Jonathon Enger

“In addition to struggling with unmet longings and expectations, those in the gap also often struggle with something unwelcome. You have been hurt, betrayed, abandoned, used, manipulated, diminished, and deceived. You may be struggling with relational brokenness, sexuality, pornography, mental health, and addiction. You're disenchanted with the system of faith you were taught. You're no longer willing to wear religious masks or pretend you're doing better than you actually are. Instead of helping, your experiences with Christian faith have caused harm and pain.”
― Michael John Cusick, Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love

“Did you ever know, dear, how much you took away with you when you left? You have stripped me even of my past, even of the things we never shared. I was wrong to say the stump was recovering from the pain of the amputation. I was deceived because it has so many ways to hurt me that I discover them only one by one.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

“Consider for a moment that the most shameful, regretful, horrible things you've ever done in your life are not so easily labeled "sin." What if instead of viewing yourself as fundamentally sinful, you recognized your longings and needs (those Four Ss again) as good and holy and your failures, weaknesses, mistakes, and yes, even addictions as attempts to meet those needs based on how they have gone unmet in your life? As Aquinas said, every unhealthy behavior reflects a God-given appetite-an idea which took me years to understand.”
― Michael John Cusick, Sacred Attachment: Escaping Spiritual Exhaustion and Trusting in Divine Love

“For don't we often make this mistake as regards people who are still alive-who are with us in the same room? Talking and acting not to the man himself but to the picture-almost the precis-we've made of him in our own minds? And he has to depart from it pretty widely before we even notice the fact. In real life-that's one way it differs from novels-his words and acts are, if we observe closely, hardly ever quite 'in character,' that is, in what we call his character. There's always a card in his hand we didn't know about.”
― C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed