Children, for the most part, grow up not knowing that their family unit is not like the other families of the world. From my very earliest memories, I cannot remember ever feeling like I was strange or unlike everyone around me, though I was. I grew up in a fairly rigid religion. I was raised in the Oneness Pentecostal faith, and there was a strict dress code and a lot of other things we did not do. The girls wore dresses to the knees or below, we did not cut our hair or wear make up or jewelry. We did not own a television, go to the movies, or go to sporting events. The list of things I could not do was innumerable, and I could very quickly tell you if it was permitted, but nowhere could you find an actual list. In fact, each church had a different unwritten list and it depended on the desires of the pastor.
My first memory of feeling humiliated because of my religion was in 7th grade. I had attended a Christian school during 4th, 5th, and 6th grades. In 7th grade, I went back to public school, and the very first day I had P.E. The teacher told us we would “dress out” every day in shorts or sweats. I got sick to my stomach because I knew I couldn’t wear those clothes. I went to the teacher and told her that because of my religion, I couldn’t dress out. She wasn’t very happy about it and asked if I could wear shorts under my skirt or culottes. So my mom made me a very unflattering pair of culottes, and I began the torture of P.E. Every day some kid would laugh at my clothes, and they always asked why I didn’t wear shorts or sweats and why I always wore a dress. In high school, kids notice everything about everyone, and there is lots of peer pressure. The fact that I did nothing like everyone else drew constant questions. I really didn’t want to answer them. My faith was all about being different because of how I dressed, and nothing about being different because of my love for Jesus.
The school bus was another place that was horrific for me. Kids made fun of me for being naive and bullied me as much as possible. The most humiliating stuff was saved for the school bus. They would tell people so that I could hear, “don’t hang out with her, they play with snakes,” or “I heard someone went to her church and they got locked in a closet with snakes.” For the record, there were never any snakes at our church, and if we ever saw snakes at home it was after they were dead.
In 11th grade, I was feeling much braver, and most of the kids were used to my religion at this point. I loved to sing, and I was in the choir, but there was a special ensemble, and you had to try out in order to join. I desperately wanted to be a member, so I asked the teacher if I could try out. I immediately sensed that she did not like me. She said, “I guess.” I started singing, and she said with surprise and grudging approval, “you have a nice voice.” So she said I could be a member. For as far back as I could remember, the ensemble had always dressed with the girls in long, black dresses and the boys in tuxedos. On the first day of class, the teacher brought out a catalog and said, “Girls, I think that this year we need to wear pant suits,” and she showed the one she had picked out. The girls all went ga ga over it. I was flabbergasted and again sick to my stomach. After class, I went up to her and told her I could not wear pants because of my religion. I knew that she already knew this, but she said, “okay,” and nothing else.
The next day I was called to the principal’s office. I was terrified, because I never got called into the office. The principal said that Ms. Pat had told him that all the girls wanted these particular pant suits and that I couldn’t wear them. She felt that it wouldn’t look right for me to be wearing something different and wanted me to drop out. I was devastated, but I was so meek and humiliated by the fact that I was different that I just quietly dropped out and never spoke of it to anyone. I am not sure if my parents even knew. Nobody went to school to demand my rights; I just went away. To this day, I get a bad taste in my mouth when I remember this episode.
For so many years, I failed to really share who Jesus was to me because I was so embarrassed by how I looked. I believe that it hampered my witness more than it helped. The dress code was one of the most important parts of my faith. It was a sign of whether I was saved or lost. If you saw a Pentecostal lady in pants or with a haircut, then you would say that they were backslidden and pray that Jesus didn’t come back before they repented. There was no freedom in Jesus–just lots of legalistic rules.
When I was about twenty-three years old, I quit adhering to the dress code of my church. I had married a Baptist man, and started attending church with him. I still felt guilty, though, and was afraid that God might be displeased. Sometime in 1998, I was sitting in my bedroom folding clothes when the song Mercy Said No by Greg Long came on the radio. It was a “light bulb” moment for me. The words struck me, and it absolutely changed my whole theology in a single instant.
Chorus
Mercy said no
I'm not gonna let you go
I'm not gonna let you slip away
You don't have to be afraid
Mercy said no
Sin will never take control
Life and death stood face to face
Darkness tried to steal my heart away
Thank you Jesus
Mercy said no
Bridge
And now when heaven looks at me
It's through the blood of Jesus
Reminding me of one day long ago
The bridge part of the song really clinched it for me. I realized He cannot see my sins, because they are covered by His blood. It just became abundantly clear–Jesus loves me with such a great and massive love. He loves me no matter what. I don’t have to dress a certain way to win His approval. I don’t have to do just the right number of “good” things in order to get to Heaven. If I do something and royally mess up, He isn’t going to give up on me; he isn’t going to let me go. Fifteen years have passed since that day, and I now cannot understand the theology of “losing your salvation.” It is just as foreign to me as eternal security or “once saved, always saved” used to be. I am now truly free from condemnation and shame, because I know I have the forever love of Jesus.
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