Somewhere in the Middle: My Ongoing Journey of Faith

 In my last post, I shared how difficult the past two years have been—two cross-country moves, loneliness, and challenges finding a church home. My struggle with faith hasn’t been about questioning God’s existence, but wrestling with the difference between what many American churches call “church” and what the Bible describes. I’ve been processing my experiences, beliefs, and teachings over the years, and I want to invite you into that unraveling—the places where I now see I may have been misled, not out of malice, but often because of different perspectives on Scripture.

As a child and teenager, I attended a strong Bible-believing church that emphasized holiness, righteousness, and taking up your cross. While the foundation of those teachings was solid, the approach was harsh and doom-and-gloom focused. No matter what I did, I could never measure up. Eventually, I came to see much of church as rooted in works and legalism. Feeling I could never measure up—and compounded by relational brokenness and an unwanted divorce—I walked away from God.

After eight long years, I finally returned to church—this time at a non-denominational congregation where people wore jeans and tattoos, the services were short and casual, and the atmosphere felt far more “feel good” than the doom-and-gloom preaching of my youth. For the first time, church felt refreshing—and attainable. I could just be me.

At first, I was in and out as I worked to rebuild trust in God, but eventually I committed and found the community I had been longing for. During that season, I experienced healing—not only from past traumas and abuses, but also in my relationship with the church and with God Himself. Over time, however, the sermons began to feel more like “Ted Talks”—seeker-sensitive and less focused on walking in holiness in the way I personally needed while growing in faith. Although the pulpit wasn’t always where I felt most fed, I found encouragement and growth through my life group and the classes I attended.

I took classes on heart healing, prophecy, honor, recognizing God’s presence, and hearing the Holy Spirit, and joined a life group that, to me, resembled the church described in Acts. Over five years, I gained tremendous healing and growth. I share this because I truly benefited from that church, and I wouldn’t take any of it back—even though I now see some teachings and foundational truths differently.

When I moved from San Diego to Ohio—a move I had been preparing for over 18 months—I truly believed I was stepping into my “promised land.” I imagined finding a church community, buying a home, and finally putting down roots. But when I arrived, everything I had hoped for simply wasn’t there. Instead, it became one of the hardest years of my life. I began to question whether God had really led me there at all.

I struggled to connect with the wonderful people I met. I battled depression. I lost my job. My days were filled with loneliness, and my nights with questions I couldn’t seem to answer. On top of that, I wrestled deeply with disappointment—realizing that the picture I had built up in my mind of what life in Ohio would look like was not what I was walking through. The expectations I had carried into that move—finding community, putting down roots, stepping into my “promised land”—were suddenly met with silence, isolation, and loss. About halfway through the year, I came to realize that God had plucked me out of San Diego and placed me in Ohio because I needed to step away from that environment. As much as I valued parts of that season, it was no longer healthy for me to stay. While I cherished much of the community and growth I experienced there, that season also included experiences with leadership that were painful and challenging, and that contributed to the unraveling I was working through. Even after leaving, I was still untangling the pain and trauma I had carried. I didn’t yet realize the depth of what it had done to my heart and spiritual belief system. Honestly, I’m still not sure I fully grasp it all. Two years later, it continues to be a work in progress.

Now that I’ve been in Austin for over a year, I’m once again left questioning: What is going on? Why am I still struggling for breakthrough? Why is it so hard to step into community? Why am I still so untrusting of anyone in a leadership position at a church? Why is this season so hard?

Here in Austin is where my faith began to unravel as I wrestled with all my questions about the church. As difficult as this season has been—another year of loneliness, another year without community, another year without a church home, battling sickness, confusion, doubt, and health issues—I also sense that this is exactly where I was supposed to be. Not necessarily physically (because this season is temporary), but spiritually. This is where I needed to land.

Stripped bare of outside voices, I’ve been sitting in silence, at times feeling abandoned by God. Yet deep down, I believe He brought me here because He needed me to reach the place where I had no one else to turn to but Him. In this quiet space, I’ve been able to read books I never would have stumbled across otherwise, listen to podcasts I never would have found without this hunger to research and uncover untruths, wade through my doubts and confusion, and simply sit in the thick of it all—seeking what He says about me, my life, “church,” faith, truth, and so much more.

What I’ve discovered is that I swung from one extreme to the other in how I understood worth and righteousness. I moved from believing I had to prove my value through my actions to realizing that my worth isn’t something I earn—it’s found in my relationship with Jesus. Because of His sacrifice and love, I can approach God with confidence, knowing that forgiveness, grace, and mercy are freely offered. My worth and identity are shaped not by my accomplishments, but by who He is and His love for me. And through repentance, we are set free from the snares that entangle us. Our hope and future are secure—not because of anything we do, but simply because He loves us and desires a relationship with each of us.

I went from striving to meet every “Christian” standard to embracing messages that taught we could bring God’s promises to life through faith and declarations. At the time, this felt empowering—a complete contrast to the guilt and striving I’d known before—but I didn’t always see the fruit of that belief system in my own life. While I no longer carried shame or guilt from my past, I often found myself wondering if I still lacked faith, since the things I had been believing and praying for weren’t coming to pass.

I also wrestled with teachings that felt very different from what I grew up with. In my childhood church, anything connected to “the world” was treated as sinful—they even held altar calls for watching Titanic. So later, when I heard messages about “reclaiming” what the enemy had stolen, it felt freeing but also confusing. I was taught that because we’re redeemed, it was fine to engage in things like Halloween or other culturally popular celebrations, and even participate in behaviors that Scripture calls us to approach with wisdom and holiness. At the time, I embraced it as freedom. Looking back, I can see how some of those ideas blurred the line between living redeemed and living set apart. My wrestle now isn’t with the people, but with the teachings themselves. Some ideas had value, but others weren’t theologically sound, and I’m learning to discern what true biblical freedom looks like—realizing that not everything the world presents as harmless is meant to be welcomed into a life of holiness.

As I absorbed these ideas, I also encountered messages about God’s forgiveness and covering through the blood—sometimes presented in ways that made sin feel inevitable and less binding. On the surface, that sounded freeing—and in many ways, it was—but I often struggled to reconcile it with the ongoing call to repentance and transformation throughout Scripture. Even as I grew in grace, I wrestled internally with how to respond when I still fell short. I’ve come to understand that God’s forgiveness is never a license to ignore His call to holiness.

Grace doesn’t just cover us—it changes us. Scripture makes clear that forgiveness and the call to holiness always go hand in hand. As Paul writes in Romans 6:1–2, grace invites us into a new way of living, empowering us to resist old patterns and walk in freedom. I still stumble, but I am being shaped day by day, and that ongoing work of sanctification is where my hope rests.

I could go on and on—and I may share more in the future—but for now, I wanted to offer a snapshot of the unraveling I’ve been walking through: the “truths” I’ve had to confront, the beliefs I’ve wrestled with, and the light I’m beginning to see. There is some truth found in both extremes, but the full truth, I’m discovering, likely lies somewhere in the middle. God is not sitting on His throne, waiting to strike us down every time we fall short. Yet He is also not flippant about sin. He is just, righteous, holy, and sovereign.

While we are not perfect and will fall short again and again, we are empowered to choose holiness—to walk out our sanctification one day at a time. Sin carries a cost, no matter what anyone else might teach. But grace carries us forward, shaping us into the image of Christ.

Looking back over the last several years, I can see how God has been faithful through it all—even in the loneliness, the confusion, and the wrestling. I’ve swung between extremes: from striving under the weight of rules and works to embracing a version of grace that left little room for conviction or transformation. And yet, through it all, the Lord has been patiently leading me back to Himself.

True faith, I’m learning, holds both grace and truth. God is neither a harsh taskmaster waiting to punish every failure nor a permissive parent who overlooks sin. He is a holy and loving Father who invites us into relationship, calls us to holiness, and empowers us by His Spirit to walk it out day by day.

I’m still in process—I don’t have all the answers—but I do know this: Jesus is worth following. His Word is trustworthy. And even in the unraveling, He is faithful to weave something new.