Struggling with faith
Hello. I'm struggling at the moment and would like some perspective, please. If this is the wrong place for my question, mods, please delete the thread. I'm not here to upset anyone, I am asking a question in good faith.
Essentially, I wasn't raised Christian but was introduced to the church by a school friend and have been a Christian for about 20 years (that was scary maths!). I've run the gamut of protestant churches. My first church was nominally Baptist, steeped us in purity culture and a healthy pinch of Calvinism. I then moved to a different town and bounced between a quite intimidating Baptist church and a low Anglican church for a couple of years and then spent about 10 years in charismatic evangelical churches. I was very invested in one of them that I spent 7 and 1/2 years in. They were also quite fundamentalist and hurt me badly on more than one occasion. I left. And I've spent the last 7 years in a slightly charismatic low Anglican church that is quite pastoral.
In the last 4 years, a couple of stressful life events beyond my control and unrelated to the church, and then the damage that church did to me have really come home to roost. The influence of purity culture and Calvinism are not helping in the slightest. To be blunt, I feel like Pinocchio. I am just a puppet and want to be loosed from my strings.
I miss my strong faith. I am disinclined to walk away completely but am struggling to find solid evidence of God being all loving or all powerful. I am praying the first verse of the Serenity Prayer when I don't know what to say.
I've always bobbed between denominations. I believe that each denomination has its own purpose in expressing an element of God. I'm not here to judge the charismatic church, it works for some. Similarly, I can see why people may value the Calvinist (or Armenian, but I've not got my head around that yet to comment) stance. We're all different & have our own needs that deserve to be met.
Well done for persevering down to this last sentence! I'd like to know if anyone else has been through this and come out the other side. Thank you.