Praying to God and Laying of your hands will not cure my headache!

I want to start by saying that I hope I don't offend anyone's religion. I respect all beliefs and diversity of beliefs. I don't want to push my religion (I am a catholic) on anyone else and don't feel comfortable when others try to push their religion on me. I've had protestant Christan, Jewish, Buddist, Hindu and Muslim friends and I have learned a little about their faiths from them. I find it fascinating that they all connect in some way although sometimes people feel that they are very different.

I was friends with a girl at work who belonged to a nondenominational church. She was very nice and I felt very comfortable around her at work. She invited me to her baptism (which in some christian faiths is not done until you are an adult and can fully understand your commitment to Christ). I went with my husband an another coworker. The church service was different then my own. The service lasted about 2.5 hours, parishioners were very vocal, a young pastor with a guitar and some very interactive song about Jesus and his love for us all, his song was written by him. People put their hands up to the ceiling and proclaimed their sins needed to be forgiven.

For anyone who has attended a catholic mass, it is about 45 minutes to and hour, the chorus sings strictly traditional songs and the parishioners are not interactive with the sermon except to stand and sit when told. This is what I am comfortable with but I have been to Lutheran and Methodist services that were not all that different.

After I went to the baptism my friend invited me to a church get together, which was supposed to be for the youth counselors in the church. I didn't mind this as it was in someones house. I felt that I was going more because I wanted her to think that I was willing to get to know all aspects of her life and since the church was a big part of her life, I was willing to get to know her friends at the church. The straw that broke the camel's back was when I was invited to go to a church retreat, which was in western Pennsylvania.

Two days celebrating Jesus and praying in a improvised church was not my idea of fun, but again I wanted her to be her friend so I agreed to go. On my trip up to get to the camp I got a horrible migraine headache. I hate getting headaches and although I don't get them often as I avoid most of the foods that trigger them, sometimes extreme stress also will trigger them. Once the headache reaches a threshold point, I will get very sick unless I take aspirin or Tylenol. I told my friend that I had a headache and asked her if she had any Tylenol. She told me no. Once we go there she kept asking me strange questions, "when did you start your journey to accepting Jesus as your savior", "Do you often drink alcohol", "Do you not put Jesus first in your life"?

After getting to the camp and talking to most of the people that had recently joined the church, I got a sense that most of these people had hardships in their life and felt that they needed to turn their life around. Now I support that. However, I have not had issues with drugs, alcohol or promiscuity that many of the young people in the church had dealt with. We all make choices we have to deal with and I am no better then anyone else but I have never dealt with going down a pathway that lead my belief system astray. After all of the questions continued, I felt rather hurt and almost felt that my friend was passing judgement on me because she thought I needed to be "Saved". She and several other church members constantly tried to ask me why I was catholic and why don't I join their church.

Back to the headache situation, my friend requested that I go to the two hour long prayer session after driving three hours to our destination. I went, but half way thorough he service I felt dizzy and lightheaded. I asked a few other people for medicine. Instead I was told that I needed to be "healed by Jesus". Several people lay their hands on my head and loudly prayed for my headache to go away. The headache did not go away and I had to leave early as I could bearly stand up. I was walked back to my room and someone finally gave me a Tylenol.

I did learn alot by this experience. I learned that if someone is not willing to accept you for who you are and what religion you are, that person is not really your friend. I think that the person in my story is a nice person but I couldn't continue to hang out with her at her church. I also learned that if people are willing to pass judgement on you without really getting to know you, they are also not your friend. The most important lesson I learned was if you are going to church bring some Tylenol with me. I believe god and Jesus have done some miraculous deeds, but taking away my headache was not one of them.