When I Couldn’t Say the Name

How My Deconstructing Journey Continues to Transform and Empower Me

A note from me: I often will return to some of my older writings and refresh them for relevance and growth. This blog was written in 2020, and I’m updating it for 2026. This one is especially meaningful because I share an experience that is sacred to me. Reading it now, I can see how I was still heavily influenced by my religious heritage—a heritage whose influence has lessened as I continue my deconstructing. Because I feel it is essential to show my deconstructing journey, I kept the original writing as is and am going to update on a postscript.

[Original writing from 2020]

For years, I couldn’t bring myself to say the Name. I would replace it with the Holy One, Divine, Holy Spirit, Great Source or You Who Are Known By So Many Names But None Captures The Wonder, The Beauty, The Essence Of All That You Are (capitalization intentional, and yes I would really say all of that to avoid saying the Name).

But never would I say the name: God.

I write often about the paradox of deconstructing. My first paradox arrived when I initially left church. The heartache I felt for the community of friends I lost to peace as I turned away from beliefs that I could no longer reconcile with who I was becoming was a constant, exhausting inner battle.

That is the reality of the one deconstructing who decides the risk of the spiritual wilderness is worth it even if the path is not clear.

But the act of leaving church does not negate the years of indoctrination that had been my reality for my entire life. Those beliefs that had been so ingrained in me since childhood. Although my calling to leave was indeed authentic, my understanding of how God connects to “church”—as in humans—meant I believed I had just lost something sacred with no clear direction as to how I now would hear from or be connected to this God.

Swirling within this confusion of who God was and how I would find God in the world was the layers of healing I needed to do from the religious trauma I had endured in my life. This is not something I say lightly, as I am fully aware of what the term “trauma” means. For years, therapists have been doing the work of helping others like me deconstruct from traumatic religious experiences—experiences that left deep wounds in the hearts of those longing for and yet angry at God for having allowed the hurt to happen in a space that should have been safe and loving for all who sat in the pews.

Sadly, however, it is not only unsafe for those who have been hurt by religion, it becomes the paradoxical reality for the one who leaves the church. Church provided a structure—a container that held the sacred experience. Without a clear roadmap to healing and a path to God, it is easy to focus on the negative and blend God with the hurt humans caused.

Knowing that my calling to leave church was from God, I stayed the course and slowly began to navigate my journey to find God in the world and to heal from my religious trauma. That journey found me in seminary, where I came face-to-face with not only how deep the layers went that I needed to peel back in order to find the real me, I discovered how angry I was with this God that I felt had abandoned me when I no longer fit the mold of the ‘good Christian.’

It happened as we spent the afternoon in silence before speaking our vows to our classmates and deans that evening. As I sat on the grass searching for music on my iPhone that would anchor my time in prayer, I scrolled over a playlist I hadn’t heard in five years. Inside that playlist were all the songs that bound me to a time in my life when old-time gospels and contemporary Christian music were the only songs I listened to. Before this moment on the grass, I not only didn’t want to hear these songs, I realized I felt they had been forever lost to me—that somehow leaving church meant I had to leave everything behind.

Now, having sat in silence for hours, looking at those songs’ titles and remembering the love I felt when singing them, the tears began to flow. It was at that moment I realized I had chained God to my hurt. And although I had forgiven the ones who had caused me pain, I still had the loving God I had found in religion bound to the pain. Because there indeed were moments of joy, moments when the Holy Spirit flooded my soul, and moments when I found God in kind and loving humans inside church. My journey through healing had been so focused on forgiveness that I forgot to welcome into my healing the times when religion had gotten it right.

Because those sacred times—when love and joy flowed—had brought me to this moment as much as when the pain and hurt had scarred me. Pressing play on that music, I sat with arms wide to the sky as tears continued to flow. It felt as if God had returned to me, but I realize now God had never left. It was I who had turned away. It was I who somehow believed in a God that was too small, that couldn’t be here with me if I had rejected the church. It was I who didn’t want to be bound to Jesus, even though Jesus had never left my side—even as I navigated life outside of religion.

Moments before I was to take my vows and begin my journey as a minister, I fully embraced my religious heritage, embracing every experience—including the painful ones—as sacred for having brought me to this moment. Because, as I stood in front of my classmates and spoke my vows, I had completed my journey back to God and, with love in my heart and gratitude for the entirety of my life’s story, I took my first step through the sacred portal.

The sacred portal that was to become my ministry had opened.

If my story speaks to you because it reminds you of your own religious trauma, and your path to God is overgrown by the pain caused by humans…

stay here, Beloved. This is where the healing begins. God is waiting. For God never left.

[2026]

I recently shared that I don’t recognize myself in some of my earlier writings, but that’s not quite accurate.

Perhaps it’s the day itself.
It’s early on a Sunday morning.
The house is quiet, and dawn is breaking. I’m hearing the birds awakening. The day is soft and gentle in these hours, and I receive its comfort.

It isn’t just that it’s Sunday nor the daylight brightening the room.
It’s the time of the year.
Sitting in my inbox is the invitation to attend One Spirit Interfaith Seminary’s ordination ceremony that is happening next weekend. I love how they remember us and invite us to celebrate with every year’s outgoing class. Someday I hope to attend. I’m certain the emotions will be strong when I step into Riverside Church and remember my own ordination.

Each year, I pause and remember
Those memories spiral me back to the days in retreat with my fellow seminarians. The swell of emotions as I knew I would never pass this way again. It was indeed a sacred experience—a sacred portal as I described it in 2020.

Reading how my 2020 self described that day of my ordination—there’s nothing I would change. Nothing. I fully expected to cringe and recoil at some of what I wrote in 2020, but I’m being too hard on myself, as usual. That’s a thread that is woven into my entire life—judging the parts where I coulda/shoulda/woulda done this, said that, turned around, or walked away.

But I’m sitting here with a slight grin as I long to reach through the years and hug the Karla sitting on that warm grass. Because what I didn’t have words for at the time was something I shared in my recent writing that was posted on May 24th:

“Then I found One Spirit Interfaith Seminary. I don’t have any other way to say this, other than it felt like ‘coming home.’”

2020 Karla was indeed on her way to spiritual independence, even though those words might have frightened her.
What 2020 Karla didn’t know was that she had indeed come home.

I truly love this for me.

I want to write more about this.

Because there are parts of this writing where asterisks need to be placed.
Places like:

“I had chained God to my hurt.”
“I still had the loving God I had found in religion bound to the pain.”
“It felt as if God had returned to me, but I realize now God had never left. It was I who had turned away. It was I who somehow believed in a God that was too small, that couldn’t be here with me if I had rejected the church. It was I who didn’t want to be bound to Jesus, even though Jesus had never left my side…”

I want to expand on the liberation I’ve had from that language, not because of how I described that moment sitting on the grass in 2017. It’s because my story didn’t end there. It continued to evolve and transform me. Some people look at where I am now and conclude, “how sad” that I have given up on God.

Even 2026 Karla would have terrified the 2020 Karla.

The truth is, however, so much deeper. 2020 Karla had to live through the experiences that were coming. She had to see her family and friends become further entrenched in the bigotry and hatred that is Christian Nationalism. She had to see Project 2025, the very thing she spent years warning people that was coming, begin to tear down the walls that protect our democracy. She had to continue to study and untether from her Christian heritage in order to be spiritually independent and free from rigid dogma. She had to live through painful experiences of loss and sit beside children as they learned the heartbreaking lesson that life doesn’t always work out the way we planned.

2020 Karla wasn’t done deconstructing.
Neither is 2026 Karla.

The major difference between 2020 and 2026 was my belief that 2020 was the end, when it was only my story carrying on.

Someday, I’ll return to this writing, because the part I highlighted above deserves attention. I see where I let Christianity off the hook in my story.

Where I blamed me.

What a good Christian woman I was—never blame the system.

No more.
And I truly love this for me.
Stay tuned…