Drifting

The person I was couldn't possibly be the person I am now. Grief has changed me, more than once. 

There are depths to this anguish of losing a child I thought humanly impossible. When I say "losing a child" it sounds like she's already gone, even though she's still physically present. I've lost parts of her every day since her diagnosis nearly 10 years ago.

I didn't drift away.

I clawed and scratched and wept and prayed and clutched white knuckled to the only faith I'd known. The faith that told me who I was, who I am, who I will be. The faith that told me who God was and how I was supposed to relate to Him.

I can envision what others say, because I have said the same.

"It's because she stopped going to church."

"How long has it been since she read her Bible?"

"Who is she listening to?"

"Maybe she was never truly saved."

I know the lines, I know the thoughts, I know the horror and more importantly, I know the

fear 

 of hearing that someone you love, someone you thought you knew, 

 leaving.

I have felt in a desert, a true wasteland, for years. I remember before we left our home church, our church that had seen all three babies just weeks after they were born, being passed around from person to person as we stood up front and led the church in singing mere weeks after the birth, the only church we had known as a married couple, the church that stood with us and wept when we told them our daughter was dying, our church that cried with us as we told them we were leaving. Before we left that family, I had sat at the piano for months and months, feeling like I shouldn't be there. I would hold back tears, knowing I didn't belong there any more.

Those feelings came unbidden. I didn't welcome the unease, the discomfort, the unsure-ness of it all. I fought it all. I fought the doubt, I fought the unknown. I knew the authors I should read, the podcasts I should listen to, the verses I should memorize, the prayers I should pray, the Bible studies I should be in.

But I couldn't.  I could not do more of the same. The small box I had put God into had a long fuse that was woven through all areas of my life, and it was near enough now that I could see the sparks and smell the flame.

When the flame reached that box, it was irrevocably obliterated.

In the years that continued to roll in, my faith shifted over and over and over again. I learned new phrases like

embodied,

and

deconstruction

 and

mystical

.

And while these phrases would've scared me as a Bible college graduate. a worship leader, a stand up example of the full-faith wife and mother and woman, those phrases now felt like home. They felt like an introduction to

me.

New faith doesn't feel scary now as it did when I was still clinging so tightly to my old faith. I gripped my native faith so tightly not because I believed, but because I thought I still

 should.

I thought of the people I would disappoint, the people I would repel, the people who may feel like they couldn't hold a conversation with me about anything anymore because

who is she?

I'll tell you who I am, though it undulates and flexes and roils like the ocean as more is uncovered and examined and allowed.

I love my children. I love my husband.

I have faith. I have hope.

I know my body better now than I ever did before. I trust it. I trust my feelings. I trust my physical cues. I listen to my thoughts. Yoga has been intensely helpful in unlocking physical and emotional blocks. I'm no longer disconnected. I believe in the power of meditation, from a scientific and spiritual viewpoint.

I am growing more and more fearless all the time.

Beliefs are thoughts that we think over and over again. I choose what I believe. My aim is to love God more and love other more so I choose to believe things that help me do that.

I believe in the beauty of humanity and I choose to look for it.

I am

open.

I am more interested and curious to learn about others' experiences, beliefs, ideas and ideals than ever before. I can listen with a desire to understand without the weight of witness on my shoulders. I desperately want to talk with others who have similar experiences to mine, regardless of their native faith.

This sojourn into the unknown has been lonely, lovely, disconcerting, freeing, exhausting, exhilarating, and destined. I have no term to attach to my beliefs. Nothing seems to quite fit right now, and that's okay. 

I didn't drift away. I'm still here.