From Goth to Christian: My Testimony/Why My Books will Henceforth be Clean

How did I end up becoming a goth? Why did I dress like that? Why are goths so moody and weird? And how does all of that relate to 'clean' books? Discover the answers to these questions (and some of the biggest questions of all) in this blog post.

I recently wrote these words:

"I was not raised in a Christian family but felt the pull of the Holy Spirit for as long as I can remember. It began with feelings of reverence for bibles and subjects of faith, which clashed with my goth years, but emerged victorious in my late teens. My faith has continued to be a battle ever since..."

There aren't many photos of goth Marley; she hated cameras (and most other things)

I wrote these words as part of a testimony that I will read out when I come into membership at the church I have been attending for a few years now. I sent it to my pastor, and he wrote back, "I can’t imagine what your goth years were like." If you know me now and didn't know me then, I can imagine how odd it might be to imagine me as a goth.

It's something that I have thought about here and there over the years. How did I end up being a goth? And why? I honestly couldn't imagine stepping out the way I used to now, with black hair, a dog collar (that I bought from an actual pet shop), platform boots, spiderweb clothing, and bright red lipstick that I wore under my lower eyelids like fresh blood-coloured eyeliner. Yeah, goths are weird.

So, how did I find myself there?

It started with music.

I felt like nobody understood me and I didn't fit in anywhere. Music became the most important thing to me. It helped me express my feelings. It felt like it understood me. It was my friend.

I was depressed.

Hopelessly, crushingly, despairingly depressed.

Me & my beautiful bestie who has stuck by me through every phase of life (and allowed me to dress her up in my clothes 😂)

I felt alone, the world felt broken, and it all felt pointless. Now, part of this was probably hormones of a teenage girl, but part of it was something else entirely. The music I listened to spoke about the things that I felt: Loneliness, cruelty, and pointlessness, but also anger, death, discrimination, godlessness, bleeding, numbness, lost souls, and suicide. The lyrics wrestled with the big questions: Why am I here? What is the point? Why is there so much injustice? Why are people so cruel? And reflected my opinion at the time: If there is a God, he has abandoned us. We have a reason to be depressed and angry: Life sucks.

As I got older, my depression gave me moments of respite. I was able to lift my eyes up off the ground and find beauty in nature: moments by the ocean, birdsong, a flower, and a thunderstorm. And I continued searching for answers to the questions I had outside of the music I listened to.

This part of my story is boring. Over many years, I asked questions and wrestled with various answers I was getting, but ultimately, I was not satisfied with believing that we are here by some cosmic accident, that there is no point, and that we have no purpose. I don't want to believe that. Some people are okay with those answers. They don't have a problem with being a purposeless accident who evolved from slime and will cease to exist after death.

Unlike them, I do.

Call it weakness. Call it whatever you want. That is not okay with me.

So, I continued wrestling and asking questions: If we have a creator, where the heck is he now? Why won't he step in and fix things? Why does he allow people to feel so miserable? Why does he allow some people to endure so much?

I learned about sin, and how people stuffed up God's perfect creation, and how they continue to stuff it up now.

Why doesn't God step in? Because he doesn't want us to be puppets; he wants us to have free will, he wants us to experience love. If he made us do stuff, we would think and feel entirely differently. Would we even think at all? Isn't that the difference between a puppy dog and a Barbie doll?

I learned that God has created us for relationship and to reflect Him. He loves, and so we love. He created, and so we create (this is why I believe that we are all creative people).

Believing in Jesus means knowing that the world sucks because people are sinners, and I am no exception. That is no stretch of the imagination. I do not doubt that each of us adds to the suckiness of the world. So, because I believe, I repent. It hasn't been a one-and-done for me. I cannot pinpoint a conversion experience. I have wrestled. I continue to wrestle. I apologise over and over again to our loving creator whose creation we have stuffed up (and continue to stuff up), and ask for forgiveness. And he forgives me, because the punishment for my sin was paid by the blood of a sinless Jesus on the cross. It sounds absurd, but I believe it, and the part of me that doesn't, wants to.

Okay, so I can't pose and answer all of the questions and wrestling matches that I've had in a single blog post, but Goth Marley had questions and was angry with her lack of answers. Christian Marley is in a relationship with a loving creator, and because of that, I know that I am not alone, I am not an accident, and I have a purpose. I know why people are cruel, and why there is injustice... and I know what happens when we die.

Christianity has given me the only answers that I am satisfied with, the only answers that make life worth living and not despairingly pointless.

On top of the intellectual discourse, there is a genuine relationship.

I would have told you that it was baloney back in my dog-collar-wearing days, but now, I experience a very real relationship with a very real God. Naysayers may argue that it is all in my mind, or coincidence, or mental illness, or whatever else, and that's fine if they want to believe that, but I'm telling you: the closer you draw near to Jesus, the closer he draws near to you. At the beginning of my relationship with him, like an angry teen, I would tell him he didn't exist and curse him for making me exist, but I turned towards him and not away, and that's all he needed.

So, here I am: Goth turned Christian.

It brings me to this: Over the last few years, the Holy Spirit has been convicting me over my use of swear words in my books. I don't swear in real life anymore, so why swear in my books? I've dug in my heels and argued with him. I don't write Christian books for a Christian audience. I want my work to remain appealing, trendy, and accessible. Most people swear. Who cares?

I lost the argument.

The book that I am writing now is 'clean'. This means there is no swearing and no explicit content.

Why? Because you know how angry I was about cruelty and injustice in the world? About evil and pointlessness? Well, I now believe I need to do everything in my power to not add to that, which means caring about the words and content I put out into the world. There is enough bad stuff out there already without me adding to it.

So that is the reason why all of my work will henceforth be clean.

I hope you understand.

Have a question? Ask me in the comments!

Much love,

Marley x