Today, I have to write.
It’s a beautiful spring day here in Auckland. The house is peaceful, though teenagers and dogs abound. And I want to write.
Sometimes I get that urge, the need to sit down and just start pouring words out from my soul. It’s been a while. There are several deep, difficult topics I’ve been mulling over, but I’m not going to attempt those today.
Something is stirring, maybe prompted by the sunshine, and I just want to see where this goes.
The Christian faith has always loomed large in my life.
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| 16th birthday with the family |
I was raised by "born-again" parents in a variety of church settings, from Catholic Charismatic circles, to Queen Street AOG (New Zealand’s original mega-church in the 1970s), to various Pentecostal churches in the 1980s where my dad was a pastor.
Church culture and faith were tightly interwoven. For me, they were inseparable.
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| 1987 - I'm 17 and confused |
I absorbed messages about purity, obedience, and self-sacrifice that later set me up for some very painful experiences. My view of God was shaped early, and in some ways warped into something performance-based.
Be good. Do right. Avoid this. Don’t do that.
As a pastor’s daughter, I knew everyone was watching, and my actions reflected on my beloved dad.
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| 1989 - I moved up to Auckland at 19 |
When I left home in 1989, at 19, I tried to walk away from church. But within a year, I was back. My commitment to God had been renewed, this time as something I believed was mine, not just inherited.
But the deeper pattern hadn’t changed. At my core, I was still performing for approval.
God loved me, but I believed somewhere deep down that I needed to live up to His expectations to stay in that love.
I was still a people-pleaser. Still unsure I was truly enough.
Purity culture shaped so much of this. We were taught that sex within marriage was the only acceptable kind of sex, and that God had “The One” prepared for you. Your soul mate. Your reward for faithfulness.
Serve God. Stay pure. Wait for marriage. And when God brings The One, it will all make sense.
I waited.
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| Youth Pastor in the nineties |
I poured my twenties into serving God and the church. I thought I met The One. He ticked all the boxes, Christian, leader, strong, devoted to God and church.
And it fell apart. We had little in common beyond our faith. I ignored red flags because I believed God was in it.
So when I found myself crying in a ball on my wedding night, wanting to run out on my honeymoon, experiencing panic attacks, anxiety, and depression, I didn’t know what to do with that.
What was I doing wrong? (What was wrong with me?)
I tried harder. We tried harder. We went to counsellors, more than one, for years.
And I blamed myself. I was the problem. The depressed one. The failing wife. The failing mother. The failing Christian.
If I could just be better.
I was always needing to do better. Always performing.
My husband could be my biggest supporter or my harshest critic, sometimes within the same breath. Jekyll and Hyde. A bit like my view of God at the time.
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| Me and my siblings |
There were good times. This blog is a record of those. But over time, the dark times stopped being the exception and became the norm. And the good times became rarer.
When I walked away from my marriage, my faith went into freefall.
What about my promises? Where was God? Why did He let this happen when I had tried so hard to serve Him, to obey, to stay faithful?
I have heard it called the dark night of the soul.
For the last six years, I have been untangling my relationship with God from the layers of Christian culture that surrounded it.
I did not even have a name for it at first. I just knew something was shifting.
Now I know there are thousands of people going through the same thing, what is often called deconstruction.
I have been listening to podcasts like The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, The Roys Report and Bare Marriage. Reading books like The Shack. Binge-watching The Chosen. This has been revelatory.
Church causes so much damage when it becomes about image, brand, hype, performance, power and control. When there is no room for those who are struggling. When people are left in the ditch while the machine keeps running.
So many people come to the same place I have.
And yet, when I sift through the rubble of my deconstructed faith to find the truth that remains, what I find worth holding onto is Jesus. He is more precious to me than ever before.
The person that he is calls to something thirsty in my soul. The way he saw the overlooked. The way he went against his culture and honoured women. The way he taught an upside-down kingdom that is not about power. The way he touched lepers, ate with outcasts, stayed close to the ones everyone else avoided.
What is not to love about him?
It hit me one day as I was driving across the Harbour Bridge: all these years I've tried to be good. I wanted to be able to say I could count on myself to do the right thing when faced with temptation. And in that moment, I realised I couldn’t. I’m no different from anyone else - a sinner! And something in me broke loose, free.
I finally knew what the gospel is really about - redemption. Forgiveness. Not me needing to be good, because I can't keep that up. Get off that performance treadmill, girl.
It’s about HIM — doing it all in my place, offering me grace. I finally get it.
I have not regularly attended church since before the pandemic. I don't miss it. But to anyone who thinks they need to pray for me cos I'm "backslidden", think again - my love for Jesus is stronger than ever. I am so, so grateful to him.
My faith is no longer based on group-think or church culture or performance, it's mine. Wrestled with, tested in the fire and reduced to it's simplest form - I love Jesus and want to follow him.
And I think I am done with DEconstructing.
I am now REconstructing.
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