Will the real church please step up?

I am so confused.  I have faith, yes, but my faith and my religion seem to be two distinctly different beings.  It's been this way my whole life.  I have gone from one religion to another, back and forth, searching for a fit--and it seems that a fit will never come.

It started in my childhood.  I remember splitting my time between the Baptist and the Assemblies of God churches.  One was very quiet, with hands folded on your lap, organ music, and reverence.  The other was raucous, with stomping, clapping, hands up to God, shouts of Halleluiah, praise God, and words in a language no human could understand.  I grew up in both and understood neither.

When I was five, my dad made a mistake.  There was a children's crusade starting the next day at the local AG church, and he mistakenly thought that the service on Sunday night was also for children. Nope--it was a no-holds-barred attempt to get the unsaved into heaven (at least that's how my little mind saw it).  It showed the last days--and I was terrified.  I couldn't wait for the movie to end, and the minute it did I tore down the aisle.  I came to God out of fear--out of terror--and the result was that I worshipped a God of fear.

For many years, fear and rules governed my life.  Then I discovered that others didn't suffer under those yokes.  I tried many different religions, but nothing seems to fit.  Either the church seems to rigid, too full of rules, or I'm uncomfortable with the freedom of worship, or I don't "feel" the Lord in the church, or…on and on and on.

Today I sit in my pew and listen to the homily and sing with the choir and hope that what I believe is actually true.  And I long for the days when I was full of God's fire.  Maybe one day I will be again.  I sure hope so.