To the Friends and Family Who Pray for Me:

Do you use that word when you speak of me?

“Backsliding" or "Backslidden"or "Backslider...”

Used in all of its various ways, always a lament, a whisper, a rumor, a cause for prayer.

It's ok if you do. I don't mind.

That word doesn't bother me now. It doesn't hold shame any more.

For the record, I still want to be prayed for because I know it means you care for me. I care for you too. I pray for you too, in my own way.

I understand what you're feeling. I've felt it so many times for others. You're wondering where this came from, who or what influenced my thinking, why I strayed from God. You're worried for me, for my soul.

I love you for that. But it's ok. I'm ok.

The best way I can say it is... when I started answering some of the bigger questions for myself, many of the answers I reached did not line up with those I was taught in the church. It's that simple for me.

There wasn't a single inciting event. No inverted Saul/Paul moment. It was a gradual eroding of the mountainside of my belief, one pebble at a time.

I'm still me. I'm still good. I'm still loving, ethical, caring, and kind. I still love and admire so many of the things that Jesus said. There's just too many things I don't... can't believe any more.

I'm not an atheist. I'm not agnostic.

I'm not mad at God. I'm not mad at the church. I'm not mad at you.

I'm just... a backslider.

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