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Angela Bucher

finding freedom from religion through deconstruction and motherhood

How To Walk Away From Toxic Religion

deconstuction· Healing

This is by far my most terrifying post to date. These are the things I’ve wanted to say, but haven’t been ready to do so until now. I haven’t written in months because I just can’t find the words. Maybe it’s not the words so much but the courage. The courage to be vulnerable with an often cruel group of people.

have I lost my faith or found it?

What has happened to your faith, Angie? It’s a question I hear often. While others whisper and misunderstand where I am now and how I got here, I fully trust this process that I have undergone. I may have left Christianity behind, but my faith feels more sound than ever. Deconstructing and dismantling everything we so desperately cling to is part of magic of letting go of our need for control.

Will I ever go back to the community that once felt so safe and secure? I’m not sure. I am enjoying the newfound wide-open spaces, places, and people that I am finding and meeting out here in my desert wandering. We may wonder what can possibly grow in the desert, but the desert blooms with life that’s resilient and overflowing.

I had forgotten the world I’d been taught was lost and wicked was actually beautiful.

People deemed lost outside the church are just as forgiving, light-bearing, and caring. Sometimes even more so because they have fewer judgments.

I’m increasingly disheartened by the way the church treats those who disagree with their theology, as though what we believe is far more important than how well we love.

I don’t want to be told who gets to be a Christian and who doesn’t as though we have all the answers and hold the keys to heaven.

how to walk away from dead religion

lonely spaces are often met with divine graces

This has been an incredibly hard and lonely journey only because those who don’t understand have stood in great opposition to my newfound freedom. It hasn’t been easy carving my own path through the world, letting Spirit guide me into unknown teritory. Long-held relationships have become strained and awkward. Even my husband struggles to understand at times. If I’m being honest, maybe I don’t understand it all myself. The beauty and growth come in the stretching though.

I want faith and a life that’s robust, honest, and inclusive.

I want to hand my girls a faith that’s full of freedom and choices more than rules and other’s voices.

I want them to see beauty in every individual that has been made in the likeness of life’s great Creator, without conditions.

who i am

My struggle, at times, has been vilifying those who still act as the gatekeepers to a faith that is wide open and welcoming. I’ve felt abandoned and misunderstood by those who loved me when I believed what I was taught to believe. What I believe should have very little to do with why I am loved. At times that unhealed wound has festered and spilled out onto the pages of my social media and even close loved ones.

There have been days that I just want to burn it all to the ground, match in hand, douse it with gasoline.

So the question becomes, how do I allow love and compassion to lead me even in difficult places? It helps to remember that I too was once a gatekeeper, holding tightly to my theological beliefs, at the expense of curiosity and understanding. Learning to let go of all judgments isn’t always easy.

I don’t want to be loved because I believe in the right things. I want to be loved for my heart, for my compassion and empathy. I’ve had to forgo one in pursuit of the other.

I also no longer desire to base my love on other’s beliefs, ideologies, or differences. I want my love to be without an agenda, allowing people the same freedom that I am experiencing. The freedom to be imperfectly human.

the courage to be different

Each of us has a special and unique path to walk. I want to honor them all! I want to live without fear of the “other”. There’s beauty, magic, and wonder in surrendering the need to know it all. I’m following my heart into the great unknown, fully assured that the divine is with me wherever I go.

If you find yourself traversing the same zig zag path as I am, with more questions than actual answers, you’re not alone in your journey. Welcome to the wide open spaces of unknowing.

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Hello, I’m Angela!


I have known great suffering in this world, but I have also experienced true and lasting joy.

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An author by accident🔹Redeeming Destiny: Dancing Into Unexpected Truth🔸There’s buried treasure in our messes...

Angela Bucher


Not sure who said this but if I did I’d give cre
Not sure who said this but if I did I’d give credit. Still genius. I’ve been both. Used to be full of toxicity. Not any more. Conserving my energy for greater things!

I don’t know why this is so funny. Maybe because
I don’t know why this is so funny. Maybe because I didn’t get it at first, but once someone explained it... like I can’t stop laughing. Ten minutes after... eye watering laughter. This can’t be real can it?

Everything we need to know about life, we can lear
Everything we need to know about life, we can learn from a toddler. 
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Hell hath no fury like a toddler scorned. 
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Not even kidding. For 45 minutes she screamed with all the fury her little body could hold, she threw things, she writhed and rolled and flailed about. 
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During her meltdown I was thinking, wow this is a whole lot of negative energy being put out into the world. Once the raging storm subsided though, I was overwhelmed with gratitude that all that energy didn’t stay stuck inside her little body. She instinctually knows how to get it all out and she wasn’t stopping until her body was spent. 
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Rewind six years and my oldest often did the same but was met with my own intense rage, using the fear of punishment to regain or maintain control. The difference between the two is palpable. 
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I can’t help but think that toddlers hold all the secrets to living life completely in touch with their emotional bodies. 
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When we punish ourselves or attempt to suppress our own emotions, we inevitably do the same with our kids, but I’ve learned the more we allow ourselves and others to feel, the more we heal. ❤️
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#motherhood #motherdaughter #healthyself #motherwound #toddlers #toddlertantrums #emotionalregulation #selfregulation #emotionsmatter #energy #energyiseverything #daughterlove #daughters #healthymom #nomorepunishment

The best thing that has ever happened to me is mot
The best thing that has ever happened to me is motherhood. 
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Currently sandwiched between my two spitfires. In walks lily, ever grounding, between the two. 
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As we lay here I can’t help but think about all that each of these beautiful souls have taught me in how to be a better human. 
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Abby(oldest)...at six years old no longer excepting an apology from me for my out of control rage, because I was just “going to do it again.” In that moment she lit a flame that’s continued to burn towards healing and wholeness. 
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Lily... who melted into tears at the first sound of a raised voice, which in turn melted my own hardened heart into softness. 
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Shiloh... full of fire and fearless because, well, by the third I’ve learned some things about my own trauma, triggers, and still unhealed places. 
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Each kid has had a very different mother, but all three have taught me more than anything how to love better. They’ve shown me all the places that still haven’t healed and even as i work towards wholeness, they too become more whole humans that hopefully won’t have to unravel as much as I’ve had to. 
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Let your kiddos teach you all the wisdom their little uncaged souls already know...
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#momsofinstagram #momssupportingmoms #motherdaughter #motherwounded #motherhoodunplugged #kidshavewisdom #healing #healingjourney #daughterlove #daughtersarethebest #daughters

Strawberry, blueberry, banana @kachavatribe shake.
Strawberry, blueberry, banana @kachavatribe shake. Y’all this is the only way to start your day. I’m not kidding when I say this is packed with all things healthy and good!

It’s time... time to move forward, to start drea
It’s time... time to move forward, to start dreaming of and then creating the life I’m meant to live. 
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It’s been a long journey through narrow valleys, wondering if I’d ever make it to the base of the mountain, let alone the long climb to the top. 
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I’ve been looking in the review mirror for three years, uncovering layers of hidden baggage that I’ve packed around for most of my life. 
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I’ve unraveled all the stories that have kept me stuck. Trauma, shame, abandonment, religion.  Releasing it all, surrendering to the process, and trusting the unfolding. 
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If you’re in the beginning stages of your healing process and it still feels like too much, too hard, too painful... don’t give up. 
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You’re worth it. This one beautiful life we live is worth it. One day you’ll breathe a deep sigh of relief as you realize you made it through. 
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Healing is messy. It’s not pretty.  When you climb out of the valley and you get to the base of that mountain, turning your gaze upwards, finally believing you have what it takes to make it to the top, there’s nothing on earth quite like it, except maybe the view expanding out before you after you climb that last little trek. 
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For a once drug addicted, lost, and wandering around wounded human to be standing where I am now is beyond me, but if I can do it anyone can and today I’m just so filled with gratitude...
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#gratitude #healing #healingjourney #beautiful #breathe #breathedeeply #connected #heartcentered #addiction #yourenotbroken #writerofig #writerlife #wordsarepower #walkinghomeless


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