A Vulnerable Moment

Over the last few years, I have completely ripped apart my former worldview and slowly constructed a new one. Honestly, it's still very much in the works, but this is the most settled I've felt with it so far. The missing piece I'm finally ready to address, though, is Jesus.

A huge part of my resistance to Jesus the last few years has been that my relationship with Him, or at least the additional beliefs the church gave me about Him, is what pulled me away from my Papa while he was still alive. I so firmly believed what I'd been taught about Hell and "the way" that Jesus offered to escape it, that I pushed it on everyone. And it pushed my Papa away. It put rifts in my intimacy with one of the most important people in my life, the only real father figure I ever had. And then when he died, I was finally pushed to confront my beliefs on Hell and the "one way" to salvation, and the conclusion I reached was that it was all wrong. Meaning I ruined years of this incredibly precious relationship for nothing, for an error in belief.

That's hard to swallow, and even harder to admit. And for a long time, I just blamed the church for teaching me a bunch of lies. But the reality is that, like the crusaders and everyone else who has done unspeakable things in the name of God, I am responsible for my own beliefs and actions - and I messed up. I messed up something real and beautiful, and I can't ever get it back.

And in the wreckage of this concession, I'm realizing that, even though I have a new worldview and understanding of the afterlife, I still feel lost. I still miss the very raw, intimate relationship I had with Jesus from the beginning, before I let other people's beliefs get all twisted into it. I want that back. And somehow I'm afraid that after all this time, Jesus won't want me anymore. But that's not who I've known Him to be.

So, if you are one of those people who has reached out to me because you were sad or disappointed that I walked away from Jesus, know that I'm on my way back. Not to the full spectrum of doctrine I held several years ago, but to the God I knew before I learned all that stuff. To the God who loved me before I started trying so hard. And if you're able to support me in any way on this journey, I appreciate your love.