I am a heretic. I still claim faith, but my beliefs diverge from orthodoxy in many ways. Reaching a point of breaking, it hit me that you can’t make yourself believe things you don’t actually believe, no matter how hard you may try, or how people might want to convince you.

Contemplating fully separating from a belief in God or a divine power, I also realized you can’t not believe what you actually do believe. I believe in God or god, he or her, they, them or it, divine power, entity or energy… I may have ideas about who I believe this power is, but because I am no longer certain, I hesitate to define it, especially just to give others clarity about what I still believe or what I no longer believe. It’s for me to experience, believe, and trust.

When I was still an evangelical Christian, the above paragraph would have seemed not just heretical to me, but apostatic, describing someone who abandons his or her religion entirely. I would have been amazed and surprised that someone who had been so dedicated to church and faith could step so far back as to not know anymore that God is a He.

Yet, here I am. Happily, peacefully moving along in my life. This is really the first time in my life I’ve felt “okay” about myself and this existence on a regular basis. I feel free. I believe. I have faith. It’s mine, though, and I don’t need to tell you all about it, or convince you to agree with me. I have found truth. I’m not sure any more that there is “the truth,” but I have found truth and it’s beginning to set me free. I have become a happy heretic.