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Life Is a Gift. Love Is the Point: How I Lost My Faith, Killed My Church, Saved My Life, and Found My Soul
This is for the ones who stayed too long. Who kept trying to make it work, kept following the rules, kept saying the words. Until the story that once held their lives together finally came apart.
It’s for the ones who are still quietly unraveling, the ones who can’t keep pretending to believe but aren’t sure who they’ll be if they stop.
It’s for those learning to trust their own experience again, who long to live from wonder rather than fear, who believe that love lies at the center of it all and are willing to follow that thread no matter where it leads.
For years, Ryan Meeks was a symbol of evangelical success, preaching certainty and building a system he would later dismantle piece by piece. Underneath the certainty was a growing fracture, one that started with honesty and was driven by love. What followed was the collapse of a church, the loss of faith, a cancer diagnosis—and the rediscovery of a life grounded in presence rather than performance.
Weaving philosophy, theology, personal essay, dark humor, and lived experience, Meeks offers a vision of embodied spirituality that isn’t afraid of the messy miracle of being human.
Because even after the old frameworks fall, life remains.
Sacred anyway.
It’s for the ones who are still quietly unraveling, the ones who can’t keep pretending to believe but aren’t sure who they’ll be if they stop.
It’s for those learning to trust their own experience again, who long to live from wonder rather than fear, who believe that love lies at the center of it all and are willing to follow that thread no matter where it leads.
For years, Ryan Meeks was a symbol of evangelical success, preaching certainty and building a system he would later dismantle piece by piece. Underneath the certainty was a growing fracture, one that started with honesty and was driven by love. What followed was the collapse of a church, the loss of faith, a cancer diagnosis—and the rediscovery of a life grounded in presence rather than performance.
Weaving philosophy, theology, personal essay, dark humor, and lived experience, Meeks offers a vision of embodied spirituality that isn’t afraid of the messy miracle of being human.
Because even after the old frameworks fall, life remains.
Sacred anyway.
221 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 18, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 25, 2026
I'm grateful Ryan shared his journey with us.
I finished this book in two days; I was very compelled by his story.
“Growth is slow. People don’t leap from one worldview to another in a single breath. Every stage of meaning-making has its own purpose, and for many, religion still offers the kind of soil where something essential can grow.
I needed that once. And I’m grateful I had it.
I didn’t leave religion because I was better or braver than those who stay. I left because I had to keep going. I’m still finding out what that means, but I can look back with real gratitude.
The well I drank from once gave me life.
And I wouldn’t be here without it.”
“I was trying to be honest. I desperately wanted to stay in the faith--but I wanted my whole self to fit into that faith. Not the disconnected, disembodied, fractured version of me I had been taught faith required, but the true me. The real me."
“Authentic transformation is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer; not a matter of translating the world but of transforming the world; not a matter of finding meaning but of being crushed by meaning. The self is not made content; the self is made toast.”
--Ken Wilber
“Theism was like training wheels, you might say. A story that helped us make meaning before we had the tools to ground that meaning in experience. But now, many of us are ready to move beyond that. We’re growing. Learning. Evolving.”
“It started to feel like someone else’s script was being imposed on my unfolding experience. Their interpretation. Their timeline. Their rules. But I wasn’t interested in spoilers--I wanted to be present for the story. My story. I wanted to feel it for myself, in real time. I wanted to sit in the beauty and tension of not knowing and discover what was sacred on my own terms.”
“Nature knows how to let go. But as humans, we struggle. Why, when it comes to human life--especially in our spiritual stories--do we insist on dragging corpses forward?”
I finished this book in two days; I was very compelled by his story.
“Growth is slow. People don’t leap from one worldview to another in a single breath. Every stage of meaning-making has its own purpose, and for many, religion still offers the kind of soil where something essential can grow.
I needed that once. And I’m grateful I had it.
I didn’t leave religion because I was better or braver than those who stay. I left because I had to keep going. I’m still finding out what that means, but I can look back with real gratitude.
The well I drank from once gave me life.
And I wouldn’t be here without it.”
“I was trying to be honest. I desperately wanted to stay in the faith--but I wanted my whole self to fit into that faith. Not the disconnected, disembodied, fractured version of me I had been taught faith required, but the true me. The real me."
“Authentic transformation is not a matter of belief but of the death of the believer; not a matter of translating the world but of transforming the world; not a matter of finding meaning but of being crushed by meaning. The self is not made content; the self is made toast.”
--Ken Wilber
“Theism was like training wheels, you might say. A story that helped us make meaning before we had the tools to ground that meaning in experience. But now, many of us are ready to move beyond that. We’re growing. Learning. Evolving.”
“It started to feel like someone else’s script was being imposed on my unfolding experience. Their interpretation. Their timeline. Their rules. But I wasn’t interested in spoilers--I wanted to be present for the story. My story. I wanted to feel it for myself, in real time. I wanted to sit in the beauty and tension of not knowing and discover what was sacred on my own terms.”
“Nature knows how to let go. But as humans, we struggle. Why, when it comes to human life--especially in our spiritual stories--do we insist on dragging corpses forward?”
November 25, 2025
This book is profound and heart-provoking and equally easy to digest. His writing is honest and humble. This book opened me up to the mystery of life in a way I’ve never experienced via teaching. It softened the parts of me that have always wanted answers, containers, boxes and control. Thank you Ryan for your story!
November 29, 2025
Heart and Truth for my Soul’s Journey
Such a refreshing book, I love Ryan’s authenticity and ‘laid bare’ openness. This book is an inspiration for a life well lived and ever evolving through love! Definitely worth multiple reads! It’s fun and funny, heart wrenching and soft, and so much resonated for me. Thanks for your vulnerability and effort to put all this on paper, Ryan!
Such a refreshing book, I love Ryan’s authenticity and ‘laid bare’ openness. This book is an inspiration for a life well lived and ever evolving through love! Definitely worth multiple reads! It’s fun and funny, heart wrenching and soft, and so much resonated for me. Thanks for your vulnerability and effort to put all this on paper, Ryan!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews