Growing Seventh Day Adventist

ultimega

Okay this is my third MyTake so please be gentle.

Growing Seventh Day Adventist

Well one thing that people on here who don’t know about me, is that I was brought in a heavily religious background.

a lot of jamaicans are either Christians or Catholic out down to the different counties which are named of saints which they referred to as Parishes.

You could not go less than five miles without 3-4 churches within a short distance of each other, so it seen very important within our culture.

Growing Seventh Day Adventist
Seventh Day Adventist Church, St Catherine's, parish, Jamaica

However my father wasn’t religious himself even though he was brought up in a religious family. But he grown older he liked to drink sometimes and go hang out with his friends at the local bar sometimes and ride his motorbike Whereas my Mother heavily Christian- talk, eat and breathe any thing that’s church related.The irony of this is that she wasn't from a religious family at all but later found God in her early 20s.

Of course this would cause a lot of friction between my parents as my mother didn’t approve on how he used his free time rather than going to church with her.

Nonetheless, she made sure that I was raised in Christian way and very strict about it. The type of Church we were a part of was called the Seventh Adventist church, which is similar to Methodist however they believe that the Holy day is Saturday which we refer to as the Sabbath like Judasim.

Sabbath would start from sunset on the Friday evening and was not allowed to watch tv, play games, hang out with or listen to regular music until sunset on Saturday. Not unless it jesusrelated, everything else was considered as sacrilegious. This meant alongside my school work I had to do Bible lessons everyday and read scripture out of the bible explaining the meaning before going to bed each night in preparation for the sabbath.

Being part of this religion I found stressful growing up as I was not allowed play with my friends outside of school and used to feel sad listening to what fun activities they were able to on a Saturday which left me wondering why couldn’t I join them. The only ones she would approve of that I could visit were the kids that would attend the same church myself. In her words she did not want to risk her child to be corrupted by non believers.

Dietary requirements was difficult at times too as we had avoid foods that would be considered to be “unclean”and were not approved by God for consumption. For example, meat that doesn’t hooves such as pork , fish with no scales and shellfish. With that in mind, my mother made me vegetarian from an early age.

However, one day my dad gave a piece of fried chicken when I was six without telling her and she was so mad at him as I wouldn't stop asking for it when she tried to make me stay vegetarian. Did not work at all...haha!

Especially when with my West Indian roots have dishes like Curry goat, Brown stew or Jerk Chicken that my extended family would cook for gatherings – there would be no way that I could by pass that.

Even though I would find that side of being Seventh -Day Adventist was was strict there was good times also. Like for example being part of being part of a Christian Scouts group called Pathfinders was really fun. This had given me the opportunity to make new friends with from different locations and take part in activites like camping, canoeing , orienteering and absailing which we had received badges for completing each task.

Another was being part of a gospel choir from age 8 up until I was 14 and used to travel to different churches to sing and take part in concerts.

When I got older, I did start question things a lot more as lot of the rules I had to follow was ingrained into my being from birth and did not have much choice in what I could choose to do or say.

Questions like:

Why do I have to go church on Saturday?

What if they are wrong?

How does all things bring me closer to God?

Am I doing this for myself or please other people?

These questions swirling in mind a lot and it almost started to make resent my mother in creating such harsh restrictions and would cause numerous arguments. Even when I had to go to bible class I found a majority of the time the sabbath school teachers were unable to answer my queries or would divert the topic by just saying you just need have faith as God will show you the way.


Being the inquisitive person I am, this was no where near enough for me and observing how many so called religious behave, was certainly the opposite of the teachings of what they themselves were meant follow.

It was "Do as I say, not as I do"

I will explain what made things change in part 2

If you would like to hear what happened please comment below if there's enough people


Thank you for reading

Ultimega

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Growing Seventh Day Adventist
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