"The spiritual territory here is uncharted and sometimes frightening. Perhaps you tool a wrong turn to arrive at such a place. You don't know what else lurks in the darkness. As on friend said, 'Suddenly, I realized that if the things feared had happened, then almost anythings else was possible, too. I no longer felt safe.'
"Can't I just return to the days when faith seemed sure and simple? Can't I just go back to where I was? These are natural question to ask. We long for a Bible study or spiritual retreat or earnest effort or something that promises that old certainty. We long for farther to lose its tentative feel--to cease to feel like faith.
"There is no going back, though,. Our manageable belief system no longer works so well. The walls of the box begin to crumble. God often seems strangely absent, as though He has left us on our own to sort things our. Yet, in reality, what we are experiencing is this pain and confusion of letting go, not of God, but of the safe, secure, confines we built to house our concept of Him. God is not a concept of Him. God is not a concept to be mastered. a set prescription we can control. He shows Himself to be much different that we thought--more loving, more exacting, more faithful."
(Paula Rinehart, The Cleavers Don't Live Here Anymore)
