Last year I binged the podcast “The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill” by Christianity Today.

For me it was one more link to the chain I’d been wrapping around my heart when it came to pushing away Evangelical Christianity.

I’d known the fruit was rotten on the dying tree for some time, but I hadn’t been able to fully understand why I thought that or what was causing me to all of a sudden speak out about it.

As I said in a previous post, when I saw the January 6 insurrection on the Capitol, I saw every belief I’d known was wrong my whole life crumble before my eyes.

It was then that I realized it was time to stand up and speak up for what I knew to be true about my Creator.

He either loves what He created or not. It doesn’t go both ways.

He either forgives fully on the cross or He doesn’t forgive at all. It doesn’t go both ways.

He’s either a Creator or a Destroyer. But I’ve never known a Perfect Creator find a need to destroy what He’s created. There’s something about that belief that all of us know inherently just can’t be right.

At some point in humanity, the “He gets to do what He wants” answer stopped working. We either had to start coming up with excuses about God, or we had to start questioning why we thought what we thought about Him in the first place.

My own questioning grew deeper as I began to teach medieval history. I’ll share more about that at a later date.

Suffice it to say, my faith blew up. And much like the people at Mars Hill, my deconversion from Evangelicalism was both swift and slow, at the same time.

Writing on a public blog isn’t always easy. I don’t do it for likes or attention, and I don’t do it to come off holier-than-thou because anyone who knows me in real life, knows I’m the furthest thing from a holy roller.

I write because I’m compelled to. I write because I’m hoping that if my thorns are your thorns, my words will be a soothing balm that brings peace.

But sharing is hard. For every post I share, there are a hundred private battles I fight that I don’t share, especially right now.

I will one day, however. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “A riot is the voice of the unheard.” Too many people have gone unheard for far too long while others sat on high horses, believing themselves to be worthier.

Vengeance is mine, says the Lord.

So I’m waiting. I bide my time until I will have a righteous chance to speak out. I will tell the truth. I will speak for those who can’t speak for themselves.

Even so, it’s scary.

God puts some of us in awkward positions, I’m convinced, not only to bring show Himself to others, but also to teach us who we really are.

And though God doesn’t promise that our Life, our choices, our love will always be victorious, His love always is.

If we’re going to say that, then we should believe it is so.

His love is a once and for all, nothing can stop it, never fail to do His will sort of thing.

And as Paul writes. “It is God’s Will that all men be saved.”

I’m putting my trust in a God who can achieve His own will.

No backsies.

It’s hard for me to admit that I’m swimming against the flow these days. For a period of time when I was confident in who I was becoming, I used to pride myself on the whole being different thing.

But then a series of choices left me shaken and uncertain, and I’ve struggled to find my way back to myself.

I don’t like to admit that a shy and scared little oversharing introvert who writes about God, often finds herself in that deep and wide space feeling super far away from Him, far away from my husband and children and friends, even.

I don’t want to admit that love for me can feel like a cold and broken hallelujah, that waking up every morning and fighting against the ugly thoughts inside me or wrestling with needs and longings I may never be grated this side of Heaven is sometimes so hard I hit my knees and stay there the better part of the day.

Yesterday was that kind of day. I blame it on being overly tired and having one too many thoughts swimming inside my foggy brain. I was irritable, hurt and angry at a broken world, broken people and a broken Church.

Days like that, I often literally cry out to God. I scream. I rail again the unfairness of humanity.

Like the whisperer He is, God speaks. It wasn’t for nothing, He says.

He leads me to some Bible passage, or sign, or person, and He uses them to speak to me.

He led me yesterday to Ezekiel 37, you know, the Dry Bones, lifeless, chalky, dried up nothings.

Dead.

God asked Ezekiel if Ezekiel believed God could bring life back to the bones.

You alone know the answer to that, Ezekiel replied.

And God said that of course He could.

But even better (and harder to believe), God said He would.

I will now bring Jacob back from captivity and will have compassion on all the people of Israel; They will forget their shame; I will no longer hide my face from them.

Ezekiel 39

I woke up this morning believing that, like me, somebody needed to hear this.

Maybe that someone was you.

See you soon,

Toni