"What are the major turning points of your life?" A friend asked me this question about a month or so ago. I knew without hesitation that leaving church and leaving my career in short succession was a major turning point in my life. Everything changed after that. Everything. I know that I've told pieces of … Continue reading When Leaving is Just the Beginning
“Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it." --Brene Brown Do you ever stop to look at your life and ask, "How did I get here?" Sometimes, a small moment or conversation sets you on a course that changes everything. Sometimes these small moments require … Continue reading It All Started When I Owned My Doubt
Some of us grow into thinking that our beliefs--statements we hold to be true--are the most important part of who we are. I'm not saying that beliefs are unimportant or that every belief is right. But there is a danger in defining our deepest self by what we think about things.
The language that we use to describe God and faith and Jesus seems especially worn out sometimes. Sometimes I wish that we could just start over with a new vocabulary. But then there are times when we are given new eyes to see these words in a different light. When we experience these words in the depths of our hearts. And the words become new. And we become new. That is the power at the heart of these most potent words. "Believe" is one such word for me.
Sometimes it is easy to confuse faith with a set of beliefs. Sometimes people put their faith in their beliefs. Sometimes those beliefs are intertwined with faith to an extent that it is hard to separate the two. I don’t think faith as a set of beliefs is the faith Jesus was talking about in Luke's stories.
Somehow, for me, the Questions were a door that ushered me into an experience of God that was real and beautiful and unexplainable--like nothing I had experienced before the Questions. The Questions were like keys springing open locks that had kept my mind from seeing what was real. Once opened, there was no turning back. There is no way to unsee. The Questions forced me to let go of Beliefs to which I had been clinging to like a life preserver. A set of Beliefs are not what save us or give us life. That Life is from God. Not from what I understand about God.
Jessica Sanborn 