John 8:31-32 (NIV): If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
Quick disclaimer, restated at the end as well:
This blog was hard to write, and I know some people in my life might find it hard to read. If you have the time, please read this whole post. If you happen to have a negative comment in mind, please just keep it to yourself! Only love here 🙂 But please also know that I am 1000% open to questions, or to continuing this conversation with you! If you want to know more or talk about any of this further, I would be more than happy to share. So don’t hesitate to reach out! Okay now let’s get to it!
This blog is one that I have so badly wanted to write for a LONG time now. It’s one that I held back from posting because I knew it may upset some people in my life. Every time I sat down to work on a blog, I thought about typing this out… and then chose the safe route and picked a different topic instead. But I really don’t want to play it safe anymore, I want to be honest and transparent. My team was also able to speak so much truth into my situation, and together the six of us decided it would be selfish of me not to share this with you. One of them spoke Galatians 1:10 over me (and my response was, laughing through tears, “oh trust me, I know that one all too well”). For over a month I have tried every single day to work on this particular blog, but it seemed impossible. I was hoping there was a way I could share the whole story as best as I could, from training camp until now. But I couldn’t find the words. And honestly, I probably never will have the “right” words, but that doesn’t mean I should just hold back from sharing altogether. Most importantly I am not going to apologize to anyone on behalf of what the Lord is doing in my life.
Galatians 1:10 (NIV): Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
First of all, I recognize that probably about 90% of the people who subscribe to this blog are Catholic, because those are the people I have grown up knowing or living with. I was raised in a pretty strict Catholic-only bubble. I grew up in a Catholic family who went to Catholic Church on Sundays. I attended Catholic schools from kindergarten all the way until I graduated high school. I also attended a Catholic youth group twice a week. I had left the country a few times before and even did a handful of mission trips, but only with my Catholic Church or Catholic school. My friends were from church and school, so everyone I would hang out with was Catholic… you get the idea, it’s literally all I have ever known. My entire life, I only knew God in the context of the Catholic Church… Until the World Race. And stepping out of that bubble changed everything. Suddenly it wasn’t just the culture of my surroundings, it was a choice I had to make for myself, and I was faced with a lot of big questions I didn’t know I would ever have to ask myself.
I’m sure you could guess where I’m going with this by now. I am no longer Catholic, and rather than so may people in my life finding out about this second hand, I want to share just a little bit of my heart with you.
This is a decision that was NOT AT ALL made spontaneously. In fact, I’ve done quite a lot of overthinking through this process haha… Every potential relational consequence, every uncomfortable conversation this transition would warrant. The majority of my friendships at home have revolved around the Catholic church, and I found myself questioning whether any of my relationships would ever be the same. The reality is, probably not. That’s quite a consequence right there. In the year up until I left the States, I had absolutely fallen in love with my new church. It became my home more than my own home was to me. Will I find a church I love that much? The questions kept me awake at night as I navigated all that this could mean.
But then I thought about the consequences if I DON’T do this; if I went home and let everything stay the same. I knew the Lord had been prompting this in my life, and if I didn’t step out of my old ways and into the new, I would be disobeying what He has spoken over me. I began to see that following the Lord in the ways He has asked me to would be so incredibly worth what had to be left behind.
So around Christmas time, I stopped with all the overthinking and committed myself to this; to leaving behind religion, pursuing personal relationship with God as He has designed me to.
On January 1st, I was laying in bed trying to fall asleep, and the Lord put it on my heart to get baptized. I sort of freaked out, because that would be such a huge step for me, but also the perfect way to dive head first into this transition. So on January 16th at our midpoint debrief, I got baptized. It was something I had never gotten to choose for myself, because I was baptized into the Catholic Church as a baby. I mean it when I say it wasn’t anything “special” from the outside looking in; I convinced the front desk worker at a fancy hotel to let us use their hot tub, and my squad mentor Jodi baptized me under bright pink and purple party lights while Spanish music blared through the speakers, and hotel workers watched. It was SO funny. But although it didn’t seem like much, at the same time it was the most special night ever. I had this overwhelming feeling like I was finally getting it right, and I wasn’t afraid of it anymore. I felt free.
(Love you a whole lot Jodes <3)
When I decided I was doing the World Race, I had no idea this was His plan all along. In May I wrote a blog titled “Why I’m going on the World Race.” I had sat with the Lord and asked Him to speak into my “why,” because I had a feeling He had called me for a reason that I couldn’t yet see. If you scroll back and read that blog from May, before I even got to training camp, you would see that these were the exact words that I believe He spoke to me about why He called me to the Race:
-to show you that I am not confined to the box you put Me in. To show you there is so much more to Me and to this life, because growth begins when you step out of the boat.
(I couldn’t see it at the time, but I let religion be that box. I couldn’t see that UNTIL I stepped out of my bubble into the unknown.)
-I want to show you who I am like you’ve never seen Me before.
(He has DEFINITELY shown me SO MUCH MORE of Himself. When I stepped out of my bubble, I realized that my understanding Him and His character was about the size of a PEA. And WOW has He opened my eyes in so many new ways.)
-To show you the bigger picture. So far you have only seen a small piece of who I am and who you are. Trust me, there is much more beyond this leap of faith.
(Do I even need to comment on this one? I mean WOW. He knew He had more for me than what I could see in my circumstances at the time. His Church is bigger than Catholicism, there was so much more for me to learn. There still is. I definitely see the big picture now, and I don’t know how I could ever go back to how things were before after truly grasping the truth of the gospel.)
Isn’t that incredible? Real, undeniable proof that this was His plan for me, before I even knew it myself. Before I even stepped out of the “bubble,” He spoke these words over me. Before I even had a clue what was coming, He showed me He had something greater in store for me this year. And it all unfolded exactly the way He planned it, exactly the way He wanted it too.
Here’s one more thing I want to share: It’s a letter I wrote in my journal a few months ago, addressed to the Catholic Church. This journal entry was a beautiful way for me to process this change, and in sharing it, I hope you can see a reflection of where my heart has been at lately:
Dear Catholic Church,
Before I start, know I still love you. a LOT. You raised me, you helped me meet my Maker. I just believe I was missing a lot when I was so dedicated to you. I had a relationship with you and with rules before I had a relationship with God himself. I missed out on the full and true gospel of Jesus Christ until I realized there was more. There are things I know now, from being immersed in new places and cultures, that I would never have realized if I was still confined by your walls… things I never would have learned from the pew. I am thankful for the role you have played in my ever-growing knowledge of God, but I have come to learn you were part of a process for me, not the end goal.
You are truly so beautiful. Your beauty and reverence will stay with me. There are things I have learned from you that I know I will carry into the rest of my life, no matter where I go. I learned the art of devoting myself to something even when it doesn’t completely make sense. I learned dedication and consistency. But here’s the thing, I want to have a relationship with my Creator, not a church. And I want to grow alongside a community of believers who want this same thing. I want my relationship with God to take precedence over doing the “right things.” I want to please Him, not man. I want to abide by the Word, the TRUTH.
I have direct access to God through Jesus Christ. I am able to boldly approach his throne, with CONFIDENCE, and without mediation from a priest or saints. Because of what Jesus did, the veil has been torn, and I don’t have to go through anyone else to get to Him. He never wanted it that way. Turns out that was the whole point, that I needed Jesus because I COULDN’T uphold a standard of holiness in my own might. I have a PERSONAL relationship with Jesus, and I believe He is the only one, proper object of devotion. Never again do I want to be distracted by the other idols on which I set my gaze.
Above all, I want to be motivated by grace, not guilt. I want to follow freely, and to find freedom IN following. Thank you for kickstarting my faith, I seriously wouldn’t be here without you. But I’m ready for the real thing.
So here’s the thing, I didn’t want to make this blog into a big long list of my reasons why I left the Catholic Church (if you ever want to know, I’d be happy to have a deeper conversation with you). My intention is not to just disprove the Catholic Church or make anyone feel bad about the religion they choose to follow. My goal is in NO WAY to judge or offend anyone, PLEASE know that!!! But if I could share just one thing, something I wish every single person in this world would know, it would be this:
Religion is not the same thing as a relationship with God. Life with Jesus isn’t about checking off the boxes so you can get to Heaven. It’s about living by, and for, His grace. He’s not waiting for you to pray the right words or muster up your own righteousness so that you can spend eternity with Him. Our unbelief is what stands in the way. He doesn’t want me to live in constant fear that maybe I’m “not doing it right.” He is a forgiving God who pours His grace over me, and wants all of me right here right now, just as I am. It’s because of HIS doing, in sending Jesus to make the ultimate sacrifice and flip the script, that I am blameless in His sight. As time went on, the God who was hard to please was replaced by a God who was quick to forgive. That’s the real Jesus right there. To make a SUPER long story short, the gospel is a whole lot simpler than I’ve been taught. I’d love nothing more than to share it with you if you haven’t heard that good news yet.
To be honest, this blog is a LOTTT more vague than I could have made it (I cannot stress that enough lol) but I simply wanted to be open about this, because it has without a doubt been the biggest, most stretching, and most important part of my World Race. And this journey isn’t over, it’s just getting started. And let me be clear when I say this: there is still SO much I don’t know. I still have questions (don’t we all). But that’s okay, I know I’m doing what He has called me to, and I know that’s all that matters. I have no doubt that I will be sharing more about all of this in future blogs, and possibly even going into more detail with certain parts of the story, who knows! If I have learned anything, it’s that I have an incredible opportunity in front of me now: I see my 18 years in the Catholic Church as SUCH a gift. Not only have I learned so much from it, but I can now use the things I’ve learned, and this journey from religion to relationship, to more sensitively explain the gospel to those who haven’t actually heard it or don’t fully accept it.
I may not be Catholic anymore, but this is a decision I made FOR Jesus, not against His Church. Because His Church is a whole lot bigger than Roman Catholicism. This is the strongest my relationship with the Lord has ever been, and I only see it growing stronger from here. No matter where you stand, I hope you can agree that a strong relationship with Jesus is worth it. It’s worth any of the minor consequences, and it’s so worth fighting for. I have never felt this free, I’ve never felt so close to Him, and I’ve never been so sure of the things He is speaking over me and asking me to boldly step into. And that is the only confirmation I really need to know that this was the right choice;
If you have questions, comments, or just want to talk about it/know more about all of this, please reach out! I would absolutely LOVE to chat with you no matter who you are or where you’re at!!! I’m completely open to talking about it as long as YOU are too, but I know that looks different for everyone!
Thanks for reading, it really means more than you know.
Love you all lots!
-Reagan 🙂
Romans 12:2 (TPT): Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes.
