What Do You Want to Carry Forward?

Grief and Freedom in Faith Deconstruction

If you’ve found yourself here, there’s a good chance life has taken a turn you didn’t expect. Perhaps you’re carrying questions you never imagined you’d ask. Perhaps the faith that once gave shape to your life no longer fits. Or maybe you’re trying to make sense of what comes next after letting go of beliefs that once felt certain.

If any of that’s true for you, I’m glad you’re here.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of walking alongside many people whose faith was changing. While every story has been unique, one question has surfaced again and again. Surprisingly, it isn’t, “What do I believe now?” but “Why is it so hard to let go?”

We often call this process “faith deconstruction,” but if I’m honest, that term has never fully captured my own experience. Deconstruction sounds methodical, like it’s a carefully planned project. For me, it felt much more like an unraveling. Once things began to unravel, it became difficult to know what would hold and what would continue to come undone. There was very little about it that felt orderly. Perhaps that’s true for you, too.

One of the metaphors I often use is that our former faith can feel “sticky.” Even after we’ve let go of certain beliefs intellectually, they often leave behind a residue in unexpected ways. Old fears can resurface. Guilt can linger long after we’ve stopped believing the message that created it. At other times, a familiar hymn, prayer, or ritual may still feel comforting. Or not. When I describe faith as “sticky,” clients almost always smile or nod; they know exactly what I mean.

Sometimes we joke that what we really need is some spiritual Goo Gone. We laugh, but underneath the humor is a genuine longing to loosen the grip of beliefs that no longer serve us—beliefs that deserve to be questioned, messages that no longer fit, and wounds that deserve the chance to heal.

Working with grief has changed the way I think about faith transitions. Again and again, I’ve watched people discover that, over time, they develop a different relationship with someone they love who has died. They carry forward what was meaningful while allowing themselves to continue growing and changing. I wonder if something similar can happen in a faith transition.

For many years, my faith wasn’t just a set of beliefs—it shaped my work, my community, and my identity. I spent decades in church leadership, including seven years as a staff pastor. So when things began to unravel, I wasn’t just questioning what I believed; I was reexamining my entire way of being.

There was a time when I had to burn it all down. Looking back, I don’t think there was another way for me; I needed that season. Whenever people asked me what I believed, my honest answer was, “I have no idea. It’s all a giant question mark.”

Over time, I realized I didn’t want to erase every part of my story. There were beliefs I was grateful to leave behind, and there are still questions I can’t answer. But there was one principle I knew I wanted to carry with me: love your neighbor as yourself. Whether those words are sacred teaching or simply a good way to move through the world, they still sound like a foundation worth keeping to me.

That was my journey. Yours may look entirely different.

One of the questions I’ve found most helpful is this: What, if anything, do you want to carry forward? I love that because it doesn’t assume there’s a right answer. It simply creates space to notice what still feels meaningful.

For some people, the answer may be “nothing.” For others, it may be a value, a practice, a song, or a way of moving through the world. For many people, the answer changes over time. All of those responses deserve respect.

What matters most isn’t what you choose—it’s that you discover the freedom to choose.

Learning to trust your own discernment can feel both freeing and unsettling, especially if you’ve spent years in a faith system where something outside yourself—perhaps a sacred text as it was interpreted for you, a pastor, or a faith community—determined what was true, what was acceptable, and which questions could be asked. It takes time to recognize that your own capacity for discernment is trustworthy after years of being taught otherwise.

Perhaps that’s one reason faith deconstruction can feel so much like grief. We aren’t only grieving what we’ve lost, though that is often a large part of the experience. We’re also grieving the years we spent not knowing we had permission to question, to trust our own discernment, or to find our own way. Grief and freedom may seem like unlikely companions, but in my experience they often travel together.

Wherever you are on this journey, I hope you’ll be gentle with yourself. Healing invites you to understand your story with honesty and compassion and then, in your own time, decide what you want to carry forward.

If you’d like someone to walk alongside you…

If you’re weary of feeling like you have to defend your questions or explain your journey, I’d be honored to offer you a different kind of space. Therapy with me is a place where curiosity is welcome, grief is treated with compassion, and you have the freedom to discover what is true for you. I won’t tell you what you should believe or where your journey ought to go. What I will do is offer a space where your questions are taken seriously, your experiences are treated with respect, and your own capacity for discernment is trusted.

You don’t have to arrive with your beliefs sorted out or your path clearly defined; we’ll begin right where you are. If that sounds like the kind of conversation you’ve been longing for, I invite you to schedule a free 15-minute online consultation. We’ll spend a few minutes getting to know one another and see whether working together feels like the right next step.