Reconstructing faith involves some fairly demanding questions. What do I actually believe? Which parts of my religious upbringing helped me grow, and which taught me to fear? What can I carry forward with integrity?
I’ve spent years with those questions. I’ve read widely and looked for answers in all sorts of spiritual traditions. Even when I was unsure what I believed, I still wanted to know what was true.
Reading and examining what I’d been taught helped me make sense of some of my experience. Prayer did something I hadn’t expected. As I began to bring my questions to God, I became more aware of His presence. Praying the Seven Sorrows Chaplet became a turning point.
If you’ve done plenty of deconstructing or spent years looking for answers in different places, you may recognise some of this story.
What Was I Trying to Reconstruct?
An earlier article about the process of reconstruction described my desire to put my faith back together “on my own terms”. I understand why those words mattered to me. After experiences of religious harm, I needed to reclaim my conscience, recognise my own boundaries and recover the ability to trust myself.
In 2020, I realised I had religious trauma to heal from. Trust was the last piece of the jigsaw. I could believe in God’s grace and still find it hard to receive it fully. Over time, prayer helped me trust Him with my life.
There was also grief. Christianity contained things I continued to love, even when I struggled with the ways it had been presented or practised. Mother Mary remained particularly close to my heart. My longing for Christ survived a great deal of questioning.
For a time, Tarot gave me a way to reflect on experiences I found difficult to put into words. I’ve since closed my reading services and set the cards aside. While I recover from hip surgery, I’m giving myself time to pray and discern where Christ is leading me.
Looking back, I can appreciate that stage while recognising how much has changed. I now find myself asking how the freedom I have recovered can become part of a loving, responsive relationship with God.
Intellectual Reconstruction and Re-enchantment
Intellectual reconstruction can give us language for what we believe. We reconsider interpretations of Scripture, examine assumptions about authority and ask whether the image of God we inherited reflects the God revealed in Jesus Christ.
That work is necessary. I am hardly about to campaign against reading books. My bookshelves would consider it a personal betrayal.
Alongside the intellectual process, there is the experience of relationship: becoming aware that God is present, learning to pray honestly and allowing ourselves to receive love. This is where re-enchantment belongs in my understanding of reconstructing faith.
By re-enchantment, I mean awakening to a world alive with God’s presence. Prayer becomes a place of encounter. Scripture speaks into the life I am actually living. Beauty, kindness and the natural world can draw my attention towards their Creator.
The Holy Spirit brings understanding that reaches into how I live. I can recognise something about myself and feel called to respond: to forgive, apologise, ask for help, change direction or serve someone whose needs I have overlooked.
Thinking, experience and prayer can inform one another throughout reconstruction. I can continue asking difficult questions while growing in trust. God’s presence does not have to wait until I have finished my theological homework.
When Prayer Reached Beyond My Arguments
When I began praying the Rosary daily in September, it led me back to Jesus Christ little by little. That same month, I also prayed the Seven Sorrows Chaplet for the first time. Deeply meditating on the suffering of Christ and His Mother made me cry for half an hour. It softened my heart and opened me to surrender.
I have written more about that experience and my daily Rosary practice. Here, what matters is how prayer changed my relationship with the questions I was carrying. I was becoming able to bring them to God and remain in His presence.
I’d spent nearly thirty years going down one rabbit hole after another in search of magic and mystery. The closer I grow to God, the more I recognise that what I was looking for was always in Him and of Him.
I’d also struggled with how divided the churches were. In prayer, that frustration gave way to grief and a desire to love across those divisions. I want to love the whole Body of Christ. I see good in every denomination, and I’m learning to receive what different churches have to offer.
The tears represented a turning point but the quieter days that followed have mattered too. Returning to prayer, reading Scripture and participating in church life have given that initial opening somewhere to grow.
Learning to Surrender While Keeping My Conscience
Surrender can be a difficult word when obedience has been used to silence questions or excuse controlling behaviour. I know why someone rebuilding faith might approach it cautiously.
I am learning to bring my conscience and discernment into surrender. Following Christ involves honesty about what I believe, responsibility for my choices and attention to the fruits of a teaching or practice.
I can receive from Catholic, Anglican and other Christian traditions while continuing to examine what I am being taught. My desire for unity leaves room for disagreement and thoughtful conversation. It also makes room for friendships with people whose understanding differs from mine.
Re-enchantment in Ordinary Life
Awakening to God’s presence can change the texture of ordinary life. There are prayers said while tired, familiar words repeated when concentration is poor, and moments when another person’s kindness makes it easier to receive care.
For me, the rhythm of the Rosary offers a way to return. Scripture gives me something to sit with. Worship allows me to receive within a community. I can also bring the ordinary business of the day into prayer.
There is room here for dryness, distraction and uncertainty. A relationship can deepen through the repeated choice to turn towards God, including when the feelings are quiet.
I want a faith that can accompany me through the practical demands of being human. Learning to receive God’s presence in those circumstances is part of reconstruction too.
Some Ways to Begin Reconstructing Faith
Your own reconstruction may look different from mine. These are a few ways of making room for relationship while allowing the questions their proper place:
- Pray honestly from where you are. A simple “God, I want to know You, and I am finding this difficult” gives you somewhere to begin.
- Spend time with Christ in the Gospels. Read a short passage slowly. Notice how Jesus meets people, and bring your response into prayer.
- Choose your faith community. It’s okay to shop around until you land somewhere where you are made to feel welcome. There will be no theology entrance exam in heaven, so don’t worry too much about doctrinal issues at this stage. If you come from high-control faith, it’s all the more important that you feel free to choose where and how you worship.
- Choose a manageable rhythm. A few minutes of silence, a Psalm or one decade of the Rosary can become a familiar place to return.
- Keep room for beauty and attention. Spend time outdoors, listen to sacred music or sit with a Christian image. Allow what you notice to become part of your conversation with God.
- Look for the next loving action. Consider how what you receive in prayer can become patience, courage, honesty, practical help or willingness to receive care.
Give yourself time to recognise what supports a living relationship with God. You can begin with something small and let the practice grow with you.
Resources for Reconstructing Faith
Alongside books about deconstruction, there are resources concerned with rebuilding faith, recovering wonder and learning to pray. The following offer different points of entry.
Richard Beck: Hunting Magic Eels
Hunting Magic Eels: Recovering an Enchanted Faith in a Skeptical Age (paid link) addresses reconstruction after doubt and deconstruction. Beck gives particular attention to the ways practices can help us become more attentive to God. It is especially relevant to the theme of re-enchantment.
Sarah Bessey: Field Notes for the Wilderness
Field Notes for the Wilderness: Practices for an Evolving Faith (paid link) offers companionship for Christians whose faith is changing. Its themes include wonder, grief, compassion, finding good spiritual teachers and building community. This is a resource to consider when you want to remain open to Jesus while working through the unsettled territory of reconstruction.
Brother Lawrence: The Practice of the Presence of God
The Practice of the Presence of God (paid link) is a classic companion for cultivating relationship with God through everyday life. Brother Lawrence’s letters and recorded conversations direct attention towards loving God amid ordinary work and daily tasks.
Learning to Live with God
I’m still reconstructing. There are questions I’m still living with. I’m also learning to receive God’s love through prayer, through the life of the Church and through the people who show up for me in ordinary ways.
Recovering from my hip operation has given me time to slow right down. Deep down, ministry is what I’ve always wanted. It feels strange and good to say that out loud. I’m praying about what shape His call will take and whether there’s a place for Tarot in it.
If coming back to prayer feels strange after all your searching, you can bring the unfinished questions, the longing and whatever small measure of trust you have today.
That is where I am learning to pray, too.
If you found Angelorum while looking up an occult topic, you might be wondering why I’m writing about Jesus now.
When I started praying the Rosary every day in September 2026, something in me began to wake up. Little by little, I found my way back to Jesus, and that changed the direction of this site. These days, I write about prayer, Christian mysticism and what I’m learning as I follow Him.
If you’ve spent years looking for God and still have questions, you’re welcome here.
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