When Leaving Faith Means Finding It Again

Image via KConstantine/shutterstock.com
Image via KConstantine/shutterstock.com

I’ll never forget that conversation: the moment Amy predicted I would walk away from my faith. I was 26 at the time. She, 36. We sat at a rustic seafood restaurant on the beach. I stabbed my blacked salmon salad and chewed long and hard on her words.

“You remind me of myself 10 years ago,” she said.

She had been raised in a deeply religious family, and had been a devout Jew her whole life. Then around her 20s, she gave it all up. By the time I met her in her 30s, she called herself a “lapsed Jew,” disillusioned with the rules, the expectations, the rigorous doctrines.

I was the daughter of missionaries, raised in the Evangelical church, and deeply committed to my relationship with Jesus. Her words scared me. No, no, I prayed quietly. Jesus please don’t let me go.

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An image of the November 2026 issue of Sojourners, titled "Face to Face." It features George Lakey on the cover
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