My story — the long way back to honest faith

What started as a bucket list goal slowly became one of the most life-changing journeys of my life.

For years, I told people I had “read the Bible.” But if I was being completely honest, what I really meant was that I had read pieces of it. A verse here. A story there. Scriptures quoted in church. Passages someone told me to read during a hard season. Little fragments, usually wrapped inside someone else’s interpretation.

Deep down, I knew that was different than truly reading it for myself.

So I made a decision. If I was ever going to say I had read the Bible, then morally, intellectually, and spiritually, I needed to actually read it. Cover to cover. The beautiful parts. The confusing parts. The parts people avoid. The parts nobody talks about in Sunday school.

And honestly? I was terrified of the Old Testament.

I grew up in church, but church did not feel peaceful to me. I had loving parents, but my church experience was built heavily around fear. Long sermons where I fought to stay awake in hard wooden pews, staring at the clock while trying not to get in trouble. I remember wanting to chew gum or doodle just to survive the service, and there was this sweet older woman who would secretly hand me a mint and do the little “shhh” motion with her finger like we were partners in crime. It became our tiny rebellion.

But underneath all of it was anxiety. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of hell. Fear that God was constantly disappointed. Fear that one wrong move could separate me from Him forever.

As I got older, that fear followed me.

I believed it was my responsibility to make sure every person I encountered knew Jesus because somehow their salvation felt tied to my obedience. My faith became exhausting. Heavy. Hyper-vigilant. I carried the pressure everywhere, and honestly, it affected relationships and the way I saw myself.

Then college changed something.

I took a Religion 101 course thinking it would strengthen my faith and make me even better at defending it. Instead, it cracked open questions I had never allowed myself to ask. We studied multiple religions and recurring spiritual themes throughout history. Flood stories appearing across cultures. Savior archetypes appearing in civilizations separated by geography and time. Discussions about pagan traditions and the historical roots of holidays like Christmas and Easter.

At first, I was horrified.

I remember thinking this class felt blasphemous. Part of me wanted to drop it immediately. But another part of me, the curious part, the truth-seeking part, could not stop listening. It felt like tiny light bulbs were flickering on in places I had kept dark for years.

Then life took me through more twists and turns. Marriage. Different denominations. Different belief systems. Seasons where I leaned deeply into religion and seasons where I drifted far from it. At one point I explored New Age spirituality, the law of attraction, and teachers like Abraham Hicks because I was desperately searching for understanding, peace, and connection without fear attached to it.

And strangely enough, Jesus himself began to feel less familiar to me during that season. The version of Christianity I had inherited felt confusing and emotionally painful. I could not reconcile the idea of a loving God with violence, wrath, sacrifice, and eternal fear. The story of Jesus dying for humanity felt tragic and terrifying more than comforting.

Still, something kept pulling me back.

Eventually, I returned to the promise I had made to myself years earlier. Read the Bible. Really read it.

So I did.

And it wrecked me.

The Old Testament was harder than I ever imagined. It was violent, emotional, confusing, disturbing, mysterious, and at times deeply beautiful. There were moments that genuinely shook me. Stories that made me uncomfortable. Verses that made me stop and think, “What in the world did I just read?”

The Book of Job haunted me for months. I questioned people constantly trying to understand it. The endless genealogies felt impossible to get through. There were passages about war, jealousy, judgment, sacrifice, suffering, and death that did not fit the simplified version of God I had always been handed.

And then there were the truly strange moments nobody seems to talk about. Like the bizarre passage where God threatens Moses and somehow a foreskin being thrown at his feet suddenly changes everything. I remember literally stopping and thinking, “Why are we not discussing this more?”

By the time I reached the New Testament, I was emotionally exhausted but also deeply hungry. Because underneath all my questions was one prayer I kept repeating over and over:

“God, please give me wisdom. Please help me understand.”

And that prayer changed everything.

Not because all my questions disappeared. They didn’t.

But because I finally stopped being afraid of the questions themselves.

This site was born from that journey.

Not from certainty.
Not from perfection.
Not from having all the answers.

But from the decision to seek honestly, question deeply, and stop pretending.