Religion

Talkin' To Jesus

Religion is supposed to be about belief.

About certainty.
About trust in something bigger than yourself.

I used to have that.

I called myself a Non-Denominational Christian.
I believed there was a God,
without question, without proof, without needing anything more.
It was just something I knew.

I didn’t worship regularly.
I wasn’t perfect.
But I believed.

And then, slowly,
without any big tragedy,
without any single moment,
the doubt started creeping in.

What if there isn’t a God?

The question didn’t feel like rebellion.
It felt like betrayal.
Like I was betraying my childhood self, the girl who prayed so easily, who never once thought her voice wasn’t heard.

I kept trying to pretend.
I went to church.
I joined the membership rolls.
I had my kids baptized.
I bowed my head at the right moments.

I kept playing the part,
hoping that if I acted like a believer long enough,
maybe I’d become one again.

But no matter how hard I tried,
the doubt wouldn’t leave.

Christians would say it’s the devil leading me away.
Athiests would say it’s growing up.
Maybe, it’s just wisdom that there’s no way to really know.

I don’t know what it is.

I just know that now,
when I sit in church,
I still cry sometimes,
not because I feel the Holy Spirit rushing through me,
but because I miss believing in something that easily.

The stories still move me.
The sermons still make me think.
But I don’t know if I’m being reached by God,
or if I’m just reaching for something I can no longer feel.

I think about my kids, baptized under a God I’m no longer sure about.
I think about how I wanted so badly to give them something steady,
even if my own faith was splintering.

I wonder if someday they’ll stand where I am now,
caught between hope and doubt,
trying to remember what it felt like to be certain.

My religion these days is simpler:
kindness.
love.
writing things down so I don’t lose myself completely.

I don’t know if there’s a Heaven.
I don’t know if prayers are heard.
I don’t know what waits after this life.

But I do know that trying to love people better,
trying to be softer,
trying to survive the grief and the doubt and the anger,
that’s a kind of faith, too.

It’s messy.
It’s imperfect.
But it’s real.

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This piece reimagined as a song using Suno (lyrics are mine).

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Lyrics:

Verse 1
I spent a lot of years not listening
To Sunday words or saints or hymns
Figured heaven stayed far away
From the kind of life I’ve made

I told myself I didn’t need it
Mercy was just a story told
But some nights get so heavy
Even doubt begins to fold

Chorus
Spent years hearin’ them sayin’
A girl like me should be prayin’
But I couldn’t end a thought in amen
Til life brought me to my knees again

They say even when you don’t believe
You’ll talk to God in your time of need
And I guess that’s where I’m standing now
Somewhere between the plea and the doubt

I keep staring at the sky
Sayin’ I don’t need this
And I don’t know what to do
So I start talking to Jesus

Verse 2
I never learned the right way
To fold my hands and bow my head
All I know is broken words
And things I probably shouldn’t have said

But if mercy’s in the business
Of finding hearts that lost their way
Maybe even stubborn souls
Still get heard when they pray

Chorus
Spent years hearin’ them sayin’
A girl like me should be prayin’
But I couldn’t end a thought in amen
Til life brought me to my knees again

They say even when you don’t believe
You’ll talk to God in your time of need
And I guess that’s where I’m standing now
Somewhere between the plea and the doubt

I keep staring at the sky
Sayin’ I don’t need this
And I don’t know what to do
So I start talking to Jesus

Bridge
Maybe faith is just a whisper
You remember when you’re weak
And the God you kept denying
Is the one you start to seek

Final Chorus
Spent years hearin’ them sayin’
A girl like me should be prayin’
But I couldn’t end a thought in amen
Til life brought me to my knees again

They say even when you don’t believe
You’ll talk to God in your time of need
And I guess that’s where I’m standing now
Somewhere between the plea and the doubt

When the sky clears
I’ll say I don’t need this
Til life gets hard again
And I’m talkin’ to Jesus

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Author’s Note:

The first part of this piece was written more than ten years ago as an essay for a college class I only took for a semester. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time.

The lyrics came much later, and not as an adaptation of that essay. I wrote them recently, just based on what I’m going through right now. Different time, different version of me, but somehow when I put them side by side, they felt like they were having the same conversation.

I wouldn’t call myself religious anymore. There was a time when I was. I believed easily, without question, without proof, without needing anything more. It was just something I knew.

Now, it’s not that simple.

But in life’s hardest moments, like the ones I’m in right now, I still find myself reaching for something. Or someone. Almost instinctively. And whether that comes from conditioning, hope, or something deeper, it has led me back to God, I am not sure I even believe in.

I don’t know what that makes me. Honest. A hypocrite. Maybe both.

What I do know is that I’m not alone in it. A lot of people I talk to seem to live in that same in-between space, where faith isn’t steady, but it isn’t gone either.

The essay and the song weren’t written together.
But they tell the same truth.

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