The Beast of Reconstruction

Building your faith back up can be harder than tearing it down.

On paper, the concept of deconstruction and reconstruction of faith is relatively simple. Examine what you currently believe and compare it to your new knowledge. Replace anything that is now in conflict with this new knowledge. Repeat ad nauseam. In practice, of course, it is so much more involved than that. As most things are.

The beginning of my deconstruction was slow. In college I found I didn’t quite agree with the ideas in my church circles anymore. I didn’t like a lot of the churches I attended. Everything felt wrong and uncomfortable. I, through these feelings and the pure chaos of being in college, stopped going to church regularly entirely. After college, I found a new church that I loved. It gave me new hope to find people who thought like me. But that time in my life, I also found a new low in my mental health. Then, in November of 2018, it all hit me like a sledgehammer to the face. It was incredibly emotional and heavy. A lot of crying out to God. Screaming and asking how he could abandon me like this.

It took almost a full month until I could even talk about it out loud and not in my journal. I started small. I wrote down any questions I had the strength to attack and spoke to my Dad (a priceless resource in all of this) and furiously took notes as he gave me answers or resources or began discussions on topics that aren’t black and white (spoiler alert: it’s most of them). This ended up being my favorite part. But that’s because it’s the easy part for me! Facts, research, forming opinions on new information. (Plus, it gave me some wonderful quality time with my Dad!) I loved tearing down these old, harmful, outdated, incorrect belief systems. They had been nagging at me for years and I finally had the time and emotional capacity to deal with them! As someone who loves to figure out the “why” for everything, I was absolutely over the moon. I was even okay with not having the “right answer” to some of my queries and coming to my own conclusions, something that felt forbidden in the church growing up. And while deconstruction is never really done, I’d say I did a pretty good job with the first demolition. So good in fact, I woke up one day to realize that now I had nothing left to believe in.

I was so focused on the intellectual side of my faith that I never bothered to deal with the emotional part. The one that was still crying over how angry she was with God. That anger and distrust went so deep, that I hadn’t even been able to imagine what this new version of God looked like or even felt like. I had torn everything down so completely that I had nothing left to hold onto. And quite honestly? I’m still there. I’m still wrestling with how I’m supposed to feel towards God even now. I’ve made progress to be sure, but I'm still struggling with creating an emotional connection to someone I can’t see or even begin to comprehend. And that’s because it takes time. So much time.

Creating this elusive emotional connection comes from comparing the theology of different viewpoints. From reading books by authors you trust and respect. From pushing yourself to go to church or reach out to that church friend even when it still stings a little. It comes from hearing new thoughts. Letting them marinate. And hearing them again from a different voice, realizing they never really sank in the first time. It comes from months of not even thinking about it, even a little, and letting yourself breathe before trying again. It comes from trying (and failing) to pray again. From realizing you had so much more to reevaluate. It comes from always trying to take one more step forward than you did back. It’s cliche to say, but it truly is a journey. A lifelong one. It requires not just examination of faith, but of the society and the self. But oh, my word is it worth it.

I could live to be 200 years old and I don’t think I’d even scratch the surface of how deeply growing up with faith changes us, for better or for worse. It takes a lot of dedication to alter our hearts and minds, but it frees us, and the world around us, to a more kind and more loving world than we could ever imagine.