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Picking Up The Pieces

I walked out of church on Sunday. After the talk, the leader of the service got up and asked if anybody who wanted to have a fresh experience of God wanted to come forwards for prayer. I went forward, desperate for something. Desperate to feel the love that I had felt so many times before, the closeness and presence of God that had once been so familiar. But I felt nothing. I tried not to hype anything up, I tried to make myself as open as possible, but as my friend prayed that I would experience the joy of God I just felt empty. I got back to my seat, the worship team kicked in with a song, and I felt a sudden urge to run. I grabbed my jacket and scarf and ran for the door, past my friends and out onto the street. I headed down the road and found myself sitting against a wall in floods of tears. I was a mess.

Over the last two years I’ve been going through a slow deconstruction of my faith. Overwhelmed by doubt, unanswered questions and numerous frustrations with religion; I’ve been struggling to find what, if anything, my faith is anymore. I know that God is there, I know in my head that God loves me, that God is with me. But why don’t I feel it? I feel like I know a lot about  God, but I don’t know  God.

Last year a friend bought me a Lego set. It was a kit to build the Avengers Tower, and it was extremely complicated but enjoyable to build. Once I’d finished building it I felt an enourmous sense of achievement, and spent many hours of the days that followed playing with it. (Yes I am aware that I was a 23 year old playing with Lego, I have no shame.) a week or so later, after the novelty has worn off slightly, I went to move the tower from the living room to my bedroom. As I was doing this careful task my hand slipped, I dropped it. The tower fell and broke into hundreds of pieces, I was heartbroken. I haven’t yet summoned up the courage to build the tower again, for fear that an all important piece is missing, but I know that I can’t enjoy it in the same way until it’s rebuilt. 

I tell you this because in some ways, my faith right now feels like that tower. It is broken into hundreds of pieces, the tower that I’d built myself that made it possible in many ways for me to connect with God is gone, and I’m left in the rubble. Because of this, things like going to church, reading and making sense of the Bible, prayer, and knowing God are incredibly difficult. I’m slowly rebuilding my faith, however unlike my Lego Avengers Tower, my faith is not going to look the same again. My image of God, my understanding of the Bible and many other things are changing, the tower I’m building now is something new. This means that the ways I connected with God in the past, the feelings that I felt and the presence that I knew will be different, at least for now. I need to learn how to know God again. I need to learn the sound of God’s voice, to feel God’s love and to trust God’s plan. It’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take time, probably a lot more pain, and a lot more tears. But I hope that I’ll get there one day.

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