A reader writes … I found my imagination!

I realise that you’ll never likely receive this message but I thought I’d write it anyway.
I’m a 31 year old Irish man. Married for 6 years now, I love the outdoors and have a passion for language learning.
I spent 8 years working for the Presbyterian Church as a youth pastor. To cut a long story short… I found my imagination, the capacity to love those not like me, to see Christ outside the walls of the church, to read more widely, to question what I’d always been told about ‘the other’
whether they be culturally or politically different, to respect, accept and welcome more…
I left my job with the church to become a Spanish teacher just last year. Having always planned to become a adult pastor it was a shock for many and still the fear is that I’m ‘lost’, that I no longer “love The Lord” or read the Scriptures.
My loving The Lord and reading the scriptures are all that people are concerned about it appears. (I still do both but make no song and dance about it).
Few understand the transformation that my faith has undergone, how much wider my vision for faith now is, how more expansive, mesmerising and beautifully I see things. The good news is better news than it ever was before.
Anyway… I want to thank you for your books. Your pastoral understanding has meant a lot when no one else appeared to understand. I’m not attending church right now (it does me more harm than good) and am happily working in a high school teaching Spanish/French and looking after Special Needs learners. The plan was always to be a Pastor and I’m happy to be fulfilling that role outside the walls of the church.
I imagine you get a letter like this at least twice an hour so please don’t feel the need to reply!

Thanks for writing. I don’t get a letter like this twice an hour, but steady stream of voices are saying almost the same thing … discovering, as you say, “how much wider my vision for faith now is, how more expansive, mesmerising and beautifully I see things. The good news is better news than it ever was before.”