed that Jesus had not conquered evil at the Cross. We believed that the devil was still on his throne, and was the absolute god of this world – and with his power that was so much stronger than that of Jesus, so we thought and believed, he could bait us and attack us at any time for any wrong doing. This made us constantly afraid of doing anything at all that would tempt the devil to attack and eventually destroy us – causing deep fear and paranoia inside of our selves. This is why we were always on guard of what we said, who we hung out with, where we hung out,, and even when we hung out. We were afraid if we did anything wrong, we'd lose God's protection and we'd be bitten by that roaring lion – the enemy, the devil. The church constantly mentioned to us in print and in sermon how we always need to be on guard of our lives to make sure we weren't attacked by our enemy.

But if we did do everything right, we had full access to God where everyone else did not have full access to God. When we went to the Feast, especially, we had full protection against the devil. God, after all, we were taught, had placed His name on that city – so it was a divine appointment. I believed this in my young mind. Because it was God's Feast, I believed it as a literal foretaste of the Kingdom of God. I remember that colors were brighter to me at the Feast. Smells were enhanced. Food tasted tastier to me. Everything was enhanced because I believed that God had placed His holy name – his holiness – on that physical city. I remember being told that the weather always seemed to break up and turn nice once the Feast started. This happened one year – and I conveniently ignored the Feast many years before that was almost totally washed out by the stalled remnants of a tropical storm that parked itself directly over our festival location. 

 

If we did everything right – fasted at the right time, ate the right foods at the right time, avoided the right things at the right time, kept all of the laws, all the regulations, all the requirements, all the quirks, everything – exactly as we were told, down to the exact time and the exact way Headquarters wanted us to – if we acted in the manner that they told us – and if we looked the part of what they wanted us to represent as they required of us – maybe, just maybe – we'd have a chance of qualifying to make it into the kingdom – especially if we gave as much of our money as we could to the church – the more, the better. After all, we were the called out ones to do this. We could not let God down by slacking. Our efforts would save us – and as long as we tried our hardest, Jesus' grace would cover the rest. If we slacked, however – it could disqualify us and it would be the third resurrection in our future.

There was no way we could ever let that happen.