Latest / The Christy-Faith Show / Ep. 95 - The Two Times I Almost Walked Away From My Faith // Behind the Screen (Part 4/6)

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Ep. 95 - The Two Times I Almost Walked Away From My Faith // Behind the Screen (Part 4/6) · The Christy-Faith Show

• 0:00
  Christy-Faith: Have you ever laid in bed at night and thought or prayed to God? God, this just isn't fair, and you know it. Why are you doing this? Why are you allowing this? Yeah.
• 0:09
  Me too. And to the point where I almost left my faith twice, and not in a I was a little wobbly kind of way. I mean, I was almost out and done. I was mad and sad, ready to walk away from everything I had believed since I was 10 years old. The first time I almost walked away from my faith, I just couldn't cognitively make it make sense.
• 0:29
  I had a question that I couldn't answer, and it just shook me to my core. But the second time was different. It wasn't intellectual. It was pain. The kind of pain where God doesn't just feel silent, he feels cruel.
• 0:42
  Two different seasons, two different crises, same Christ at the end of it. So why didn't I walk away from my faith? That's what today's show is about. This is a huge part of who I am, and it's a little risky because my platform is known as being really nonsectarian, but that doesn't mean secular. It means everyone's welcome to be who they are.
• 1:01
  So here I am. I'm a person with a very deep faith, and I help everybody. It's what I've always been. Even back in Los Angeles when we ran the center, we were two Christians who ran a secular center. Because it feels really interesting because in the homeschooling space, you're kinda put into categories of Christian and non Christian.
• 1:18
  I'm kind of in this mid no man's land. People don't know exactly what to do with me. I'm not Christian enough for some places and that I'm too Christian for others. Just on Friday, I was told I can't speak at a conference because I'm not entirely secular. And this is totally off topic, but that's kind of why I entered this space.
• 1:34
  There was something that was missing. So it makes sense that I don't really fit anywhere. Maybe we're supposed to pave our own way. Maybe we're supposed to make our own community. And that's okay.
• 1:42
  Hi, we're here together. I'm so glad you're here. So yes, I almost walked away from my faith twice in my life. But before I tell you my story, can I say something to those of you who are maybe are in a season of doubt right now? Or maybe you've gone through such a heavy loss that you feel like you're walking wounded.
• 1:59
  I just wanna say that you're not broken. I'm not broken. I know what it feels like when the questions start coming and you can't make them stop. There's this fear. Right?
• 2:07
  Like you pull on one thread and everything might unravel. Maybe your whole identity is wrapped up in the fact that you're a Christian, your community, your worldview, your understanding of how reality works. So to have questions, it feels dangerous. Right? Like, maybe you shouldn't be having them.
• 2:23
  Like, something is wrong with you. So before we start in with my story, here's what I just wanna establish right off the bat. Here's what I've learned. Questions don't mean you're losing your faith. They might mean that it's growing roots.
• 2:35
  There's a difference between a faith that's inherited, like from your parents, and faith that's been tested. Right? Both are real, but one has been through the fire. And here's the paradox. The wrestling that feels like it's destroying you, it might be the very thing that makes your faith unshakable.
• 2:51
  Because I truly believe this, and I have said this since my early twenties. If you seek truth, and I mean real truth, honestly, you will find God because he is true. So it's not dangerous to question. He's certainly not threatened by your questions. He's big enough to handle them.
• 3:07
  So if you're in that place right now, if you've got questions and you've never really said them out loud, if you're scared of what you might find, if your faith feels shaky and you don't know what to do, this episode's for you. And not to tell you what to believe, that's not my job here, but to show you that you can wrestle and come out on the other side with something stronger than what you had before. If you don't know me, hi. I'm Christy Faith, author of Homeschool Rising and your host who's still very much on this journey with you. This is episode 95, which is part four of my series Behind the Screen.
• 3:38
  If you're new to this series, for the past several weeks, I've been stepping away from my typical show format and chic stories that have shaped who I am. The vulnerable stuff, the painful stuff, the parts of my life that I don't usually talk about, that don't fit in a fifteen second social media post. Episode one was what a homeschool day really looks like in my household. Episode two was about why we left a particular church, that toxic community, betrayal, and what it actually costs to blow up your own life, because that's what we did. Episode three was why we left authoritarian parenting, and yes, I went there with the s word.
• 4:13
  And today, I'm talking about the two times that I almost walked away from my faith and why I didn't. This one's a little different. This might be the deepest I've gone. I don't know. Let's see where it goes.
• 4:24
  Stay with me. Okay. Before we get into the juicy parts of all of my existential crises that I've had in my life, I know a lot of you may be in a hard season financially right now, or you're like every other American today and trying to see how you can save some money each month in this economy. I wanna tell you something that gave us huge relief. It's one of those things I'm so incredibly thankful for in our lives, and I get a little excited every time I get to share it.
• 4:59
  And it's about how we move from health insurance to health sharing. We were paying $2,000 a month for our family of six to have health insurance with one of those big companies. And even with all that money going out the door, we still had co pays, still had hoops to jump through, still had that pit in our stomachs every time a bill came. When we switched to health sharing six years ago, we're on Summit HealthShare now, we ended up cutting our bill in half. And no, it's not health insurance, but yes, it does replace it, and I think it's even better.
• 5:29
  We've had no surprises at all in six years. We get to choose our own doctors, even holistic ones if we want. Free prescriptions, free labs, no co pays, no in network, out of network nonsense, just care, the way it should be. Six years in, that's $72,000 back in our pockets. Zero problems.
• 5:49
  It felt risky at first. I get it, but it's not. 98% of members love it. Go to summithealthshare.com, run their savings calculator. I'll put a link in the show notes.
• 5:59
  It takes only thirty seconds, and it will tell you what you actually should be paying per month for health care. And then you'll be so surprised, you're gonna wanna give them a call. And when you do call, you're gonna hear a real person on the end of the line, and they're super nice. Bring all of your questions, all of your worries. They've heard it all, and they just wanna help you.
• 6:17
  Your family deserves better. You deserve medical freedom, and this is how you get it. Okay. Let's get to our show. If you're new here, as I said before, I'm Christy Faith.
• 6:26
  I've been in education for over twenty years. I'm a homeschool mom of four, and I wrote a book called Homeschool Rising. I do this podcast and I also run Thrive Homeschool Community. It's where moms get real support, guidance and training to homeschool with confidence. And the doors aren't always open.
• 6:43
  So if you want in on Thrive Homeschool Community, you gotta get on the wait list. I always put that link in the show notes. Alright. Let's get to it. The first time I almost walked away from my faith, ironically, I was at a Christian school.
• 6:56
  I was a junior at Biola University. That's where I met Scott, and I had just been on a mission trip to Turkey, and something broke in me while I was there. Have you ever had one of those moments where you see something and you just can't unsee it? Where a question lands in your brain and it just won't leave? That was me after Turkey.
• 7:15
  We traveled all over the country, and everywhere we went, I looked around and I saw an entire country of people, millions of people who would never hear the gospel. And not because they rejected it, they never even had the chance. There were some cities that we were the first Christians in that city since Paul. And according to what I understood about Christianity, they were going to hell, every single one of them. And I remember thinking, how is that good?
• 7:40
  How is this fair? God knew before they were born that they would never be able to hear the message that could save them, and he created them anyway. I don't know if you've ever wrestled with this one. Let me know in the comments. It's actually one of the most common objections to Christianity, the problem of people who never hear.
• 7:56
  I wasn't reading about it in a book or in a college class. I was standing in the middle of it, living with these people, And the questions kept coming. Why was I so lucky to be in a Christian family in America? Is Christianity just geography? Just an accident of birth?
• 8:13
  If I'd been born in Turkey, for example, would I be Muslim right now? I just couldn't shake it. So I came back from that trip and I told Scott, we were either newly dating or were dating. I don't quite remember. And I told Scott, I might be deconstructing.
• 8:27
  And you know what he said? This is so Scott. He's like, okay. Alright. I remember being in the parking lot near car at the time.
• 8:33
  He's like, alright. So how much? Are you not a Christian anymore? And I told him, I said, well, I know I still believe in Jesus, but that's kinda it right now. I'm starting over from scratch.
• 8:45
  Oh my goodness. I love how he handled it. He didn't panic. He didn't give me a lecture or hand me a book and say, this is what you need and you'll be fine. He just gave me space, and he always has.
• 8:56
  I married the best guy. And he had conversations with me. He asked me questions. He let me process out loud. He had already wrestled with a lot of this stuff back in high school, and I didn't.
• 9:06
  See, he had this amazing bible study with this guy named Kenny Coffey. He's still in our lives to this day. Scott texts him and talks to him regularly, but that was such a formative experience for Scott in high school, and it really gave his faith roots. So Scott kinda knew what I needed. He kinda knew the process that I was on because he had already been there.
• 9:25
  And so I started searching, and I wanna be really clear about something. I wasn't trying to convince myself that Christianity was true. I wasn't looking for confirmation bias or trying to talk myself back into believing. Because honestly, being a Christian is hard. And if God wasn't real and the Bible wasn't true, I wanted to know.
• 9:43
  I don't wanna follow a false god. I wanna find out what was true and whatever that turned out to be I was ready for. So I started reading, and I read apologetics, philosophy, theology, opposing viewpoints. I read it all. And every time I thought I'd find an answer, I'd think of another objection.
• 9:59
  And so I'd go searching again, and this went on for months. What surprised me is there were a lot of answers, and they weren't easy ones, and they're not all tidy ones, but real, intellectually honest, rigorous answers from people way smarter than me who have wrestled with these questions, exact same questions before me. One book that I think is so great, and you know I'm a huge fan of Timothy Keller, is his book, A Reason for God. And one thing I love about his book is his thesis, and he's like doubt your doubts, which is so funny because everyone's really fast to, like, jump to defensiveness with Christianity, but that kinda felt like he was playing offense because all doubts are based on alternate beliefs, and those beliefs require just as much faith as Christianity does. And they should be scrutinized too.
• 10:45
  So, basically, if you're gonna demand proof from Christianity, you should also demand the same proof from whatever worldview or doubts you're sitting on. To me, that was just so powerful, and maybe it's just for me. But yeah. And one of the conclusions I came to is I think atheism requires more faith than Christianity. There's actually a book called I don't have enough faith to be an atheist, which once you start looking at the evidence, it starts to feel pretty accurate.
• 11:09
  There's some things you gotta reckon with with atheism. But what I really want you to hear from this part of my story is that questioning is okay. It's not something to be scared of. God is not anti intellectual. He's not threatened by our doubts.
• 11:22
  He's big enough to handle you wrestling with hard questions, trying to reconcile what you see in the world and what you believe about him, and it's okay. That Turkey experience didn't destroy my faith, it made it mine. Up until then, I had kinda borrowed faith from my parents, my church, my Christian college. I hadn't wrestled with much. But after that visit to Turkey, after that wrestling, it was mine, and no one could take it from me, at least for a while.
• 11:48
  If you're a mom listening to this right now, I just think it's so important to give our kids the space to question without freaking out. Better to do it under your own home. Right? I have a whole shelf upstairs in our library just on apologetics. And when my kids have a question, we just go and reference those because the questions are coming.
• 12:06
  And the worst thing that we can teach them is that doubt is dangerous because it's not. Doubt that leads you to wrestle, that's just faith getting stronger. I'd love to know from you. What books have helped you in your wrestling? Drop them in the comments.
• 12:19
  We could all use more resources, and I'd love to hear what has helped you. So before we get into my really deep story of just heartache, I wanna do a quick pause before we keep going and let you know that it's our sponsors that make it possible for me to bring this show to you for free, and I love that. But here's the thing. Do you know how shows like this actually grow? It's not magic.
• 12:41
  It's you. Algorithm robots count everything. They count every follow, every comment, every share, every save. That's how the platform decides whether to show this to more moms who need it. So if today's show is hitting home at all, if you're getting something from this, here's how you can help another mom find us.
• 12:58
  Follow, subscribe, turn on the little notification bell that lets you know when an episode drops, and leave a comment. Tell me your story. Tell me your favorite books. Ask a question or just encourage another mom who's struggling right now in the comments. We read everyone, and it really does give me warm fuzzies when I see you showing up for each other in there.
• 13:16
  It makes me feel like we're building community. So if something comes to mind while you're listening, just drop it in the comments. It would mean the world to me, and it might really make a difference in someone else's life. So thank you. When I come back, I'm telling you the second time I almost left my faith, and this one was different.
• 13:33
  It wasn't my head that couldn't make it work. It was my heart that couldn't take the pain. Stay with me. As a homes chool mom who values a family together approach and leans towards the classical and Charlotte Mason styles, I often struggle to bring my educational vision to life with my kids' diverse ages and learning needs. With all our interests and super packed schedule, bridging that gap between the dreamy homeschool I want and reality, I gotta be honest.
• 13:56
  It's a challenge. Now, yes, I know perfection isn't the goal. But if you're listening and you could use a little easing of your mental load in your day to day, I found a resource that has become the quiet hero of our routine, and it could be a really great option for you too. BJU Press homeschool curriculum. Now many think that BJU Press homeschool is solely an all in one option, and though it does excel in that role, did you know you can also opt for specific courses and tailor them to fit your family's needs just as I have?
• 14:24
  BGU Press Homeschool provides the perfect balance of structure and flexibility and easily complements my family's mixed age family together on the couch learning style. They are second to none in integrating a biblical worldview, stimulating critical thinking, and offering tons of hands on activities in the lessons. To find out how BJU Press Homeschool can come alongside you in your homeschooling goals too. Visit bjupresshomeschool.com or click the link in the show notes. Before we continue, I wanna share with you a program that's been a game changer for our homeschool.
• 14:56
  At our center, we instructed and helped kids through pretty much every math program on the market and know firsthand just how important a solid math foundation is for our kids' futures. As a career educator with high standards, finding the right program that checked all the boxes felt like too tall of an order. Until one day, I tried CTC Math. CTC Math is an online math curriculum for K to 12 students with motivating interactive lessons that allow kids to learn at their own pace. It does all the teaching and grading so you don't have to, and their adaptive lessons adjust so your child is progressing confidently.
• 15:28
  With CTC Math, your child is getting a top notch education and you just made your homeschool life easier. Visit ctcmath.com to start your free trial today or click the link in the show notes. So we're about to go a little bit deeper. The second time I almost walked away from my faith was very different. The first time it was my head that just couldn't wrap my brain around some really significant questions.
• 15:51
  Questions that people walk away from Christianity when they are not satisfied with answers. But the second time, it was my heart that couldn't take the pain. Infertility. A lot of people don't realize this because we have four kids now, but we struggled for years with infertility. But the hardest years were the three years after we had our son Lincoln, and it was about a three year period of second infertility that nearly broke me.
• 16:16
  I know some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. Have you struggled with infertility or loss? That monthly cycle of hope and devastation, the way your body becomes a calendar of grief? The pregnancy announcements that feel like personal attacks even though you know they're not. You just wanting to be happy for other people, but you're just so sad about your own circumstances.
• 16:36
  Have you been there? What made it so hard for me spiritually wasn't just the pain, it was the theology underneath it. See, I had been taught that God gives us the desires of our heart. That he's a good father who loves to give good gifts to his children. That if we delight in him, he'll give us what we long for.
• 16:54
  And I longed for another baby, and month after month, nothing. And here's where it got really dark for me. I started to feel like God was being cruel. Not just silent, but cruel. Because he could fix this.
• 17:08
  He's God. He could snap his fingers and I'd be pregnant tomorrow. He had done it with women in the Bible. Why not me? And it was so hard to watch women around me get pregnant who maybe even didn't wanna be pregnant.
• 17:20
  Other women who honestly, and I'm ashamed to admit this, I judged as less deserving than me, and I'm so embarrassed to admit this, but I didn't view them as really good mothers. And so I'm thinking, why are you giving her another child? I'm trying to be a good mother here. It's super ugly. I know, but I'm just being honest with you.
• 17:38
  And what was really hard is I felt like he gave me the taste of motherhood. I loved being Lincoln's mother. I felt like he had shown me just how amazing this could be, and then withholding me experiencing it for a second time. I remember one day just sobbing and saying to God, you gave me this desire. You put it there, and now you're just gonna watch me suffer?
• 17:59
  What kind of a loving father does that? And I didn't hear anything back. Just silence. And that silence nearly undid me. I started to wonder if everything I believed was a lie.
• 18:10
  And not intellectually, I had already been there and done that, but emotionally, experientially. Like, maybe God was real, but he wasn't actually good. Or he was good to other people, but not me. I had to do some serious work during that season, work on my own heart because I realized something that I didn't wanna see. My envy wasn't just about wanting a baby.
• 18:31
  It was about what I believed I was owed. I know. That sounds super harsh, and I'm not shaming myself. Just hear me out. Timothy Keller talks about this.
• 18:40
  How envy is actually a worship disorder. It's when something other than God becomes your ultimate thing. The thing you believe you need to be happy. When you don't get it, you don't just feel sad. You feel like life has no meaning, like God has failed you.
• 18:55
  There's a passage in Psalm 73 where the writer is furious that the wicked prosper while he suffers. And he stays angry until he enters the sanctuary of God. And then something shifts. His perspective gets reordered. He realizes that God himself is his portion, not the stuff that God gives, but God.
• 19:15
  That reordering didn't happen overnight for me. It happened slowly, painfully, through a lot of tears and journal entries and angry prayers. And I find this comforting. Do you know that over half of the 150 Psalms are laments? That means the majority of the prayer book that God gives us is people crying out in pain, confusion, and anger.
• 19:37
  If that wasn't permission, I don't know what is. David wrote things like, how long, oh lord? Will you forget me forever? And why do you hide yourself in times of trouble? Talk about unpolished.
• 19:49
  That's not everything's fine. I'm fine. I'll be fine. That's raw. And crying out to God even in anger, even in confusion, even when it feels like he's not there, that is faith.
• 20:01
  You don't cry out to someone you've given up on. You don't cry out to someone you don't even believe exists. You cry out because you still believe that person can help even when you can't feel The Psalms became my safe place to bring my whole self during that season and not just the grateful parts, but just all of it. And eventually, things got even more complicated because we felt led, and I mean led, to pursue IVF. And that decision terrified me.
• 20:29
  It was not the direction I thought this was gonna go in with the infertility because being a pro life Christian navigating the infertility world in Los Angeles is not for the faint of heart because I have real convictions, strong ones. And I had to figure out how to honor those while also pursuing the family that I longed for. So that required another level of trust. I remember sitting across the desk from the doctor who ended up finally getting me pregnant with our twins, and I told him exactly how many embryos he was allowed to fertilize. And let's just say he was not thrilled with me, but I didn't care.
• 21:04
  I had to be able to live with myself. And you know what? Navigating the infertility world as a pro life Christian prepared me for something that I didn't expect. I can now handle any troll on the Internet, honestly. There's that.
• 21:16
  But I've learned to sit with people just not respecting me at all, thinking that I'm stupid, disagreeing with me, and figuring out how to find a way forward in that. Now we did have more children, obviously. I have four children now. No. Not on my timeline and not the way expected.
• 21:34
  And I'm not gonna pretend that grief just evaporated when I finally held my twin babies. Some of it did. I all of a sudden got really busy, that's for sure, and distracted. But some of it stayed because grief doesn't work on a simple math equation either. And I wanna be careful here because I know some of you are still waiting.
• 21:52
  Some of you have one child, and that may be all you ever have. Some of you have none. And I don't wanna stand here with my four kids and tell you that it all works out. No. I don't know your story, and I'm not God.
• 22:03
  But what I can tell you is this. I read a book during that season by Jerry Sitzer called When God Doesn't Answer Your Prayer. And there was this line in there that wrecked me, and he said, God cannot be controlled, but can be trusted. I actually pulled this book out. I have two copies.
• 22:20
  I always have an extra copy of this book in my bookshelf upstairs. I never know when a friend is gonna need it. And in preparing for this show, I actually read the beginning of it again. I started crying, and then I also listened to a podcast that he was on, and I just cried my way through that too. This man has helped me so much because he helped me reckon with the fact, and God used him in this way that I had to decide if I believed that, not just intellectually, but with my life.
• 22:47
  And one Saturday morning, I remember this so vividly. I was just in the depths of despair, and I remember this so clearly. I was alone in the house, and I just cried out to God. Alright. I'm gonna choose to trust you even though I don't understand.
• 23:02
  Even though this doesn't feel fair. Even though I'm so angry at you. I have to trust you. I have no other choice. I'm gonna stake my life on your word, that you are good and that you do see me.
• 23:14
  That Romans eight twenty eight is true even when I can't see how. And that was the turning point. Not getting pregnant, not getting what I finally wanted, not the positive test, but the decision to trust. Because I was in a moment where my timing was not matching up with God's timing. It felt like a cruelty, but it's not.
• 23:34
  It's mystery. I think that's the better word for it. And mystery isn't the same as abandonment. And I've had a lot of hard things happen in my life since then. And I hope, I pray that my battle tested maturity has grown into something closer to real acceptance.
• 23:49
  Not resignation though. Not at all. Acceptance. Because acceptance implies trust. Right?
• 23:55
  Just a release, a relinquishing. And at least for me, and I have a feeling other people too, that trust gets built in the dark. Not when everything makes sense, but when nothing does, and you choose to believe anyway. So why didn't I walk away from my faith at that time? I've thought a lot about this.
• 24:14
  And I think the answer is I had nowhere else trustworthy to go and not in a way where it's like, well, God's the only thing I have, so I'll just believe him. Not like that. Because that's not freedom. That's just feeling trapped. It was more of a you have the words of life.
• 24:31
  Where else should you go kind of way? Because here's what I started to understand during those dark seasons. And it's not comfortable. So stay with me. Life can hurt so badly that God seems absent or worse, cruel, like I said before.
• 24:45
  Like, he's watching you suffer and doing nothing, and that you know he could fix it, but he's not or he won't. And we have to endure so much in this life. Loss, betrayal, bodies that break down, dreams that don't happen, job loss, child loss, prayers that just bounce off the ceiling. But here was a really hard thing to take in, and I'm almost scared to say it because I don't want it misconstrued because this is the last thing I wanna do is to shame anybody, but it's a truth that I've come to accept that I actually find comfort in. And here it is.
• 25:18
  Okay? We aren't owed a good life. Does that sound harsh? For some reason, it does, but then it also doesn't because it's the key to the peace that I finally found. If I believe that I'm owed good things, a healthy baby, a smooth marriage, a life that goes according to plan, then I will always be miserable because life will disappoint me.
• 25:40
  And it already has and it will again. So where do we find peace? Where do we find contentment? Well, obviously not in circumstances. Right?
• 25:48
  It can't be. Circumstances shift and they betray you. But the Bible does promise peace. Right? And what I realized is that our souls are designed to need God, not what we want in this life circumstantially, and only God satisfies.
• 26:04
  And I'm gonna quote Timothy Keller again. I don't know because he's been pivotal in my life. But he says in his book, and I'll grab it right here, a reason for God. He says, if you have a God great enough and powerful enough to be mad at for the tragedies of this world, then you also have a God great enough and powerful enough to have good reasons for allowing them. Reasons you can't know.
• 26:28
  And I didn't know those reasons, and I was mad. And I told God exactly what I thought. So if you're in a hard season right now, if you're grieving loss, if life isn't turning out how you expected it to be, if you have a child with some serious diagnoses and the future doesn't look bright right now, I'm not gonna tell you that it's all gonna work out. I can't tell you that, and I don't know that. But what I can tell you is that there's a comfort in surrender.
• 26:54
  We exhaust ourselves trying to control outcomes, trying to make this life go the way that we planned it to be. And the striving itself is its own version and kind of suffering, and it actually robs you from living the life now that you want. If you're constantly living in the future and striving after what you want, you're not living life right now. But when you finally let it go, when you stop white knuckling your plans and fall into the hands of God or maybe just crush into his lap like my daughters do when life is just so overwhelming, there's rest there. And when I reflect back, I realized that's why he gave us himself a rock.
• 27:32
  And can I tell you something? I think that we've made, at least I have, made doubt the enemy in my past. Like, you question your failing, like, real faith means certainty all of the time. Don't go there. Don't start thinking about that.
• 27:45
  Right? But that's not what I see in scripture. Jacob wrestled with God all night and walked away with a limp and a blessing. David screamed at the heavens. Job demanded answers.
• 27:55
  These aren't people who had it all figured out. These are people who refuse to let go. Wrestling with God isn't the opposite of faith. It might be the deepest expression of it. You don't wrestle with someone you've walked away from.
• 28:08
  You wrestle because you're still holding on. And I know right now in today's culture, there's even a whole TikTok culture about this. There's a lot of people leaving their faith right now. And the word that they're using is deconstructing, and a lot of people are doing it. And I'm not here to judge anybody's journey.
• 28:25
  I don't know what their experiences are, what hurt them, what doubts they're having, what they're not able to reconcile. But I'm not gonna be mean to them. I'm gonna give them space. And here's what I will say too. There's difference between a path that leads you away from God and wrestling with what leads you deeper.
• 28:41
  The first one ends with walking away, and the second one ends with a limp and a blessing. A faith that's been tested, a faith that's not just inherited, it's yours. You've met with God himself. So if you're in a season right now of questioning, if your faith feels shaky, if you're not sure what you believe anymore, I'm not gonna tell you to just push that down. I want you to bring all of that to God, All of it.
• 29:04
  The doubts, the anger, the confusion, the questions. He's not afraid of them. He's big enough to handle it all. And on the other side of that wrestling, you might not have all the answers, but you might have something better. A faith that no one can take away from you.
• 29:19
  Alright. When we come back, I'm bringing this home what I want you to walk away with today, plus a quote that's carried me through some really dark nights. Stick around. Is your child struggling with attention, memory, reading, writing, or math? If you're experiencing this, you know how heart wrenching it is to watch them face these hurdles.
• 29:36
  You've poured love, time, and attention into their education, yet the struggle persists, leaving you feeling stuck and desperately searching for answers. You guys, I want you to know about LearningRx, a proven program designed to help your child's cognitive skills, enabling them to think faster, learn more easily, and perform at their best. I'm talking getting real long term help here with things like ADHD and dyslexia. LearningRx is backed by thirty five years of research, and their results are transformative. Use code HOME 50 for $50 off your cognitive skills assessment.
• 30:08
  Go to learningrx.com or click the link in the show notes. Think homeschooling means doing it all yourself? Let me stop you right there. If you're looking for a partner you can trust, one I trust with my own kids, check out True North Homeschool Academy. They're Cognia accredited and offer live online classes and flexible self paced options for grades six through 12.
• 30:29
  Your teen can pursue a dual degree track or a tech and trades diploma, all with teachers who share your family values. Small classes, college ready rigor, real world skills, and it all fits your schedule in a faith friendly environment. Ready to learn more? Head to true north homeschool.academy or click the link in the show notes to explore courses and get started today. Alright.
• 30:52
  So where does this leave us right now? I almost walked away from my faith twice, once because my head couldn't make it make sense, and once because my heart couldn't take the pain. And I stayed, not because I got the answers. I stayed because I found something better than the answers. I found a God that could handle my questions, my anger, and my grief.
• 31:12
  Maybe you're in a season right now where God feels distant or absent. Maybe you're angry. Maybe you're not sure what you believe anymore. Bring all of it to him. He's not fragile, and neither is your faith even when it feels like it is.
• 31:25
  And here's our quote of the week. It's Psalm thirty four eighteen. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Close, not distant, not disappointed in you. Close.
• 31:38
  Of course, you can jot this little verse down on a note card yourself, but I've made it in a pretty little package for you, totally free. It's something you can stick on your coffee pot, your bathroom mirror, or your car dashboard. Somewhere, you'll see it on a hard day and you need the reminder. So a link for that is right in the show notes. You can just download that and print it in the next thirty seconds if you want.
• 31:58
  And I wasn't planning on talking about this today, but it's a point that I really wanna make. Part of what got me through that season with infertility was believing the Bible was true because I knew that if the bible was actually true, then I had to believe everything in it. So I did dabble into apologetics and the truth of scripture and is it God breathed, and that really helped me a lot. And I came to the conclusion that the Bible is true, and if it is true, then I have to reckon with what it says in there, which means I have to believe its promises. And I can't believe that wasn't in my notes, but maybe you need to hear that today.
• 32:32
  That really did help me. And remember, you're just joining today and you're like, woah, this is deep. This is part of a series and you just listened to part four. The first three, I think are just as raw. The first one I talked about what homeschooling really looks like in my house when things are falling apart.
• 32:48
  The second was why we left a particular church. We blew up our lives, knew we were doing it, and had a season of loneliness afterwards. That's some story. And then the show after that is why we left authoritarian parenting. I'm gonna put the link to all those shows in the show notes so you can get caught up if you want to.
• 33:05
  Oh, and before I go, I almost forgot to mention this. If you're feeling like you need more support on your homeschooling journey, not just random internet advice anymore, but real guidance, real training, real access to experts, and healthy community, that's exactly what we built in Thrive Homeschool Community. I wanna say it's nationwide, but it's actually worldwide, and it's an online community with a surprising amount of intimacy if you want it. You can DM our mentors directly, jump on live coaching calls, and get the support you need to lead your homeschool with confidence. Because you are the secret sauce to your kid's education, and your kids deserve a well trained mama.
• 33:44
  The doors to thrive aren't always open, so please get on the wait list because that's the only way to guarantee your spot. And we open early to waitlisters, and that link is in the show notes. And next week, because we have two more episodes left in this series, I'm gonna talk about what it was like becoming Christy Faith because it came with a lot of joy and cool new experiences, but it also came with some grief. And you're like, Christy, your series is so depressing. Yeah.
• 34:09
  I I give a pretty contemplative I think grief is something to embrace in the Christian life and always be thinking about, but also holding joy at the same time. So am I depressing? I don't know. I'm also encouraging. I wanna be encouraging.
• 34:27
  I love my life. I love my family. I love my kids. I love what I'm doing with you every day, but I'm also not gonna just brush aside hardship and ignore it because that's choosing not to learn from it. Right?
• 34:39
  So that show is gonna be a little bit different. And please know that I wanna hear from you. I went deep today. Would you too? I wanna hear your actual story.
• 34:47
  Someone in Thrive listened to my podcast last week and she shared a really long post that I appreciated so much because I felt seen, heard, and not so alone. And that's what I want for you too. So tell me, have you deconstructed? Did you end up walking away or did you stay? What do you wish I talked about today that I didn't?
• 35:04
  What did I miss? And what season are you in right now? What's helping you hold on? If you have wisdom to share, please share it. Someone listening needs to hear it.
• 35:13
  And please know more than anything that if you're struggling, you're safe here. I'm not here to judge your doubts or fix your faith. I'm here because we need each other, and we don't need to feel alone. And as always, you can email me. Every email is read.
• 35:26
  Thank you for being here. I'll see you next week.