Why letting go of "Christianity" was the best thing for me

Detoxing my Faith from OCD & Fear

For as long as I can remember, I knew I wanted to be a “strong” Christian. Whatever that means. Or more accurately, I knew I had to be. There was no other option. I believed that nothing else mattered in life, as long as I was a Christian.

I also know that as long as I can remember, I have experienced a lot of fear and anxiety. I never really knew why. It’s just always been there- a dark, overshadowing creature in my head that masqueraded as a friend. As I was growing up, my parents mentioned to me several times that I was an angsty baby who didn’t sleep much her first year of life. I was a fearful child all through my preschool and kindergarten years as well. I didn’t want to sleep alone in my bed at night. I don’t remember ever having nightmares. I was just deeply frightened of being left alone. I believe this was partially spiritual, but also partially genetic. Unfortunately I must have inherited the “anxiety gene” that ran rampant on my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. Mercifully, God is setting me free little by little, and I am breaking this generational curse so that it never passes to my future children, should they exist.

I grew up in a home where prayer and Bible reading were a daily routine. My my brothers and I were homeschooled, and we went to church three times a week. I was involved in several ministries including drama, choir, and kids’ ministry, and I enjoyed every single one. My parents were prominent leaders in the church (they could have practically been on staff), leading small groups, starting a counseling ministry, and teaching kids’ classes and adult Sunday schools. It was a large, diverse, Pentecostal church with a significant focus on missions. (Not the kind of Pentecostal church where women are required to wear skirts, but it was legalistic in other ways.) Most of the time, I deeply enjoyed the vibrant, expressive worship and joyfully took part, though I didn’t dance or wave flags like I saw many others doing. I took great delight in participating in the Christmas and Easter musicals every year. I was often given multiple solos and larger parts, which I relished, as I adored being on stage. It made me feel important. It seemed that the really strong Christians were the ones who spoke or sang on stage. But I could write a whole other post about that.

I loved the annual missions weeks when the whole church was decked out with world flags, gorgeous wall art depicting various ethnic groups, and tables displaying traditional food and décor from around the world. It was an exhilarating atmosphere. However, it was also sometimes intense, scary and overwhelming for me, an introverted, highly sensitive little girl who didn’t yet know how to regulate herself. A girl who already struggled with fear and anxiety in a fear-ridden church culture. Abrasive sermons. Loud worship with smoke and lights. The intense pressure to always be at the altar worshiping during the musical part of service because I was a “leader”. The pressure to be at church for every single service and be involved in nearly every ministry. Sometimes it was just too much.

I really am grateful to have been exposed to the Christian faith from such a young age. It has shaped me in so many positive ways. But I also have mixed emotions about it. Sprinkled in subtly with the exciting, uplifting side of church were some confusing, skewed messages that sowed numerous seeds of fear and control in my heart. I’m convinced that one of the enemy’s favorite places to deceive people is within the walls of a church. Because it’s the one place that should be safe, but often isn’t.

I don’t have the space to share them all here, but there was one frightful experience in particular that really affected me. I remember being terrified by a play that the church put on for several years, called “Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames”. In this play, the character of Satan was portrayed by a person in a disturbing black skeleton robe that glowed in the dark. In several of the scenes, Satan was shown coming to take lost souls to hell. This character also was shown attempting to take a Christian little girl to hell, but he could not touch her because she was “covered by the blood.” I think I was around 8 years old, and this was horrifying to me. Why they didn’t preface the show with a “Viewer Discretion Advised,” I don’t know. I should not have been allowed to see that play. I had trouble going to sleep for weeks afterward. I was terrified that Satan was going to sneak into my room after my parents had gone to sleep, slip under my bed, and somehow take me to hell.

And here’s the thing: I believed in Jesus. I knew I was covered by the blood. I had had supernatural encounters with God from a young age.

And I was still terrified.

My little racing mind thought, but what if I accidentally sin? What if I somehow stop being covered by the blood of Jesus? What if Satan actually can get me?

And those questions remained unanswered for quite some time (at least not answered in a way that was satisfying to me). Though temporarily settled by my involvement in all things Christian, those frightening question marks were harbored for decades in the recesses of my heart, until Jesus fully brought them into the light last year, and we settled them once and for all.

I didn’t understand how deeply fear was embedded in me until last year. The trauma and healing that I walked through absolutely unraveled me. It revealed my heart, and I saw that even after years of inner work, there was still so much fear, control, and obsession infecting my relationship with God.

I think doubts about my salvation, or the efficacy of it, had subconsciously plagued me my whole life. I put more faith in my ability to fail than in Christ’s ability to save me. While I had experienced true joy and intimacy in my relationship with God, there was still always this fear and guilt simmering under the surface. It was as if Jesus would eventually find out who I really am, that I’m not worth saving at all, and he would finally give up on me. As ridiculous as that sounds, it felt very true. Now it feels tragic to me that I even entertained those thoughts. This all came to an excruciating head last year, several months after my broken engagement and experience with spiritual abuse. (See more of that story here.) Jesus had powerfully met me and prevented me from acting on my self-harm impulses. So I knew He was real, and He was with me. But I was still fear-stricken, bound by control and religious OCD, and I knew I was so messed up inside. I was mortified at how broken I was and couldn’t bear for Him to see me like this.

Though the tormenting thoughts about harming myself had subsided for a time, I started having different tormenting thoughts. At one point, Satan almost had me convinced that I would not make it to Heaven. (I don’t like giving a lot of attention to that person who isn’t worth mentioning, but it was blatantly obvious that he was involved here.) I was so confused. I knew I needed Jesus, and yet I was outraged because of the storm of trauma that had engulfed me during and after the breakup. Horrible intrusive thoughts and blasphemies wreaked havoc in my mind. Control and Anger had their talons in deep, and I couldn’t pull them out. Anxiety coiled around my heart squeezing the life out of me. I didn’t know how I could still be considered “saved” in that state. For several weeks off and on, I wasn’t sure if I was still a Christian or not. And that terrified me. Being Christian defined my life- it was the only thing I knew how to be.

One sunny day in February, I was walking at one of my favorite parks. It was a place I often go to get away with God, and I felt swaddled by His peace and presence as I walked. I was suddenly overtaken by this realization:

I had to break up with religion.

It nearly knocked the wind out of my lungs.

If Jesus really was who He said He was, He could save me and keep me, period. Even if I was no longer attached to the traditional framework of Christianity I had lived in for so long. I still wanted a relationship with Him, but I wasn’t sure what that would look like.

Reluctantly, I told God I was done trying to be a Christian. The whole American system of Christianity had been tainted in my eyes. I knew that to salvage my relationship with the real God, there was no other way forward. I cried and freaked out for a minute. But immediately upon letting go, relief washed over me. It was as if I could hear God laughing at me in delight and saying, “Good! It’s about time.” I still had my wrestles and doubts regarding this encounter for a while. I thought, What if I’m being deceived? What if I’m falling away from Jesus and I don’t even know it? Then I had the earth-shattering revelation that if I was falling away, wasn’t He the Good Shepherd who goes after the lost sheep? He knew I still wanted Him. He wasn’t going to just let me “fall away.” He invested way too much in me by pouring out His own blood to let me go. I wasn’t falling away from Him. I was falling into His arms. The obsessive anxiety was being pulled out by the root. I was letting go of control and truly abandoning myself to grace for the first time. I had been saved before, but now I was beginning to understand what salvation truly meant. And it was only the beginning.

I had another moment like this soon after. I was laying on my bed mentally wrestling with this “letting go.” I was still going through the exploratory process of questioning everything I believed, and yet terrified to admit it. I felt led to ground myself by pondering what I do know. I could build from there. So I asked myself, what do I absolutely know for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt?

I thought back over the last year. I saw a golden thread of goodness running through my life, even through all the pain. I could see it in how I was spared from a marriage that would have destroyed me, to the ways my family and friends showed up for me, to how I got my puppy, to how I miraculously never ended up harming myself, among many other smaller miracles.

This declaration of Truth rose up powerfully in my heart: All I know is that Someone good and beautiful is holding me. And I began to sob. Somehow, holding on to that one truth and letting go of everything else set me free. I believe that is when the stronghold of control started to break.

A dear spiritual mother and prayer partner once told me she had a picture of me as a baby in Father God’s arms. I was clinging so tightly to his clothing, as if He would drop me if I let go. She said it’s okay to let go. God was confirming exactly what He showed me that day at the park, and that day laying on my bed. So I continued to let go. It is now becoming a daily practice to totally entrust my salvation to Him, all over again. I was never actually in control of it to begin with; I was just under the illusion that I was.

He used a song, which I listened to daily for months, to solidify this truth in me: He is the One who saved me, and He is the one who will continue to save me and keep me until the day He takes me home. It’s called “He will hold me fast,” by Keith and Kristyn Getty.

Soak in these words:

When I fear my faith will fail
Christ will hold me fast
When the tempter would prevail
He will hold me fast

I could never keep my hold
Through life's fearful path
For my love is often cold
He must hold me fast

He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast

Those He saves are His delight
Christ will hold me fast
Precious in His holy sight
He will hold me fast

He'll not let my soul be lost
His promises shall last
Bought by Him at such a cost
He will hold me fast

For my life He bled and died
Christ will hold me fast
Justice has been satisfied
He will hold me fast

Raised with Him to endless life
He will hold me fast
'Til our faith is turned to sight
When He comes at last!

He will hold me fast
He will hold me fast
For my Savior loves me so
He will hold me fast

I’m crying reading those words now, again.

Here is the lyric video:

I subconsciously believed that guilt and obsessive thinking would hold me fast to Jesus. If I obsess enough over doing the right things, if I feel guilty enough, if I continue to be harsh with myself, I will for sure never fall away from Jesus. Turns out, it doesn’t work that way. I was one hundred percent wrong. The only thing holding me to Jesus is Jesus Himself.

I believe salvation is not a one time event. It is a long process, entwined with sanctification, that starts the moment you are born again, and isn’t complete until Jesus escorts you home. I am graciously being saved again and again, every single day. This is what it means to me that His mercies are new every morning (Lam. 3:23). I am being saved more fully and thoroughly as Love trickles through and transforms more of my heart. Like water patiently smooths out the hardest rock over years of simply flowing in contact, gentle and relentless. He is gently and relentlessly saving you and me.

“Therefore He is able also to save forever (completely, perfectly, for eternity) those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to intercede and intervene on their behalf [with God].”

Hebrews 7:25 AMP

Thank you so much for being here, friend!

If my writing has moved you, encouraged you, or led you closer to Jesus in some way, would you consider contributing whatever you can to keep this writer going? Thank you so much!