After years of unpacking the religious system into which I was born and that I exchanged fifty-three years ago for the simplicity and profundity of God’s final Words on the unvarnished Gospel, I have only three words, now, to offer other searchers who dare to (long to, gather enough courage to, overcome enough fear to) ask: “Why did you leave?”
I understand each response.
I empathize.
This entry comprises my first “short” after the introduction.
“It is finished,”
…Jesus said
Among His last words
(Lest any think He lied)
As He bled empty,
Battered body
On battered cross.
Our cross.
Just three words
Split time
And Testaments of grace:
He Who made time
And became grace
In flesh and blood
To end our work
Once and done.
But men and women
Still sell trinkets and idols,
Indulgences and
Prayers for the dead
Ensnaring more inside
By any means possible
New prophets
Add and subtract doctrines
Move them around
Like pieces on a chess board
To see how many more
Wary, weary, and wanderlost
They can gather to their side,
To the polish and shine
Pomp and circumstance
Wealth and wonder
(The better to persuade them by).
While Jesus
Still knocks at the door
Each may open
To know the Way
Sup with Truth and
Choose Life.
Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me (John 14:6, KJV).
Should you be interested, linked here are over forty, lengthy, footnoted, annotated, curated posts on my journey out of Roman Catholicism: Out of the Fire: On Leaving Roman Catholicism | pnissila
Everyone, they say, has story to tell, perhaps even one that might encourage and help others. I have two of them. My fifty-three-year faith journey to and through the Cross of Christ is the lengthiest and most profound—and the most freeing.
Cheers and blessings,
Phyllis Beveridge Nissila
Respite for the Remnant 
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