It's been a weird few years, and I struggle with how to talk about all the new and exciting revelations for lack of a better word that I've experienced. I've never felt like I was losing my faith. Although I feared that's what it would look like from the outside. I'm not deconstructing and leaving Christianity; I’m learning how to live it in my bones, not just my brain.

For many people raised in church culture, especially those of us dealing with chronic illness, burnout, or religious misconceptions, there comes a point where the gospel we were taught starts to crack under the weight of our actual lives. We were handed core truths: God is holy. We are sinful. Grace is real. Peace is promised. Yet, we find ourselves in adulthood thinking:

We watched our pastors warn against yoga and meditation, then send us off on buses to church camp, where we were sleep-deprived and emotionally wrung out by back-to-back worship sets engineered for maximum emotional impact. We weren’t trying to fake it. We wanted to feel God. But the lights, the sound swells, and the rising of hands during the bridge that repeated again and again for maximum effect tell a different story. We were told to beware of “vibes,” but we were raised on them.

None of it was malicious, and most of it wasn’t even intentional. But over time, the unspoken message became this:

Then, when chronic fatigue sets in, anxiety takes hold, or trauma disrupts our bodies and minds, we start slipping away from the places we once felt safe. Not because we didn’t believe anymore, but because the version we’d been handed had no room for our symptoms, our silence, or our questions and doubts.

We didn’t need a new gospel. We needed the real one — rooted, embodied, consistent.

What We Practice Shapes What We Believe

I’ve lived on both sides of the gap. I spent years believing deeply in God’s goodness while feeling completely disconnected from it in my body. I didn’t reject truth. I just couldn’t reach it. The problem wasn’t Scripture. It wasn’t God.

Maybe it was the subtle ways we (the church) say one thing and practice another. We preach peace but run around like chickens with our heads cut off, adding program after program to our church offerings. We speak against emotionalism, then utilize it to fill the altar. We condemn eastern mindfulness, then fail to offer our own tools or language for embracing the gospel in the body, not just the mind.

When the unspoken doesn’t match the spoken, especially in churches, it leads to dissonance. For those already dealing with fear, illness, or shame, it’s not just confusing; it’s wounding.

We (myself and fellow sensitive neurospicey friends) start internalizing things that were never meant to be concluded by our well-meaning church leaders. We start assuming things no one ever said out loud. We carry that weight quietly until we break, leave, or reconstruct. This isn't to say the church set out to hurt those struggling with trauma or sensitivity. It's just me processing a shift out loud and wondering if I'm the only one trying to learn how to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater. I'm trying to pave a trail forward that leaves room for all my fears and doubts to lie neatly beside the joys and peace I was always promised.

What It Looked Like For Me

Reconstruction, for me, hasn’t been about rewriting theology. It’s been about re-learning how to live what I already knew. Letting the felt sense of the gospel start to match the words I memorized long ago. This journey was aided by the blessing of finding and sinking into a level-headed church that leaves room for my doubts and stands firm on the essentials. Along with friends and a spouse willing to wade through sticky topics and late-night conversations with me, unfolding and examining that which was said and unsaid while growing up with patience and grace.

Here are five core truths I still believe, but that I had to come back to slowly, after untangling the unintended messages I absorbed in fear, pain, and trauma response:

1. “No one is good but God.”

I believed this. I still do. It’s what makes grace so miraculous. But in trauma recovery, this truth became twisted. My nervous system heard:

It took time to realize: God is the only one who is truly good, but that doesn’t mean everyone else is dangerous. People are broken and image-bearers. The gospel isn’t meant to isolate us from others. It’s meant to anchor us in grace so we can re-enter relationships with hope.

2. “The heart is deceitful.”

This verse terrified me even more once I started trying to reconnect with my body. The more I tuned into physical symptoms—chronic pain, anxiety, trauma responses—the more I needed to trust what my body was telling me. But the fear came creeping in:

And yet, it was through these very sensations that God led me to healing. To therapy. To brainspotting. To safety. I wasn’t choosing feelings over faith. I was letting the Spirit guide me through my feelings, toward a fuller Gospel.

3. “Deny yourself and take up your cross.”

For years, I thought this meant:

But that was never the point. Jesus invited us to deny our pride, not our whole being. He rested. He let others care for Him. He asked for help. Denying myself doesn’t mean ignoring my humanity. It means submitting it. Not erasing it.

4. “Your body is a temple.”

For someone living with chronic illness, this verse can cut deep.

This truth was meant to remind me of sacredness, not shame. God doesn’t dwell in perfect bodies. He dwells in His own, in me, even on the days it aches, flares, and fails, and makes mistakes.

5. “Do not be anxious about anything.”

I used to hear this verse as a reprimand. Another reason to feel guilty on top of feeling afraid.

But I believe Paul wasn’t scolding the anxious. He was offering what to do with anxiety: bring it. Pray. Ask. Remember. Peace isn’t something I have to force. It’s something I can receive. Sometimes, sensitive brains and our neurospicey friends need more help understanding what this can mean for their mind and body. Instead of throwing out the same Christianese buzz terms and essentially 'spiritually bypassing' (to use a modern term) their struggles.

6. “Be holy as I am holy.”

I was never trying to be holy. I was often trying to be perfect. Because somewhere along the way, I stopped knowing the difference. When I broke something, I felt guilt. When I misunderstood a direction, I felt shame. When I made a small mistake, missed a turn, spilled a cup, or needed correction, my body reacted like I had sinned and held onto the shame of each of those instances until it manifested into chronic back pain... among many other issues.

Not every mistake is sin. Missing the exit doesn’t mean you need to repent. Needing help doesn’t mean you’re failing spiritually. Making a wrong judgment call doesn’t mean you’ve grieved the Spirit.

Holiness isn’t flawlessness. It’s alignment with the heart of God. It’s repentance when there’s sin, not shame every time there’s imperfection.

Reconstructing What Was Always There

None of these verses are new to me. They were never false. They were just given to me without the clarity I needed to absorb them properly. Or if given with clarity and compassion, they were highlighted by the inconsistency of a deeply human church culture.

I’m not a theologian, and I’m not pretending to be. I know there’s more to say here, more clarity that could be added, more theological threads that could be pulled tighter. I’m sure some of this could be challenged or refined by people far more studied than I am. If you're finding some glaring inaccuracies, I'd love to correct them if you let me know. But this isn’t a doctrinal essay. It’s a reflection from someone who’s still in the thick of trying to let the truth I believe shape, not just what I say, but how I live, how I heal, and how I relate to God in the quiet places. I no longer ignore, avoid, and banish those deep dark thoughts and quiet places I had always been terrified would be exposed.

What I’m learning is that it’s okay to ask questions. It’s okay to notice when something doesn’t sit right and bring that discomfort to the Lord instead of pushing it down or walking away. For a long time, I thought faith meant certainty and that doubt or emotional disconnect meant failure. But I don’t think that’s true anymore, and I think others need to be let in on the secret that no one intended to keep.

I think faith can also look like staying at the table when the meal doesn’t taste the way you remember it. Like asking for help when the verses you believe don’t land the way they used to. I’m not deconstructing. I’m reconstructing—slowly, prayerfully, and hopefully with more grace than I used to give myself. Not tossing the foundation but learning to build upon it with questions and grace instead of might and brute force. Something steady and consistent. Something that was there the whole time, waiting for me to realize it. Something safe.

Someone. Safe.