There are many church denominations that exist today and honestly, none of them grab my attention. Or at least they don't anymore.

Growing up, I was always exposed to the idea of God and who He was. His name was Jesus and ever since then, I've always carried Him in my heart. I was both baptized under the Catholic church and presented in a Seventh Day Adventist church. Why both? I'm not so sure.

From what I can remember, I always feared God and I always based my decisions on whether He thought them to be right or not. When I was around 13 years old, I was stuck in a very dark path, one which I will refrain from talking about here. The important thing here is that I remember myself to be church hopping for a while until I settled in one church.

In this church, I felt like I had found my second family here and one I could confide in, whether it had to do with church-related things or anything outside of it. Things were going smoothly, but some odd reason I always felt out of place.

I sang, I spoke, and I participated in church, and I did feel my spirit elevate into another dimension. But something always felt off.

Many of the members began to expose their true colors and I wasn't having any of it. It was as if they would wear a mask to church and take it off as soon as service had concluded.

I began attending another church but I left immediately because once again, I felt something was off.

When I stopped going to church altogether, I realized how many people I had rejected, hurt, and looked down upon simply because I was either told to or because I felt as if being part of a congregation all of the sudden made me feel better than the person next to me.

I'm glad I was able to realize this and come forward for my mistakes because I hurt a lot of people in the process. I left the church because I'd rather be a genuinely nice individual rather than being "nice" for the sake of being in a worship place. I'd rather be friends with the sinner than the "saint" who professes to love God but on the other hand judges, everyone and secretly hates them.

I'd rather be friends with everybody than to be stuck within the same circle of people who do A, B, C & D.

I'd rather wear a short skirt and show off my legs than to wear a long skirt and pretend like I am not covering up a multitude of sins beneath it.

I'd rather give what's mine to the homeless person than to make fun of them and tell them to go take a shower. Yes, this happened.

Realizing the damage that the church had done to me emotionally made my intimate relationship with God flourish since I searched for Him in my time of distress.

I am disappointed in the idea of the church nowadays. I respect anyone that belongs to a church, but I simply can't bring myself to go to one and this is how I feel about it from what I've seen and heard. I feel as if church divides people instead of uniting them. One professes one thing, another professes another thing.

I'd rather pray every day and seek guidance from above than to sit in a pew every Sunday.