Dear One:
If you have been given this book, there is a good chance someone in your life has lost their religion. Maybe you go to church alone now. Maybe you are very brave and solo parent during the fellowship hour, attempting small talk while your unsupervised kids eat too many Oreos. Perhaps people ask about your absent spouse or child or friend, and at first you make excuses: “Peter is sick. Jenny has homework. Chris is traveling.” After a month of Sundays, you become blunt: “Peter is an atheist now. Jenny is exploring Buddhism. Chris is not interested in church.” The church people give you a sad look. Sometimes they whisper platitudes: “Give him time,” or “She’ll come around. I’ll be praying for her.” Their eyes go soft with pity. They twist their napkins into little snakes.
If the person you married is the one whose faith changed, I am here to say you’re not alone. What the church people don’t tell you is that, in any marriage, the person you wed will not be the same person you wake up with in five years, nor the same person who brings you coffee in fifteen years. That, in itself, of course, is not a bad thing—you imagine your partner will pick up an interesting new hobby (kitesurfing! CrossFit!). What you don’t imagine is that one day your spouse will look you dead in the eye and say, “I don’t believe in God anymore.” Your husband was supposed to start kickboxing, get wrinkles, lose his hair, change careers. The premarital counseling didn’t warn you that this might be coming, that your deep, shared spiritual reservoir might be siphoned off. Or rather, that he would close off his access, fill in the well, walk away from the tradition of looking and seeking and praying and joining with all the other tired sinners who are desperate for hope.
Sometimes relationships don’t survive these kinds of changes. But it is possible that the vows, even ones made in the name of the God that one of you no longer believes in, can still hold. That even if he leaves God, God won’t leave him. And that even if the vows eventually do break, that God will never leave you.
So here is my promise. This book will not save your marriage or convert your loved one; it will not offer certainties or platitudes. Instead, this book will offer my experience of faith after life veered wildly off course. It will testify to a God who is good, who blesses believers and agnostics alike.
I hope it keeps you company on your journey.
Love,
Stina