As I’ve gotten older, I’ve started to realize something simple but powerful: not everything that wears the label “God” is actually God. Sometimes it’s just rules. Sometimes it’s culture. Sometimes it’s fear dressed up as holiness.

Growing up in church spaces, especially youth culture, a lot of the conversation around life—especially sex—was framed almost entirely as “don’t.” Don’t think about it. Don’t want it. Don’t desire it. If you did, you were told to come forward for prayer, as if being human was something that needed to be publicly corrected instead of gently understood.

What I don’t remember hearing enough about was consent, healing, or compassion for people who had been hurt. There wasn’t much space for conversations about rape, trauma, or what redemption and restoration actually look like for someone who didn’t choose what happened to them. That silence spoke louder than any sermon.

Stepping away from church culture for a while helped me separate what felt like God from what felt like control.

What I’ve come to believe is this:
God isn’t limited to a building, a pulpit, or a schedule. You can love God and not be in church 24/7. You can be normal. You can laugh, mess up, ask questions, and still be deeply spiritual.

I don’t believe sex is bad. I believe it has meaning and intention. But I also believe we’re human, and humans fall short. That’s where grace comes in—not shame, not fear, not public call-outs, but redemption.

When I think about how I want to raise my future kids, I don’t want them to feel like they have to hide parts of themselves to be loved by God or accepted by their community. I want them to feel safe enough to be honest. Safe enough to ask hard questions. Safe enough to come to me if they’re confused, hurt, or afraid.

Faith, to me now, looks less like rule-keeping and more like relationship. Less like control and more like compassion.

Maybe God was never meant to be confined to church culture. Maybe God was always meant to be found in how we treat each other, how we heal, how we forgive, and how we grow.

And maybe being spiritual doesn’t mean being perfect—it means being real.