Hello. My name is Annie King and I am growing, letting go of things I no longer need and am learning to live, really live my life.
This seems the best way to describe my journey into deconstructing my faith which began over 20 years ago. I didn't know in the beginning that what I was doing was called deconstruction. I thought I was losing my faith, I was losing God, I was losing the moorings that kept me secure. This was further complicated by the fact that I was a pastor’s wife. It meant that my doubts, my questions, my fears, were internalized and I suffered privately. And because I did not share them with anyone, the faith of my childhood told me I was the problem. I would often say to myself the pithy quote I had heard all my life that goes something like, “If you feel far away from God, guess who moved.” This just added to my shame and kept me quiet. So I would put on a smile, say all the church things a good pastor’s wife should say and keep my questions to myself.
My husband and I have always had a very good relationship. And I could talk to him about my fears but honestly I didn't want to burden him with them because I felt like to tell him of my doubts would be a kind of deep rejection of him. I saw my role as pastor’s wife as taking care of everything I could so that he could do what God called him to do. I was very cognizant of not doing anything to make his ministry more difficult. This kind of losing myself and silencing my voice was what I was taught in childhood. It all felt, if not good, normal to me.
This newsletter begins as I am still deep within this journey of deconstruction and letting go. Like Sarah Bessey wrote in her book “Out of Sorts”, we have to sort through and decide what we need and what we can let go of. I am in this process. Sometimes the sorting is easy, keep this and let go of that. But sometimes it is difficult and that is where I struggle. Because my mother was such an important person in my early faith experience I am finding that my faith is very intertwined with my family of origin and the dysfunction I was raised in. The sorting then can be painful as I remember things and then process them now as an adult. My therapist has said that it is a miracle I have a faith at all. I am thankful for my desire to find a new way to love Jesus. It is what keeps me going.
As a 54 year old caucasian woman, living in Southern Ohio, fully immersed in the Appalachian culture, I often feel alone in this journey. But that is changing. Since, my husband’s retirement this past spring from full-time ministry I have felt a freedom I have never experienced. I am growing, I am learning, I am sorting. I am letting go of beliefs and understandings that I no longer need and I am learning all over again how to enjoy my life and truly live.
I would love for you to join my on this journey and maybe together we can find something more real and meaningful than just the pithy statements and quippy quotes of our childhood faiths.
Being tethered can keep us safe. Sometimes choosing the safety of the tether is what drowns us. I am going out on the open sea, where it will be scary, the waves will be bigger, the journey less sure. But it’s in the open sea that the hope of freedom, the anticipation of abundant life and the expectancy of peaceful waters will become my compass.
Annie
Annie