The Deepest Stream

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

—Psalm 42:7

The years when I fought to find my place in the Christian world made me believe in the journey and respect it, the way you respect deep water if you’ve ever swam out too far and been surprised by the waves. I know what that journey can do in people, what it did in me, and I don’t take it lightly. I have scars and memories from that season that are very sobering. They remind me how dangerous that path is—and how beautiful. I loved those years.

Along the way, I’ve collected more questions than answers, but I’ve fought for a few ideas that have formed a bed I can rest on, a life I can make peace with, a dream I can cling to. I’m not a doctrinarian, because doctrine is not the thing that God has used to change my life. I’m a reader and a storyteller, and God chose literature and story and poetry as the languages of my spiritual text. To me, the Bible is a manifesto, a guide, a love letter, a story. To me, life with God is prismatic, shocking, demanding, freeing. It’s the deepest stream, the blood in my veins, the stories and words of my dreams and my middle-of-the-night prayers.