Confession: it's proving a difficult challenge to write about finding humble heights while telling you 'My Story'. As I sit with the childhood Stories that have shaped my life, let me start here: This is My Story, but it does not Belong to me. Twenty-eight years ago, I heard a Story about a Man named Jesus, and His Story became the most significant factor in the foundation of my identity and my Perception of reality.
In this Story, I Belong to Him. I have no conscious recollection of knowing anything otherwise. My journey is not so much one of 'Does God exist?' but rather 'Who is God, and who am I in relationship to that God?' I am eternally grateful for the seeds of such a deep-rooted faith that were planted in me long ago. What a Beautiful gift it is.
&
I've become acutely aware of the detrimental harm that 'Religion' has caused throughout human existence. From the suicides of so many 'My Stories' as a direct result of religious-based shaming, to the violence, hatred and genocides spawned by a distorted view of 'Our Stories', the Ache of such a faith walks with me, too. What a Terrible gift it is.
Kingdom Court-yard
... and then - she found herself at last in the Beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.
A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden: the roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at it, busily painting them red...
'Would you tell me,' said Alice a little timidly, 'why you are painting those roses?'...
'Why, the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to have been a red rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake; and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads cut off, you know.'
- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Recalling my days growing up as Baptist preacher's granddaughter in Utah County in the 1990's, I don't think I could write a more accurate description of my experience. Like Alice's, my world felt disorienting at times, trying to make sense of rules and riddles that seemed Nonsensical.
What was even more puzzling was the fact that my family didn't play by the same set of rules that other families in our community did. I once got in a heated argument with a friend in the third grade over which one of us was going to hell. I lost that argument, and the Jury of my peers was unanimous.
I began experiencing a refractive error in my Perception, as if a phoropter lens had been placed over my once-clear Certainty of a King who loved me, leaving my vision blurred and unCertain. The lens was this: You don't Belong here.
My Character's Aim shifted from once enjoying golden afternoons in Beautiful rose-gardens, to managing fear of being exiled from the Kingdom I loved and called Home. God, in the Story lens I saw my reality through, was not only the Judge that determined your fate, but the Executioner Himself.
Came to Believe
There's a small red book that sits on my bookshelf next to my writing desk. On the cover in gold cursive lettering, the words: Came to Believe. It holds seventy-six Stories, all Anonymous, of how people from all different walks of life came to their faith in a God of their own understanding that could save them. What they have in common is, each of these people had seen Rock Bottom, and lived to tell of its Hidden Grace.
At the Bottom, I stared my doubts in the face. For the first time in my life, I did question God's existence and Goodness. If there was a God, why this God - Yahweh? The God who is described by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins as, "arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully."
Will you stare your doubts in the face for a moment with me? What did this quote make you feel? Did you resonate with it? Did it give you a big emotional reaction - fear, anger, shock, annoyance, judgment? Why do you think that is?
Maybe it brought to mind a few Stories you grew up with.
Stories about mothers clutching their babies and scared children, watching as the walls of their great city came a-tumbling down.
About a God who hated His children so much that He regretted making them and washed them all away with a great flood, while Precious Moments zoo animals witnessed the massacre with pastel smiling faces, their heads poking through an ark window.
A father who was commended for His faith by not raising any questions when God asked him to sacrifice his only son as a burnt offering.
Stories about a Man who would rather die by the sword than brandish one, who performed miracles, healed the sick, fed the hungry, and stood up for the underdog - a Man who looks absolutely nothing like the God described by Dawkins, yet claimed He was that God.
Beloved, what happens when the Story your tribe told told you isn't big enough to embrace the Story that's unfolding all around you? What happens when the lens you've used all your life to view the world begins to block more Light than it allows in? What happens when your own walls of faith come a-tumbling down?
You clear the debris and start rebuilding.
The Black & White World of Borderline
Before I got to know the Artist and Storyteller in myself (which I am convinced is in all children, and those adults who once were children), my world felt like a black and white film reel of Certitude. People were good or bad. Answers were right or wrong. I was loved or hated. Shades of gray became the first splashes of color when I began seeing a therapist three years ago.
The first couple of months or so was working on replacing 'but' with 'and' in my vocabulary. The ampersand character '&' began jumping out at me throughout my days, bringing my attention back to this muscle built by holding two heavy truths in the same hand. I began to notice how the harder truths of my experiences did not negate the Beautiful truths that walk alongside them:
I am grateful for my job, but & it's draining the life out of me.
I love them, but & they drive me bonkers.
I hold fast to this belief, but & I have big doubts and questions.
Leading expert on borderline personality disorder (BPD) Dr. Jerold Kreisman writes: "The world of a borderline adult, like that of a child, is split into heroes and villains. A child emotionally, the individual with BPD cannot tolerate human inconsistencies and ambiguities; he cannot reconcile another's good and bad qualities into a constant, coherent understanding of that person. At any particular moment, one is either 'good' or 'evil'; there is no in-between, no gray area. Nuances and shadings are grasped with great difficulty."
I learned that this type of behavior, referred to as 'Splitting', is the primary Defense Mechanism of people with BPD. Used to protect oneself from the anxiety of trying to reconcile contradictory feelings and experiences, it causes one's sense of identity to shift dramatically and frequently, ironically creating the very inconsistency it was meant to avoid.
About a year ago, I had the '&' symbol tattooed above my heart, a reminder and mark of gratitude for the profound sense of peace and hope that came with the understanding of, 'Because the world is Terrible at times, does not mean that it isn't Beautiful at other times the same time.'
King of Hearts
As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low voice, to the company generally, 'You are all pardoned.'
'Come, that's a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.
Despite the doubts I wrestled with surrounding these Stories, I couldn't seem to let them go. There was just something about this Jesus guy...
As I returned to His words in Matthew 7 about seeking and knocking, He continues to say in verse 9:
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give Good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give Good gifts to those who ask Him!
While the world often left me feeling like I didn't Belong, there was one place I felt like I truly Belonged - Home. 'Home' was not just the house on the mountain where we lived, but wherever we ended up together in those Rockies during school breaks. Deep in the woods with my family, I felt safe among the eerie sounds in the night and the perilous trails we would hike and four-wheel. It's a Beautiful thing to remember, really, this strange sense of safety in the wilderness. I can trace it back to this: a wholehearted trust that Dad would never let anything bad happen to me.
It wasn't until I left Utah that I realized I had taken for granted both the breathtaking walls of pine and aspen covered rock that bridged my earth and sky, and parents who deeply and dearly love me in word and in deed. My naivety left me shocked when I heard Stories from other people that went like, "My mother never once told me she loved me," or "My dad used to beat the shit out of me."
If this was you, I am so sorry that happened to you. You didn't deserve that.
On February 19th, 2025:
'This must be the wood,' she said thoughtfully to herself, 'where things have no names. I wonder what'll become of my name when I go in? I shouldn't like to lose it at all... But then the fun would be trying to find the creature that had got my old name!'
She was rambling on in this way when she reached the wood: it looked very cool and shady. 'Well, at any rate it's a great comfort,' she said as she stepped under the trees, 'after being so hot, to get into the - into what?' she went on, rather surprised at not being able to think of the word. 'I mean to get under the - under the - under this you know!' ... 'What does it call itself, I wonder? I do believe it's got no name - why, to be sure it hasn't!'
She stood silent for a minute, thinking: then she suddenly began again. 'Then it really has happened, after all!'
And now, who am I? I WILL remember, if I can! I'm determined to do it!...
Just then a Fawn came wandering by: it looked at Alice with its large gentle eyes, but did't seem at all frightened... 'What do you call yourself? the Fawn said at last. Such a soft sweet voice it had!
'I wish I knew!' thought poor Alice. She answered, rather sadly, 'Nothing, just now.'
'Think again,' it said: 'that won't do.'
Alice thought, but nothing came of it. 'Please, would you tell me what you call yourself?' she said timidly. 'I think that might help a little.'
'I'll tell you, if you'll move a little further on,' the Fawn said. 'I can't remember here.' So they walked on together through the wood, Alice with her arms clasped lovingly round the soft neck of the Fawn, till they came out into another open field, and here the Fawn gave a sudden bound into the air, and shook itself free from Alice's arms. 'I'm a Fawn!' it cried out in delight, 'and dear me! you're a human child!'...
'...I know my name now,' she said... Alice - Alice - I won't forget it again.'
I wonder if Alice remembered the Caterpillar in this moment, (and if she bothered to thank the Fawn for guiding her through such Nonsensical woods to help her remember who she was). The author never says. However, had she wanted to try and find the Caterpillar to redeem her loss of words at the question he first posed to her: 'Who are you?' she would have had a hard time finding him. As you know, Caterpillars don't stay Caterpillars forever.
In the Story of Jesus' Transfiguration on the mountain, it's said that his face shone like the sun when He revealed His Divine Identity to His disciples. That word - transfiguration - comes from the Latin translation of the original Greek word metamorphoĊ, similar to our English word metamorphosis - the transfiguration of a Caterpillar into a Butterfly. What's more, the Greek word psyche (the root from which we get the word psychology) is found when signifying such concepts as soul, spirit, breath of life, mind, and self. The word literally translates to Butterfly.
Were I a Caterpillar, I imagine that such a transformation would feel quite Impossible. I might worry that I wouldn't know how to do it when it was time, or that I might fail. Perhaps I would be afraid that it would hurt. Those who have experienced such a miracle themselves might tell you that indeed, it did. But they would also tell you that they don't regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
'One can't believe Impossible things,' says Alice, finding the Looking-glass-land rules very different to the ones she's used to.
'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' replies the Queen. 'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six Impossible things before breakfast.'
I've felt a strong need to somehow try to redeem these Words that have shaped My Story and so many others', to paint them in a more Beautiful light - religion, church, repentance, heaven & hell. It led me to feel a heavy burden of responsibility to do them justice and a fear of getting it wrong, or worse - writing something regrettable. What if it was all just... Nonsense?
Maybe so. But a transformation happened in me and through me by writing it and putting it out there anyway. I knew I had a couple of faithful readers (Hi Bebe, hey Mom & Dad, 'sup Coach?). I longed for a heart-to-heart connection, praying that my words would land with somebody, somewhere in the world, who heard "Me, too" tucked within my paragraphs that might somehow make a difference in their life, as so many writers have done for me.
But early in this journey, I saw that one was already being made. When I shifted my Perspective from seeing myself as the writer of this Story to recognizing that I get to be the first person to read this Story, the words that started flowing were the very ones I need to hear. It was as if God followed my own trail of breadcrumbs, Finding me at last.
At some point I let go of needing to find the 'right' answers when I realized that I got to ask myself and decide, "What is the Story that I need to hear right now?" Letting myself explore imperfection, vulnerability, and courage through this creative writing project has been one of the greatest gifts I have ever given to myself. An Inspired work of Art, smudged with my own inky Human fingerprints.
And the Story I'd like to tell myself is, it's hanging on God's refrigerator anyway.
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