It’s part of my childhood and teen years in a Pentecostal home church and travel worship band, and — while full of morally contemptible commandments, actions, and permissions — I still enjoy many of the poetic and positive verses. I still have my favorite verse (Proverbs 17:17) bookmarked in my scofield reference bible. The same gifted bible that I read and prepared many untold sermons before I started to accept that I was losing my faith. I don’t think people understand just how traumatic that moment is when you have come to the realization that you’ve been questioning it, let alone the heartbreak and fear of finally accepting that you don’t believe in god or that Christianity is, as a whole, a benevolent force in the world.

You become hyper-vigilant and generally anxious around your congregation. Some people start asking if you’re okay and you say your fine or tired and start feeling like garbage for lying to people that have essentially become family. You know that in their heart they are truly worried that you’re sick or spiritually unwell because they love you and not only do you hide behind a feigned smile, you are silently witnessing a crumbling of various bridges after every time the talk of lost souls or backsliders inevitably surfaces. You feel like a fraud while playing for revivals and calling out your usual “amens” and “hallelujahs.” Spending long nights in prayer and wandering about the house and fields because you can’t shake the feeling of betraying your family, friends, and SO. A charlatan. Eventually you stop bolting upright in the night from terrifying images of hell hijacking your sleep even though you don’t believe it anymore.

Reading the Bible is a piece of my childhood, a piece of my first relationship, a source of many strong emotional memories through some of the shittiest years of my life. Just like when I studied the scriptures as I began my way to fulfilling my desire to create messages of peace and love and comfort but instead shedding my faith, rereading the Bible for the above reasons inadvertently reaffirms my lack of belief.