Just a Human

 One of the big unspoken truths that was impressed upon me while growing up in Evangelical (or, as I like to call it, Protagonist) Christianity was that people who aren't living their lives based on the gospel have terrible lives and relationships. I don't know if any adult who was teaching me would have actually come out and said that—but it was definitely the message I, and many other young people, received. We stayed away from the outright prosperity gospel, so I knew that God didn't promise Christians a good or easy or rich life. In fact, he promised suffering. Just look at Jesus! But through that suffering, he promised joy, fulfillment, and rich purpose. The inherent lesson there was that people who were NOT suffering for Christ did not have joy, fulfillment, or purpose. They were building their houses on the sand. Marriage? Probably going to fail. Kids? Most likely going to turn out badly. Friendships? Shallow and fake. Since literally none of my close friends were non-believers, this was easy for me to swallow. Everything I was taught about marriage centered around the fact that a strong and enduring marriage REQUIRES Christ. A three-strand cord is not easily broken...you need to be so close to God's heart that a man needs to seek God in order to find you...and so on. When I saw people get divorced in the church, I assumed that they'd fallen away from God and sin had gotten a foothold into their marriage somehow. God was conveniently going to redeem the situation with a remarriage several years later of course (never mind how this could be inconsistent with the ethic around gay marriage, since Jesus condemned divorce and remarriage pretty strongly...). And then THAT marriage would be based on the gospel, and all would fit neatly into my mental categories. 

As you can imagine, when I realized that I could no longer in good conscience say that I believed in God, I panicked about my marriage. I was absolutely sure that one of several things would happen: one of us would have an affair (because we would lose our moral compass), my husband would become addicted to porn (truly the boogeyman of Evangelical Christian womanhood), or our relationship would shrivel up into something thin and flakey, like a dead leaf, floating around until it crumbled entirely someday. In the same vein, I was sure that my friendships would dry up as well. Now that I no longer had the Holy Spirit inspiring me to dole out biblical wisdom, or to help me be selfless and love my friends well, why would anyone want to spend time with me? What would I have to offer? 

(My poor therapist. She really had a lot to unpack with me.) 

My husband and I are rare in that we were fortunate to deconstruct, and ultimately deconvert, on a largely parallel path. While I was the first to ask the questions, our values remained in sync and we both found ourselves increasingly dissatisfied with the answers. I will never forget one evening early in our marriage, lying in bed together, while I was going through one of my "outbreaks" of doubt and disbelief. Like a rash I couldn't quite ignore, it would flare up occasionally, and I would try desperately not to scratch. At the time, my husband worked for a church and we thought his future was in youth ministry. I asked him, "What happens if you become a pastor and I can't be a Christian anymore?" This was my deepest, darkest fear. It seemed impossible—even saying it out loud was laughable. As if that could ever happen! But I had to ask, because it was eating away at me. Would he leave me? Disown me? Drag me in front of the elders and get them to hurl apologetics arguments at me? But he looked at me, and hugged me a little tighter, and said, "I'd just quit and find a different job." I'll never forget how safe that made me feel. 

It's been almost four years since I officially admitted to myself and to a few close people around me that I no longer identified as a Christian, and in fact didn't believe that a god exists. I'm happy to report that in the following four years, my marriage has remained healthy and strong. In fact, it's gotten even better. I'm acutely aware that not every story that begins like mine (early marriage within the faith, going through a deconversion) has this type of outcome. And I also know that nothing is certain—we're only eight years in to marriage, who knows what the future holds! But when I look at my early fears about leaving Christianity, I'm thrilled to report that they were unfounded. I was afraid that we'd stop connecting on a deep level, and stop growing together as a couple. Instead, we've actually become more in sync, more emotionally intelligent and aware, and more patient and mature with each other. It turns out that when you stop trying to solve every problem with, "We should be praying and reading the bible together more often," and when you stop responding to every failure with, "I'm so sinful, I'm so broken, I need to pray about this," you actually grow quite a bit more. 

As for my friendships, many of those have fallen away. I think some of that is just life: adulthood, parenthood, this damn pandemic, all of that has a tendency to choke out friendships into acquaintanceships. However, I still have my core group, and they've reassured me over the years that they still love me. I still have things to offer. I'm still...me. 

I want to throw this out as encouragement to anyone who is feeling the way I did, having fears that you won't have anything left to offer once your faith is gone and you're forced to face yourself without the lens of Jesus for the first time in your life. You can still have deep and meaningful relationships. You can still feel joy, and purpose. Hard things still happen, and good things still happen. 

It's almost like you were just a human, and this was just life, all along.