that’s what love does

Today, I was having a conversation with Todd Herzog, the winner of my season of Survivor China in 2007. He wrote the foreword of my upcoming book, and I was letting him know how much I appreciated not only him writing that for me, but also for the patience and love he showed me over the past seventeen years that we’ve known each other. I had a lot to learn, I had to wrestle with a lot of my theology and I have said some things to him when I was in my faith tradition that hurt him deeply. He simply said this:

“I love you, and you’ve had so much patience with me, too! That’s what love does. We do it even when it’s not easy. If we gave up on people at their worst, we would never really know what their best is.”

After our conversation, I thought about how I thankful I am that, even though we disagreed for many years, he stuck by me. He gave me a chance to learn, to grow. He didn’t judge me for judging him. He was going through hell during quite a few of those years, but he always checked in with me, reached out and let me know he loved me.

Since leaving my faith tradition, there have been just a very slight few people who have stuck by me. Many have blocked me, judged me, written me off and talked about me to others, though not to me directly. I suppose I get it, because the faith tradition I come from is so soaked in fear that people get afraid when you start to think for yourself in different ways than you’re taught. I guess that’s one of the reasons I have decided to walk away from religion.

Todd and I connected as humans, outside of a religion. So even though we didn’t agree on things for a long time, we weren’t afraid to stay connected. Religion tells us that we cannot be “unequally yoked” (we can’t have deep relationships with people who believe differently). Religion is fearful that someone may push us off our “good path”. Every religion is convinced that it’s the only right way and everyone else is wrong and lost. And it’s hurting a lot of people as a result.

I’m thankful for my true friendships, friendships that have survived one of the toughest battles I’ve ever faced. When things get tough and people bail on you, it’s very telling. When you let fear lead you instead of love, it’s also very telling.

I’m not mad, I’m not even upset about this, I’m just noticing it. And I get it because I used to be the exact same way. But I found my way out of that life to the freedom that I live in now.

If you are losing friends because of your deconstruction, just remember that it’s kind of like a sifting of sorts. When things get tough in your life and you go through a painful sifting process, at the end of your sifting, you’ll see many are going to be left in the sifter. Just notice it. And make sure that when your friend or family member goes through something difficult that you fall through the sifter with them.

Because that’s what love does.