Connection, Lost. Confidence, Found.

What I want to say at this point, after yesterday’s post, is please don’t use my words as anything but markers for your own faith. In the comments below, on earlier posts, people said the hunger I felt echoed their own. That hunger and desire for God, and more from your religion and your leaders is the heart cry that causes change—especially when lifted up in prayer.

The point in my journey I have chosen to share is my reaction to a very specific thought, that I am done with my religion. I don’t understand fully what this means for me, but I wanted to write down my experience. Perhaps at the end, I will find a way in which what I am experiencing meets with my faith, or a faith. What I can say is I have been a Christian for decades, and it is strange to consider stepping outside of it. (Though, at this moment is more than a consideration, it is a reality. I am done with it.)

Most of my thinking about spiritual matters is in those quiet moments when I lay down, before going to sleep. Those were the times of my prayers, and in recent years, the place I wrestled with my walk. Where I wrestled in general.

Laying down last night what I felt was disconnection. Absence. It was an odd feeling. The first time I have felt it … in my memory. Regardless of my struggle, I always felt there was a foundation there. A place that was listening, observing (from a distance, if I was in sin), and waiting if I was in pain, waiting for me to come back.

Last night there was nothing. It took me a moment to calibrate. Then confidence rose in my chest. As with all of my encounters thus far, it was a surprise. Someone once told me she didn’t believe in God, that there was no one out there, and I said, “That sounds lonely.” Because, to me it did. In the darkness, though I didn’t feel lonely. I felt sure. And then I felt afraid.

I felt a tinge of fear, and I started to pray, but then I stopped. Who was listening now? I recognized the fear though. It was the tiny one, a constant companion since I was child. Nameless. Always present. I would counter it with prayer or a word from the Bible. “No,” I said. “I am not afraid.” Then I wasn’t. I wasn't afraid. It was gone. I realized I've been doing this dance of fear and prayer, fear and prayer. They each perpetuated the other. Perhaps, what is faith without fear? Without faith, sure, there is fear, but the companion fear, the one faith is an answer to …. No faith. No fear?

Alone. In the dark. Covers at my feet as I stared at the ceiling and listened to the familiar hum of my fan. Not accompanied. But not afraid. Confident in a way I have never felt. In a way I have never been. Perhaps it is because it is now all on me. I am not reaching outside of myself to access strength--a strength I do not have access to because I have not been walking with God. The strength now is my strength. Is my ability. I am a unit. I am the whole.