Losing my religion

I feel like my whole faith journey has looked like a giant leaning jenga tower.

I built up this tower and I locked in the pieces where they were supposed to go fairly quickly. It all looked very structured and square and everything fit. I like everything to fit. 

But over the past decade, pieces have been pulled out.  Instead of addressing those pieces, I just pretended that my tower wasn't shaking. But three years ago, I started to question it all.  (Hint: it was a sabotage)

Imagine the pieces flying through the air.

As pieces flew out, I just pretended that's what I wanted; that was what I was after. But deep down I needed them filled. Deep down, I was losing it. 

I've always been what I assumed was a normal doubter.  Doubts went through my mind more than anything.  I figured that was ok as long as I spoke truth and came back to what I knew was true (and generally that's true), but in May of this year suddenly and out of nowhere I just quit believing.  I tried to pretend it was ok and for awhile my goal was to "fake it til ya make it" except...

I never made it.  

It forced me to stop and look at "it."  What I saw was that my faith (it) had always felt very shaky.  My faith was underneath that jenga tower that I had built. The tower that was always ready to fall, while I just tried to ignore the shaking and sort of prop it up with pick- up sticks.

While I knew that everyone doubted and how normal that was, I yearned for a steadfast faith.  The anxiety and depression and loneliness I felt in this season of trying to find God (again) in places I knew He was and doubted He was and ANYWHERE, was deep and I sort of just quit.  I questioned and then quit believing in all of it.  It was sudden and it was dark.  

It wasn't enlightenment. I didn't realize suddenly that I had been duped for the past decade or anything like that (that actually would have been easier and I could have been angry).  There was just...nothing. Nothing but anxiety and depression, that is. All around me I saw people who found it so easy to believe or to not believe and neither one was easy for me. 

So, where did all of this start?  It came on the heels of an 18 month period where every negative medical thing you could imagine hit me and hit my family.  Then anxiety hit our house.  And I've dealt with anxiety for a lot of years but this was 24/7/never a break, deep, deep anxiety.  Waves and waves of panic.  When I woke up, before I even remembered to be nervous, my body did and I woke up terrified, day after day.  My throat started spasming, my chest and back ached and I kept convincing myself that I was dying because of one of those two things (and a lot of other things).  I tried medication, which I said I'd never take again (after it messed up my liver years ago).  The meds made it about 1000x worse.  I had to go off of them.  I tried mega doses of Vitamin D, I tried meditation, I tried prayer.  I talked it out. I. Tried. Everything. One day it wasn't as bad as the day before and then eventually it eased off.  That's the short version. It pops up from time to time but nothing like what I mentioned above. 

As it faded, a deep depression hit that I can't write about yet and then the unbelief.  Boom. 

I kept thinking, I know what the Courtney of a month ago would have said.  She would have told me to keep speaking the things I knew were true a month ago until my feelings lined back up with my faith.  But then I would think what if faith isn't real?  What if God isn't real?  What if it's all just pretty words? And I thought all kinds of things that I won't type because I don't want to put things in your head.

I'll tell you something.  The ol' standby that we sometimes use that goes something like "if God is real and we believe, then we have everything to gain; but if God isn't real and we believe, what do we have to lose?" wasn't cutting it.  It's all either real or it isn't and I'm not a fan of that way of thinking.  IT'S NOT GOOD ENOUGH.  God is real, or He isn't.

Prayer felt wrong.
Worship felt wrong.
Church felt wrong.
Encouraging people felt wrong.
Writing about God like I had before felt wrong.

Wrong. 

Wrong. 

Wrong. 
Another thing going through my head was, assuming it was all "real," WHAT ARE WE DOING?  We sure don't act like we believe it's real or we would be going, doing, being, following.  I mean really going, doing, being, following, serving, loving...  We're just sort of playing church and getting mad about the stupidest things.  Focusing so much on "do they have a good children's ministry?" and "what type of music do they sing?" and "gasp!  he wears Chucks while he preaches, he must not take this seriously." WHAT IS CHURCH IF THIS WHAT WE FOCUS ON?  Church is SO much about me, I don't know how to separate myself out of it so that I can just be in the body.  I AM NOT THE BODY.  It was all about me.  ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.  No matter which way I would spin it, I would end up being the center and I didn't know how to make it not about me.  I know it's a process I'll be working out for the rest of my life, but I don't even know if I'm on the right track.  Seriously.  What I DO know is that when I focus on Him, I decrease.  More of Him, less of me (you know...you've heard it a million times...and it's true).  Don't focus on the decrease, focus on the increase. 

*Funny enough Jennifer started a bible study called Radical at this point and I went. Remember, no one knew this was going on within me. I left a few weeks so angry. It's all about how we can't just play church anymore. Look it up, it's enlightening.*
Because it was so dark, because I've always been filled with such apathy, during this time I was praying things like Lord, may the cloud of darkness lift and the light of truth and the gospel shine in and God, I have a heart of concrete, of steel... soften it, please!

Nothing.

I kept seeing pictures of clouds and mountains and babies where people would caption them with "how could you doubt God when you see THIS???"  But to me, that holds absolutely no proof of God when you're doubting His existence.  They're stunning, but it's nature.  It's just there and we decide what is stunning and what isn't anyway.  I know I sound like a real soft, sweet person, eh?

The only thing that ever made me take pause and wonder was thinking about this: 

When an idea would come into my head and I couldn't do ANYTHING else until I furiously typed and my heart beat faster and at the end I was exhausted and happy and content. And when I read it back later, I didn't even remember writing half of it and it affected me fresh like it did anyone else. That made me think, "what is that within me?  Who put that there?  It has nothing to do with survival, it's not an instinct...it's a gift.  So, who is the giver?  And why is it painting for some people and math for others, while other people come alive while counseling people and still others when designing clothing or taking care of animals?"

I couldn't just let it go. I had to resolve it, because it was too scary to not know. I couldn't believe. I couldn't not believe. I couldn't just rest and let it come...I had to seek!

A scary thought was who am I without Christianity and religion and Jesus?  It's been my whole identity for a decade.  What would I look like without it?  I couldn't get past the thought to the answer. My entire life had been built around it.  It.  I built a Christianity Jenga tower.  Yikes. That cut deep.

Jesus was about to come and bust it up.  Obliterate the jenga tower.  Turn it over like he did the moneychangers' tables in the temple. Little did I know He had been the one pulling out the pieces all along. 

This Courtney built tower had no place in my life. I needed a body, not a manmade structure.  

I have always (like David) listed off my troubles to God and ranted and raved about them. Then I read this blog and it was the start of changing everything: When God Does the Miracle We Didn't Ask For  (I'll probably blog about that separately it was so life changing...it's a whole other story)

I began having visions, even as I doubted and maybe I'll share those one day.  I fought against them because saying "I am having visions" sounded so...holy roller. The kind who roll for the sake of appearing holy. But it wasn't that. It was real. 

Then...

I woke up one day, read Psalm 16 and it was over.  That fast.  That unexpectedly.  That God.  I walked outside and it smelled differently that I've ever smelled the outside.  It's like I could smell all of the good smells of late summer separately  (cut grass, sweet air, the water hose, cool water on hot concrete) while smelling them all together.

I don't know what was in that Psalm that my soul needed to connect with but I don't even care.  I don't feel like I've ever felt before, it all feels new.  I began again. Everything is so solid now. And I didn't create it!  Truly, I would have made it much more dramatic than that. At the altar, bowing down, the spirit would come upon me and BOOM! the whole church would feel it too. God said, "nope." It came on a regular morning, in between texts with a friend while I was drinking coffee. 

You Will Not Abandon My Soul

A Miktam of David.

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge.

I say to the Lord, “You are my Lord;

    I have no good apart from you.”

As for the saints in the land, they are the excellent ones,

    in whom is all my delight.

The sorrows of those who run after another god shall multiply;

    their drink offerings of blood I will not pour out

    or take their names on my lips.

The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup;

    you hold my lot.

The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places;

    indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance.

I bless the Lord who gives me counsel;

    in the night also my heart instructs me.

 

I have set the Lord always before me;

    because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my whole being rejoices;

    my flesh also dwells secure.

 

For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol,

    or let your holy one see corruption.

You make known to me the path of life;

    in your presence there is fullness of joy;

    at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

For me, it's always been a knowledge thing. While I always acknowledged His Spirit I used it for my own agenda. I always struggled with intimacy, but after I read that Psalm, it was an intimate soul/Spirit thing, too.  We need both and it only took me THIRTEEN YEARS to connect them.

And now I begin again...


******

And that's where I stopped typing...until Sunday. 

The day started with my first spiritual Facebook post in months (ha!). Worship was so deep and I could feel it in my chest. Deep. I went to the altar and laid down. I opened up and His Spirit came in. I can't explain it any other way because no words can explain it. And it's not that His Spirit hadn't always been there. It's just in that moment His Spirit whispered to my soul, "I'm here." And I broke. 

I kept singing, "Pour out your spirit on me/Remove me from me."

Then Pastor Steve came up and said to God, "POUR OUT YOUR SPIRIT ON THIS PLACE.  POUR INTO US!"

And my song changed to "we pour out our lives to you, pour your spirit into us." I told God that I knew He didn't need permission to come but we wanted Him there. I think He wants our unneeded invitation.

From there everything I was praying in my head, Pastor Steve was saying into the microphone. It was wild!  Finally I was at a point where I wasn't begging for signs of authenticity and God was pouring them all around me anyway!  Ha!  

So it's over. It's just beginning. At the same time!  I can't believe you stuck through that whole blog and made it to the end/beginning. You deserve a medal. And Isaac deserves a vacation for living it with me hehe

And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.

1 Peter 5:10