Not Christian. Not Atheist. Something Else Entirely.

What I believe about God, karma, soul contracts, and the peace I never found in fear-based faith.

As I shared in my previous blog, for most of my life, I believed in God because I was told to. I grew up Christian, like many Southern kids, wrapped in church services, purity culture, and warnings about hell. Jesus was supposed to be the center of everything, and questioning that wasn’t just discouraged, it felt dangerous. When life was painful, I was told to pray harder. When it stayed painful, I was blamed, exiled, and rejected. Eventually, I stopped believing.

I became an atheist, not out of rebellion, but survival. When you’ve begged God for help through poverty and trauma (like abuse and rape), it’s hard to keep holding on. I watched people I trusted weaponize their faith to shame others, using Jesus like a measuring stick for worthiness. Quietly questioning, “If this is God, why does it feel so hollow and cruel?”

I can hold multiple truths. It may not have been anyone’s intention to cast me out (or maybe it was), but we have to stop pretending like our words and actions have no consequences. This is the harm that judgement brings. If you’re Christian, it’s why you’re called not to.

For a long time, I believed in nothing. Not heaven, not hell. Just science and coincidences. I was hurt and angry, but also numb. Religion felt like a lie I had escaped, and I abandoned it, just like it abandoned me.

But even in that emptiness, something kept tugging at me. Something softer, more intuitive. I would notice a song that played at the exact right time, or feel a chill when I decided what I needed to do. I had dreams that felt more like messages. I felt the prescence of loved ones who had passed. And most of all, I began to feel my own power returning. Not the kind that controls others, but the kind that comes from knowing yourself deeply.

Now, I believe something different than I did in either phase of my life. I don’t really have a name for it, but perhaps it’s best that it remain label-free.

I believe we are all atoms of God. Not just created in God’s (or the divine’s) image, but literally made of it. That we are fragments (sparks) of the scared whole, each here with a divine purpose. That divinity lives inside of us. It pulses in our intuition, in our creativity, in our capacity to love and forgive. We are not separate from God, we are expressions of them.

I believe that before we’re born, we agree to a sacred covenant: a life contract. That includes joy, yes, but also trauma, injustice, loss, and our own death. I believe we consent to these experiences at a soul level, not as punishment, but because we understand their potential to shape us into more awakened, compassionate beings. These events aren’t random. They’re not mistakes. They’re part of a spiritual agreement and purpose that we can’t always understand in our human form.

I also believe in reincarnation and karma, not as punishment and reward, but as a system of energetic balance. When harm is done that energy doesn’t vanish. It ripples. Part of the soul’s work is to restore that balance unto the universe. Whether in this life, the transition, or the next. Some spirits evolve to higher roles like guides, protectors, minor deities, because they’ve grown through that process.

Hot take (pun intended): I don’t believe in hell. I don’t believe anyone is condemned forever, but I do believe souls who have caused harm must carry the weight of that imbalance/debt and render it neutral. Not through torture, but through transformation. Through the scared work of making things right. I believe in something quieter, slower, and in many ways, more scared and significant.

It is difficult for me to understand the logic that we would be sent to this earth, in some cases for seconds up to a century plus, live through immense pain and suffering, only for our lives to be so finite, with no purpose beyond our deaths, and to then be infinitely stagnant.

I believe our ancestors and loved ones are still with us, guiding and supporting us. I believe in signs, synchronicities, and sacred timing. I believe the veil is thin when you know how to be still and listen.

So while I don’t believe in the jealous, humanoid version of God I was taught as a child; I believe there’s more than nothing waiting for us at the end of our lives. I believe in something bigger, something older, something that lives inside of us and beyond us. I believe in angels. I believe in spirits.

I believe in God, and I believe in me, too.

I understand the need to pray for “lost souls.” I really do. I was once the person who prayed that way, too. Worried, urgent, afraid for someone’s eternity.

So if you feel called to pray for me, I won’t tell you not to, but I will ask that you don’t pray from fear. Do not fear for my soul. Do not fear that I’m drifting too far.

I’m not sad, and I’m not lost.

In fact, I feel more found than I ever have.
I feel connected. Grounded. Guided.
Even in seasons of transformation, I carry peace that I never found in fear-based faith.

So if you do pray for me, let it be out of love…

Pray for my success, so I can continue to do good work in the world.
Pray for my strength, so I can walk this path without falter.
Pray for my health and longevity, so I can be here, fully, for the people I love and those that need me.

Pray for me like you believe in the light within me because I do.