My imperfect faith & why many are yearning for God.

Honest wrestles, also beauty.

I have been working on this piece on and off for over six weeks.

A heads up, it is LONG. Get yourself a cuppa, a couple of dates with butter and sea salt, or some or those boujee organic choccies you keep in your writing drawer (or is that only me?!). Anyway, you need snacks.

I’ve wanted to come in and edit, add, or halt the entire thing because the words could barely keep up with my ever winding journey. Whenever I’d go to hit publish, there’d be some more nuance to add, something to take out, something to pause with for a little longer.

One of the scary things about writing is the thought of ‘what if in a years time, I’ve changed my mind on something?’ It’s especially scary with books. So much so that I put a disclaimer in my first book saying “I reserve the right to change my mind.” Needless to say, I did change my mind on a few things and decided to stop printing the (award-winning) book.

When it comes to the topic of God and faith, I feel a special kind of cautiousness. It feels so big, tender and personal. I’m not a master theologist— just a woman walking the winding path of beauty, goodness and Truth, and telling about it (sometimes) with the hope that it’ll help, nudge, or even mildly unburden others on their own walk. I know others who have been this person for me— even just one sentence from someone who has the courage to tell it exactly as it is for them— can lighten the load of a reader and help something click into place.

I share these words for the precise reason that they are imperfect, that I am imperfect. Too many people portray themselves and their faith online as being much more polished than it is, and I wonder if that makes people watching quietly from the outskirts think “I’m just not doing it right.”

On that note….

We had a little break from Church.

It wasn’t a really intentional thing— we went away over the holidays and then when we got back, Erik had his appendix removed and the beach looked so good on Sunday morning and ….

I’m just gonna spit it out.

I had a moment where I wondered if I really needed Church.

Were the many deconstructionists in my world subtly influencing me or was it just a necessary part of my own wriggle and wrestle? Likely some of both.

You don’t have to look far these days for reasons and even encouragement, not to go to church.

I don’t need to tell you about all the failings of institutional religion and church hurt.

Fallen humans, in faulty institutions.

Church can be a complex topic, a tender one.

For some, church is a core part of faith.

For others, their faith exists, very genuinely without it.

I’m asked a lot in my DM’s by women who are, sometimes for the first time, wanting to know God. They ask where to begin, what to read and where to go. Big questions, these ones. I mean, these questions are best answered over the span of an entire lifetime and probably to someone far more qualified than me. At the very least, we should have a cuppa and really hash it out— honest language, not the kinds where women try to out-do each other with how much they know, how right they are.

I find it tricky when people ask me. My own faith is so personal. I honestly don’t know if what brings me closer to God is what will do the same for someone else.

I also know that God works differently on us all.

My ‘Jesus moment’ wasn’t a single moment at all. It wasn’t a vivid encounter on my bathroom floor. It was a slow and gradual removal of a veil I didn’t even know was there. You can read about it here.

I thought I was so free that I didn’t need Jesus. If you’ve ever frequented the self help circles of the last decade you’d have heard things like 'Yeh, Jesus is a cool dude’ as if he was just ‘another ascended master’ amongst the many others that were rattled off in that cringe spiritual accent of “Yaaaaas beloved, hmmmmm, just let this laaaaand”.

I’m glad my older brother kept me straight and grounded during that era of my life. He had a great time doing impressions of everyone trying to out-spiritual each other during the cacao ceremonies on my book tour. We’ve all been guilty of putting on a big of a show to fit in with the spiritual crowd, taking ourselves too seriously, saying things in which we had no idea of what they actually meant. But layered into those wild and winding spiritual years were layers of truth too. (By the way, I still love cacao. I just don’t worship it).

I don’t shrug off those 20 something years as spiritual emptiness— not at all. It was all part of the walk towards goodness, beauty and Truth.

It looks different for everyone.

I loved freedom. I loved truth. I loved beauty. I loved goodness. As a naturally deep, inquisitive and spiritual person from a young age, I just wanted to know the meaning of it all.

I had no idea that it was that exact love of Truth and freedom that would lead me right to Him.

God knew that I would always walk towards Truth. He gave me (us!!) a nose to sniff it and to know it and so God led me to it in a way that was personal to me.

God knows us intimately. It’s such a beautiful thought that he reaches us in ways that he knows will reach us.

I didn’t start to believe in Jesus because someone told me to.

I didn’t start to believe in Jesus because I was told that I’d go to hell if I didn’t.

I believed in Jesus not because of logic or instruction, or ‘Ohhh yeh that all makes sense now!!’ but because in my heart, I encountered Him.

I didn’t see Him standing in my kitchen, or one of those experiences that many have that seem unbelievable. It wasn’t that for me. It was subtle. But it was real.

It was the result of genuinely seeking truth, beauty and goodness— and knowing it when I found it.

I wouldn’t ‘believe’ just because others did.

I wouldn’t believe because of a clever argument.

I needed to be moved and shown and spoken to in the ways God knew I would hear.

I love how personal it is.

We forget this too— we think we can be the ones to convince people of something as beautiful as God— but only God can do that.

Since turning towards Jesus, I’ve been tempted to believe things just because others do, without using my own discernment. I started in a Catholic school, praying the Hail Mary and The Lord’s Prayer, I then sailed the seven seas spiritually, and in my mid thirties I was lovingly turned towards the truth of Jesus.

I don’t have that need to break free from religious shackles, to learn that I have a soul and that the metaphysics of the universe are God’s too. I have this freedom and knowing already. Some are relearning Jesus after a lifetime of religious abuse, and are now learning the ways of the universe that God designed. I started my life learning about God, I then learned a lot about the universe God created (not all time wasted, as some will have you believe), now I’m learning what seems like anew— Who Is God?

I am not needing to break free from religious shackles and I am grateful for that, but I am wary not to let the oppressive religious spirit interfere with what is pure and True.

I know God is not dogmatic. God is not religious. God doesn’t fit into the teeny boxes people try to squeeze Him in to. But that doesn’t mean we get to make up Truth.

I don’t believe God feels threatened by astrology (because the stars are His too), but that it should never become an idol, nor should we turn to it as the authority. I don’t believe that we should heavy handedly call everything ‘demonic’ without true discernment. There is a lot in this world that is demonic, but people become so heavy handed with that label in the cultural christian instagram-verse.

I don’t believe that people better using their minds to participate in the story of their lives is equal to idolatrous manifestation. I believe God designed the framework— our minds and all of the natural laws that govern the universe so that we could do just that. I recorded an episode on this last week.

I believe in using our imagination, our God given minds and the CHOICE God gave us, to better align ourselves with where God is calling us and who God is calling is to become.

This tug on me calls me to better explore Orthodoxy and Catholicism, not because I am desperate for a conversion but because I am following the yellow brick road of my own spiritual life, holding hands with God while doing so.

I don’t have the same rigidity in my faith as some, but that doesn’t make me wayward.

Or does it? I’m inconclusive on that one right now. Check in with me when I am 60 and much more wise.

My ‘I’m still exploring!’ makes me a human in an imperfect, honest walk of what is beautiful, good and true.

Sometimes I see other women so bold in their faith and I think— “Is there something wrong with me that I am not able to speak like that?”.

I find peace in knowing God is right with me here, in the complete and total honesty of where I am.

Do you want to know one of the things that made Jesus the clearest to me? It was the lyrics of this song. It was particularly this line in bold.

You put no heavy weights on me
You say, "Come, rest and receive"
All of those years I was wounded by religion
You unwind me

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know

You put no expectations on me
You say, "Son, I just want you free"
And all of those years I was wounded by religion
You unwind me

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know

Meet your Maker
Smiling bright
Meet your Savior
Loves pure light
C'mon and taste the real thing
Feast on life
Jesus, Lover
Drink His wine

Meet your Maker
Smiling bright
Meet your Savior
Loves pure light
C'mon and taste the real thing
Feast on life
Jesus, Lover
Drink His wine

You calm all my striving
You lay Your peace over me like blankets
You put an end to my pretending show
You are the least religious Person that I know
You are the least religious Person that I know
You are the least religious Person that I know

It is by John Mark Pantana if you want to listen.

Jesus can meet us in the purity of our non-pretending. He can meet us there even when people cannot.

We need to acknowledge that people will waver in and out of belief, of faith and that doubt is part of it. I think some are put off Christianity because they see others pretend to be so perfect in it. We all know very few are as perfect as they pretend to be. If we were so perfect, why would we need Jesus?

Ok so circling back (we love a good circle back don’t we?). When these women come to me and ask ‘Where do I start?’, I encourage them to get The Bible.

The Bible isn’t a boring old text like I secretly must’ve assumed it would be.

I was shocked at how much beauty and aliveness there was in it when I reopened it in 2022. It is really a living text and something that can breathe life and peace into anyone, regardless of where they’re at with belief.

I suggest The English Standard Version to these women, so that they don’t accidentally get the King James Version and have to translate thee, thou, thy— something that can become distracting in it’s headiness (albeit being super beautiful). I did that. I accidentally bought a King James Bible first and found that I was working too hard mentally to concentrate on the message. I did feel very Shakespearean though.

I tell them to start with the Women’s Study Bible because underneath the scripture, it has commentary that helps to break it all down— that was very helpful for me. Not everyone perceives things the same way when reading The Bible. This is a good thing in my eyes— it means you need to go deeper than just ‘well, it says this so….’. It means you can’t bypass the intimate walk with it, and with God.

I tell them to start at The New Testament. I still haven’t worked my way through all of the Old Testament with depth, but I’ll get there.

I guide them to some podcasts and videos and testimonies— a huge assortment, to make sure there’s something in there that will resonate.

But ultimately, I tell them to pray. Pray to God to guide you. Go direct to Him. Trust that you are being heard.

Many of them tell me they’ve never prayed in their lives. I tell them to do it anyway— clumsily. The more innocent it is, the better. Just start. I pray for them too. I already know they’re in God’s hands but I do it anyway. Prayer never goes astray. I heard Taylor Welch say recently that prayer is leaving a paper trail (so do it, and never stop doing it).

I often wonder if I’m qualified enough to be giving advice at all after only having picked up the Bible again in 2022 after not touching it since I was 12.

Who am I to say?

Faith is just so big, personal and tender. I don’t want to get in the way.

I also, depending on their circumstance (some need immediate local support), tell them to find a church they love.

Church is meant to be a place where the love of Jesus, food, community, prayer, a shoulder, and any sort of assistance you could imagine, is available for anyone. It’s meant to be a true house of worship, of Biblical teaching, of love— where you give your first day of the week humbly to God and God’s people.

But when I encourage these women to find a church, sometimes I catch myself in a bit of hesitation— what if they find one that isn’t what it’s meant to be? What if there are people in leadership who shouldn’t be? What if it’s one of those that ends up on an expose’, with the host of A Current Affair chasing a staff member through the carpark for an interview while he hides a book in front of his face?

What if that happens and I sent them there?

Do they really need church?

I believe God meets us everywhere we are— in those brief seconds of prayer while we wash dishes, in the 10 seconds of murmured prayer before our eyes close at night, in those moments when we’re about to have our first sip of that frothy hot tonic we’ve just made and our kids are playing happily in front of us and we realise the perfection of the moment and that it couldn’t have come from anyone else but…. Him.

I also know from experience how beautiful church is, how the music and the liturgy connects us to tradition that is older than we can imagine, how life giving it is to mingle inter-generationally, and that it’s not meant to be all about ‘what I’m getting’, but about what I am giving.

To be clear, I am very aware that institutionalised religion is not the same thing as the true body of Christ. But I have only encountered churches that DO operate as the true body of Christ. When I attend church with my family, I don’t do so in obedience to an institution, I do so to give the first morning of the week to God, to ground our family in what is beautiful, true and good ahead of the week, to be with the gorgeous, diverse people there. It is grounding and life giving.

Church has been such a beautiful and important part of my faith, and yet I know it’s maybe not going to be the same for everyone.

Growing up I went to weekly Catholic mass as part of primary school but after year 7 (the year 2000), I didn’t go to Church again until 2022.

The first church I walked into then, was a little country town church held in a little town hall. It was (still is) so beautiful, genuine, hearty, and rough around the edges in the good gritty way. The Pastor, about my age, is an ex atheist and is as hilarious as he is humble. His sermons straightened me out every week and gave me spiritual life in ways I’d never felt at any of the hundreds of personal growth and spiritual events I’d been to before. He delivers his sermons in the way he knows Aussies will receive deeply— with self effacing humour. I cried genuine tears during worship. The multi-generational community would always check in, and it was so genuine. We were so held there.

It behaves like the church is meant to. The body of Christ. Rogue. Loving. Jesus. Not institutional religion but actual Jesus, the one who himself hated religion and hypocrites. Matthew 23:27-28 (ESV):

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”

I sometimes feel timid talking on these topics because I know there are women, so solid and bold in their faith that they’d have a perfect biblical rebuttal for everything I’m saying.

Lukewarm, they’d say.

Honest, but devoted, I’d say back.

But I just don’t know if Church is essential for everyone in their relationship with God.

I don’t know if people need to go to Church in order to follow Jesus, to know Him.

I don’t know if every Church helps people with their faith, or challenges them in it.

I know that God’s path for everyone of faith does not look the same and that legalism is not the message of Jesus.

I know that the oppressive religious spirit can camouflage itself as ‘God’ and be more life taking than life giving.

I write this knowing that I may change my mind.

I write this knowing there may be some huge biblical truth I am missing.

I write this wincing at the thought of the super solid Christian women I know who may correct me in the comments.

I write this because I really believe too many people think they ‘aren’t being good enough’ for a relationship with God and that too many portray faith as a perfect walk, a to do list, and a certain aesthetic.

I write this because I think the honest wrestles are important.

Faith is meant for questions. God can hold them.

Too many speak about their faith in such flowery language, with such perfection, it feels unattainable and unattractive. I can’t tell you the relief I feel when I read about other people’s struggles, doubts and questions. I feel just as moved as I do when I read about their boldness.

God already knows the wrestles and questions within before we’ve even admitted to ourselves that they’re there.

I remember for so long, that I was so resistant to reading The Bible, or anything to do with knowing Jesus because people put me off. Certain well meaning Christians, on their high horse, living in ways that seemed very hypocritical to me. Rude, entitled— no thanks. I thought, if YOU are representative of Jesus then nope. I know how to be a good person. I was raised by a very good person. I do not need ‘all of this’.

Sometimes people are what stands between people and true faith.

Sometimes people are what stands between people and knowing Jesus.

Sometimes people are what stands between people and God.

Likewise, so, so many people in their words and in their lives, in the way they speak, the way love, the art they make, the food they offer… they usher people closer to God. They help it all click into place.

I want to be someone who tells the truth about what I wrestle with so that others know that they can be close to God and also a little confused, a little unsure, a little miffed about some things. I want people to walk honestly, intimately, and not be overly influenced by Christian-instagram and equally, Christ-less instagram.

To go direct.

I want people to know that they don’t have to ‘stay away’ or throw the baby out with the bath water just because they’re as bold and on fire as those they follow on Substack.

I don’t want to tell people that I know for sure because I do not. I want to encourage people walk towards Truth, towards beauty and towards goodness— because this in a nutshell is all I am doing every day.

But what I want to do for sure, is encourage people to really know God— not what others say about Him, but to know Him for themselves.

Madeleine L’Engle says this:

Those who believe they believe in God, but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt and even times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, and not in God himself.”

I wrestle so I can believe more deeply in God, and not the idea of Him.

I wrestle so that I can know God for myself, and not just what others say about Him.

I wrestle because the answers I want don’t always come from logic and reason.

I had already drafted this piece (after taking several whacks at it), when I read the end of ‘Reclaiming Quiet’ by Sarah Clarkson. Sarah was raised Christian by two parents who have a very active, robust and successful ministry. She is married to a Priest and lives in an old vicarage in Oxford (dreamy), for context. The book is about turning from the constant loudness and aggressive distraction of the world and finding that quiet… the one where we can hear and know God. Her words are melodic. Every sentence feels like one to savour.

In this one chapter, she talks about imagination. Initially I thought ‘oh I can finish here. Nothing I need to learn about imagination. Mine does over time’. You ever get to a chapter and think ‘uh, not for me!’ but then it is 150,000% for you?

I’m so glad I kept reading.

She tells the story of the legend who is C.S. Lewis (Jack) when he was a little boy, of his wrestles with faith, and how he came to truly know and understand God not through logic, but through art, beauty and imagination.

Just read that again. It may take a few times to hit, like it did me.

….. he came to truly know and understand God not through logic, but through art, beauty and imagination.

Sarah writes “Jack recognised that one of the major obstacles to knowing God in the modern world was the idea that we can only discover what is true by logic.”

This really hit me.

When people ask about my faith, or my relationship with God, I find it impossible to explain using logic.

I don’t believe in God because someone told me I had to.

I don’t believe in God because it makes sense to.

I am not someone who could have a good solid theological debate and quote scripture and history left right and centre (at the moment). You can probably tell this about me by my writing.

I don’t believe in Jesus because I have piles of research to prove the resurrection.

Let’s face it, faith isn’t meant to be logical. If it were logical, it’d be easy.

My faith is not the result of logic.

It’s the result of learning that….

there really is only one place to turn when I am at the lowest points in my life…

and there’s only one place to turn when I’m the most joyful, peaceful, grateful.

There is only one place to turn when I feel that chill of beauty and gratitude during an ordinary day in my backyard with my kids, that the words ‘thank you’ will come out of my mouth.

My faith was formed in moments like in late 2021 when my husband and I separated temporarily. I watched on as people interfered and manipulated, which was nothing new but God had had enough, and so had we. I kept hearing God tell me ‘hold the line, it will all come to light’. It did, but not without us reaching the lowest point first. I prayed to God as I drove around Sedona, where we were living, with my two young kids, holding my tears back as my almost 2 year old said ‘Mumma are you ok?’. I knew that breaking it all down was the right thing to do, but dam it was scary being so far from home. I remember how strong I had to be, how trusting I had to be, and where that all came from— who it came from. My home country Australia had it’s borders slammed closed and I felt very vulnerable. I remember vividly the feeling of… where do I turn? I had my people and family to support me far away in the world, but for a moment I felt like I had been dropped and in the moment of being dropped I was caught. I was caught by my Father. It was not logic or reason but moments like this that formed my faith.

(Side note: While I won’t ever share the details of our personal trials, we both look back on this particular season as such a blessing for our family. It was rough, but it was right. God was at work showing us the people and the dynamics which were harming our family and the ways in which we needed to turn to God. Our marriage was restored. God brought everything to light. He broke it (and us) down and totally rebuilt it and reordered it. Then we had Figgy!!).

My faith was not formed by logic, but in moments like when my son, then aged 2, swallowed a coin and needed emergency surgery in a rural Italian hospital. As I paced terrified in the waiting room up and down, still wearing my pyjamas from the night before, while my husband and daughter sat beside me, the only place I could turn to was Him. I was not praying to an impersonal universe. I was not praying to guides. I had to go to the top, the one who created all of it. I had to go to the Truth. I had to go to the true authority, the creator, the Father.

My faith was formed in moments like this.

It was formed in the aftermath of losing a friend last year in circumstances I still struggle to type, and the sadness, anger, anxiety and confusion gripped me so hard, I couldn’t leave the house. I had to scream in His direction— asking the hard questions and saying the harsh things and still amongst it all…. knowing that it was to Him I had to turn, and rather than give me answers for evil, of which there are none, I got presence. I got a clear knowing of the battle between good and evil and a reminder that everyday, in every action, we have to choose a side.

It was formed during my three births, when I held my babies to my chest after the intensity of childbirth, an ecstasy so unlike anything else, that there was only one place to turn to say Thank You . There was no other explanation for a gift so glorious. No other love so personal. There was no other direction to look, than up.

It was formed as I watched my children suckle on the boob, knowing exactly how to, watching my body morph from home, to nourishment, to mother over and over again and revering so much the beyond intelligent nature of a woman but also…. the love that created us. It could only be a personal love that created us.

It was formed in those moments of ordinary days when I’d look around my home and see that I have three, THREE (!!) healthy children laughing and playing and a husband who loves me (and is the best dad ever) and a life that I used to pray for as a little girl every single night in the garage of our house which was my bedroom.

It was formed in watching the way my mum has always lived— a true good samaritan. A woman who no longer goes to church, but lives more faithfully to the ways of Jesus than most I know.

It was formed in the ways I would burst into tears when the instrumental part of the worship song started to play, and everything I didn’t even know was in there would come out, relief I didn’t even know I needed became mine.

It was formed in the goosebumps I’d feel hearing classical music, the same that my Nanna, and her mum, and her mum, and her mum would’ve listened to generations ago.

It was formed in moments like when my eldest daughter sang in the home school choir for the first time for the Christmas carols, and I was so overcome with emotion I just cried and cried because children are so beautiful, so innocent, such gifts.

It was formed in the moments that my kids give me their art, and they write “I love so much how you tell me storees” and a word is spelt wrong and I love that the most.

It was formed in the many, many, many books I’ve read that felt like God was speaking directly through someone else. The books that make you stop still, re-read a paragraph, underline it until you’ve ripped the page, and realise ‘wow, I’m really not alone in this’.

I found God in the beauty, not in the logic.

My faith was formed by knowing God, that there is a God, the love and beauty of God, through poems, nature, and unbelievable intelligence of our bodies and all of creation because how do you even begin to explain art and nature without…. God?

My faith was formed in my many years of studying the body, and medical arts, the inbuilt healing mechanisms and how much providence God has given through the earth as medicine. The loving intelligence of it all, blowing my mind and defying any sort of logic.

My faith was not formed by logic.

But by beauty, by love, by art, by people, by prayer, by on-my-knees moments.

I believe that you can’t experience beauty without experiencing God. Wherever there is beauty, there is God. You can’t separate the two. Whenever you encounter art or music or nature that moves you— God is there — inseparable from what is most beautiful. Access to God is not reserved for the master theologians, but for everyone.

In her book, Sarah shares her thoughts on a C.S Lewis essay titled ‘Meditation in a toolshed.’ Lewis shares that there are different ways we all discover truth. One way is contemplation— “the kind of knowledge we get from looking at a thing or experience”. This is when we use logic and reason to know what is true.

Then there is another way some of us come to know truth and it’s what Lewis calls ‘enjoyment’ — “ the kind of truth that comes to us from inside an experience.”

Sarah says: “I found Lewis’ essay in a season when I was struggling to articulate why my experiences of beauty were so vital to my faith. At that time, my imagination was still rich and mighty, and my problem was not so much that I could dwell within it as that I had learned to distrust what it told me. I, too, was a child of the modern world, and the older I got, the more I found myself immersed in the kind of thinking that set “truth” only within the confines of reason, argument, observation, and proof.”

I want it to be known to all who follow my work that I do not have answers to life’s biggest questions. I am a pilgrim too. I’m maybe a lot more rough around the edges than you are (or not). I wouldn’t change that for anything.

What I do know is that what guides me in my life is an insatiable longing for more of what is good, beautiful and True.

This is what led me back to Church.

This is what has me opening my Bible. (But let it be known that I open a LOT of other books too and God meets me in all of them).

This is what had me asking my mum the other day if she still had her Rosary beads. She told me that she still prays the Rosary every night in her head. The next day, she gave me two sets of Rosary beads— one for me and one for Sol.

They need a little loving restoration as the cross has fallen off both- ghetto Rosary beads, symbolic. But they are the ones my mum prayed with during her childhood so they’re the ones we want.

The other night, Sol and I prayed one decade of the Rosary together. Last night, I came in to the room to find her holding the beads, right on the centre— “here mum, ready!”

I don’t have all the answers but I do know a few things.

I know God in the hymns inside old beautiful churches…

In seeing a hundred people at once bow their heads in prayer…

In hearing people aged 4 to 94 say the words ‘Holy Holy Holy Lord, God of power and might, Heaven and Earth are full of your glory….”

In seeing the elderly people at church and how they do faith— they’re not showy. They’re not theatrical. They’re just so solid. Their hands go straight up without even thinking when the words of the songs call for it.

Recently an older woman at Church lost her husband of many decades. When I saw her there on Sunday, after communion I stopped, gave her a big hug and looked into her eyes with tears in mine. When I got to the back of the room for the closing music, I looked down the pews and saw her standing as she always does— one hand in the air— praising God. Her dear husband wasn’t standing beside her but she still stood with that right hand praising God as she did every week. She wasn’t throwing herself all over the room in a performance. I said to my husband— She is built different. Her faith is so solid— SHE is so solid. It’s women like her that inspire me. It’s moments like that at church that deepen my faith. This woman does not have social media, but she has influenced my faith very deeply.

It’s in holding The Bible my mum used to hold at school. Yeh, she has her biffs with Catholicism and doesn’t consider herself practicing. But she prays every night, she says The Rosary before bed, she lives the values of Christ everyday…. and when we put aside all of the ‘stuff’ that people have polluted good ol’ fashioned religion with, there is such Beauty, Truth and Goodness….

This is why so many are being called home. To tradition. To liturgy.

It’s the beauty.

It’s the order.

It’s the goodness.

It’s hard to find a word for ‘that’ that is calling many of us back to what we thought we were ‘done’ with.

It’s God.

In a world trying to live free of the ‘shackles’ of tradition, I am yearning for more of it… the liturgy, the devotion and the loving constraints that take me beyond just ‘what feels right for me right now.’

Right now I’m feeling called to learn more about Eastern Orthodoxy. I’ve felt called many times to dig into Catholicism. The beauty, richness, and liturgy is what pulls at me— this yearning to know God in a way that logic could never offer. Of course I wrestle with where my faith can rest without the spirit of religion that is not of God. This is a part of it.

I yearn for it all to click in even more— God’s natural world, the use of our imagination and our minds, the journey of the soul. A couple of months ago I read ‘My Sisters The Saints’ and I just recently picked up again ‘The Interior Castle’. I looked back over all the things I’d underlined even just from the first chapter, after reading it last year and found so much gold underlined in just the first fifty pages.

St Teresa speaks of the many dwellings of The Interior Castle. She speaks so beautifully about how important it is to know ourselves, as part of knowing God. This is much different to many who say that to know God we need to deny ourselves entirely. She does say though “What we should be afraid of is obsessing over ourselves and never getting free of ourselves!”.

She writes about TRUE humility, not false humility. I’m only about 1/4 the way through the book but just last night I picked it up and thought “oh my gosh I underlined so much gold last year, why didn’t I continue with the book?”

St Teresa talks about how we can become influenced by ‘snakes and serpents’ the closer we get to what we’re really seeking. Don’t we know it!!

I feel like God is holding my hand and helping me to know Him. He’s using my personality, the quirks He gave me to do so.

It will look different for you, but I hope in sharing a bit of my windy windy, there may be some relief, some clarity or even just some companionship for you.

I feel tempted at times to be influenced by the many deconstructionists in my world to ‘have no need for Church’, but it’s just not true for me. The beauty, the liturgy, the tradition— it’s what God is calling me to experience more of.

Not for religion, but for beauty, goodness and truth.

We’re all in different seasons of faith.

Some are unravelling from pretty gnarly church experiences— experiences where evil was disguised as goodness. They’re re-learning their faith without ‘all the rest’.

God is right there holding their hands.

Some people are being called to prayer, or to church, or to the Bible, for the first time ever and it feels clumsy and strange and awkward.

God is right there holding their hands.

Some are somewhere in between wrestling, winding, exploring. Some are confused. Some are exploring Orthodoxy, or Catholicism, and feel like they’re in the deep dive of their lives, God is holding their (yours and mine) hands too.

Most all that I know, want God without all that falsely disguises itself as God.

Have you noticed that many en masse’ are turning towards God? Some say it’s ‘trendy’ but that’s just ridiculous. Turning towards the One who created us all is just a trend, like posting a reel of ourselves meeting our younger self for coffee.

Yeh, God, trendy.

Why are so many turning to God? To tradition? To beauty? To order?

The more chaotic the world feels, the more people will turn towards what is beautiful, good and true. The more desperate they become, the more they will be willing to give up what is false.

In a world that is desperate for no constraints, people are realising that they want the life giving ones that God built in.

People want the order.

I know how much better my life is when I conform to the deeply functioning natural and biological laws that were established by our creator. It feels right.

These constraints are comforting. They are safety nets. They are points of orientation.

They are North Stars in a world that tugs on us every which way.

Tim Keller once said (I paraphrase) that freedom isn’t having no constraints, it’s having the right ones. The ones that give true life.

There is a lotta love and wisdom in the idea that sex is best reserved for marriage. Many are discovering that maybe the sexual revolution isn’t as liberating as people thought it was. But we’ve become so resentful of any kind of constraints that we miss the love that’s at the core of them.

When I started to experience how much life there was in my femininity, in motherhood, in yielding a little more to biological roles (although, I do believe there is flexibility in this modern world!! ), I realised how loving these ‘constraints’ are in essence. They’re not oppressive, they’re loving. What’s also loving is the fact that God gave women free will, creativity and the ability to find their own unique rhythms as families.

I used to believe I was thriving in a world without absolute truth and that believing in any kind of constraints was taking my freedom away.

But we live with constraints every day.

We live with a general moral code as a society— a general understanding of what is right Vs wrong. We do whatever we please but we also don’t. Why not? There is an internal moral code, but where did it come from?

I want to walk towards that Truth.

Motherhood is another example of how constraints are life giving. We can’t do whatever we want when we have small kids in our care. This is a good thing. It ensures we are nurturing our young and not abandoning them. There is also a deep and sacred fulfilment when we give ourselves fully to this role that isn’t rivalled in any other human experience. I don’t believe this means there is a one size fits all approach to motherhood, but I sure do believe in God’s loving design.

Since reorienting my life naturally more around God’s loving constraints, I have felt more ordered, more feminine (still in progress too!) and my home and parenting have an order that feels good and right. But I still have the freedom to go directly to God and figure out the right rhythms, how much I should give to my creative callings, and how to fuse it all in one big beautiful vision for my family. I can rest into the design but also enjoy the uniqueness of MY family’s design— not try to base our lives around a certain ideal.

Knowing of God’s loving constraints has given me surprising peace as someone who’s had a lot of mental heaviness, anxiety and burden— something that has been indescribably healing for me. I will not lie and pretend it’s ‘all gone’, but because of God’s order, I know where to rest, I know where to put it, I know where to go. You know what I mean? I know that it’s not all on me. That’s big.

As someone who would place freedom up the top of my list of values (still do, by the way!) I have come to learn that real freedom has the right constraints— not none. These constraints don’t come from a man, or a book, they come from the one who created us.

The truth I feel in these loving constraints is another way I feel closer to God.

God’s natural constraints are meant to give us life, not take it away.

I experienced the Catholic doctrine as a child.

I then went to a very liberal high school with zero mention of God and so I spread my wings spiritually.

I sailed all of the spiritual seas and sat on the false rooftops.

I was, however, always drawn to what was old, what was traditional.

I’d go with my Nanna on the bus to Fremantle, wearing a pretty frock, high lace socks with frills, buckle shoes, and a wide brimmed hat. That vintage aesthetic was me at my peak.

I went vintage shopping before it was cool, back in the day where the local op shop had Levi’s 501’s for $3. I treasured the old stuff that someone before me had once owned.

I have always longed for the olden days, and thought I was born in the wrong generation— I’m not alone in this especially amongst the Substack crowd ammiright?

Is it the simplicity? The wholesomeness? The quality of the furniture, the clothing, the food? The fact that we had no mobile phones and could prank people on house phones?

Or is it the order that I long for?

A society that doesn’t try to play God.

It is unsettling, the many directions peoples ’truths’ take them now. I can list the most troubling ones but we all know what they are. I mean, they’re trying to rebrand
p-e-d-o’s as ‘minor attracted people’ and asking people to stop the ‘stigma’?

It’s this complete disorder that thrusts us towards order. Towards what is right and true. It’s this same disorder that thrusts people towards more conservative values, after a life of being liberal. People have had enough of disorder, and want to know where Truth lives.

It is not a ‘trendy’ thing that people are being drawn to constraints, to order….

Towards God.

We need the restraints of God.

We need Truth.

We need Order.

We need Authority.

This is why, like it or not, agree with it or not, so many people (even non fans) feel relieved that a certain someone is in office— personality aside, when the world becomes too chaotic and senseless, people want strong, authoritative, decisive leadership— constraint in a world that wants none. People want order. A backbone. They want what is unwavering in a world that is becoming more disordered everyday. Too many leaders try to be liked. Their lack of spine gives people a lack of trust.

When we close our eyes and take it to God, and pray for discernment, what we hear may challenge even our politico-socio-cultural bias.

My faith doesn’t require that I abandon my discernment, my explorations and my wrestles. I know I can bring them too.

I am not Anglican. I am not Protestant. I am not Catholic. I am not Baptist. I am not Evangelical. I am not Orthodox. But I can’t say whether I will or won’t be one of those in the future.

What I do know is that the reason people are being called to more order, is the fact that there is so much disorder.

The reason people are being called, faster than ever towards Truth, Beauty, Goodness, is that evil isn’t having a day off…. but neither is God.

The other day I told a friend that I’m going to take Sol to latin mass (Sol loves latin, she loves beauty, she loves God), and this friend responded saying ‘saw that coming, everyone is doing it.’

It really doesn’t sit well with me, when people dismiss such tender and personal experiences as ‘bandwagon’ ones.

I mean sure, many are becoming Catholic, many are becoming Christian. Many are also finding God in leaving religion.

But what do we believe about God if we think ‘all of this’ is just 'people jumping on the bandwagon?’

Why don’t, or can’t we see that maybe God is revealing Himself en’masse, in such a time as this?

I believe that the world is so desperate for order, Truth and beauty that God is calling people personally, one by one, and using others to validate the rumblings they have been long resisting.

I don’t know about you, but the people I know who are exploring, or re-exploring faith in any way, shape or form, are of the most discerning people I know. They’re not all doing it in church, and some are actually deconstructing from legalism and institutional religion, so they can have a more direct and intimate relationship with God.

You could easily call this ‘trendy’. But who are we to know what God is up to in their lives? Perhaps He is breaking it ALL DOWN and allowing it to be built again, without ‘the stuff’ that isn’t of Him? I follow many who are deconstructing right now— leaving religion, for a more pure relationship with God.

People are wobbly, people are imperfect, but speaking from experience, the exploration is very deep, very true, very personal.

Also, spiritual warfare is real and people are easily deceived! Been there! Discernment, be ours!!!

I do not know all the answers.

It is a relief to say so.

You want a theologian? Not me. At least not yet. Maybe not ever.

I could not have a theological debate with a scholar.
I do not know the Bible inside out and back to front.
The book of Revelation gives me the heeby jeebies and scares me s***less.
I do not go to Church every single Sunday because kids sport, birthday parties etc, but mostly we do.
I give to the Churches I am apart of because they are doing really good good things and are genuine havens in the community, but I am also very committed to pursuits, separately to church who are doing God’s work in rogue ways.

I do not know all the answers, but when I walk into church and see people of all ages, hands in the air, humbly acknowledging that they are not God… humbly giving the first day of their week to sing in gratitude, to pray for those who are struggling, to mingle inter-generationally, to provide a refuge for those who are lost and hurting— I know this is good and right.

I know we do not need a building to do this. And yet I love that I have one. A good one. Not a corrupt one. Not a wayward one. But a good, honest, holy one.

I feel at home in what is classical and traditional. I will always walk the winding and never ending path of Beauty, Goodness and Truth.

Truth that gives us life and order, but Truth that still has all the room in the world for our questions, and our wrestles, our fumbles, our confusion, our straying, our returning, our rebelling, our surrendering.

I do believe in Truth with a capital T.

I also believe that God is the one who reveals that to us— in His ways, and that these ways for other people may not be the same ways it is revealed to you or I.

There is nothing we are wrestling with that God can not hold with ALL of the compassion in the world.

I don’t have answers to a lot of life’s biggest questions and I think we’re kidding ourselves if we think we do. Why would we need God if we knew it all? How boring and pointless a life.

Pk XX

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