You were never lost. You could never be lost.
But if you are like me, you may have spent a large portion of your life in the hopeless fear of feeling lost or—thanks to religious teachings—believing you were lost. Maybe you still grapple with the fear of getting lost or too far off track, especially during the potentially decades-long process of deconstructing your old religious programming.
I can assure you that I have plumbed the depths of lostness to find that it is a baseless assertion. I came out unscathed…and so will you. Let me share my healing journey.
My most recent quest (of many) through the gripping fear of being lost started in 2019, on the heels of a stable decade post-religious deconstruction. I was living in a good place of comfortable confidence, finally knowing who I was and what I was doing here. It was really a wonderful, uncharacteristic season of quiet contentment after all of the trauma of religious hoops to jump through and the striving that came before.
I remember that abysmal day with crystal vision. I was in my new home environment on our picturesque, tranquil, mountain top property in Puerto Rico, where I should have been suspended on a cloud of purposeful bliss after a period of significant personal and professional accomplishments. But instead, I suddenly dissolved into a puddle of existential crisis. There was an unexpected, rather unconsciously impacting event that elicited this crisis that I will share later in another writing.
But on this pivotal November day, my perceived world shifted. Sudden feelings of profound lostness, accompanied by paralyzing insignificance, enveloped me — a familiar feeling from childhood that I thought I had finally overcome in my new, more Universalist (God saves all) worldview.
I have had similar life-altering momentary shifts at a few key points in my life, some perceived as positive, some as negative, but always a precursor to some impending, unavoidable transformation process.
As I often do when I need more clarity or reassurance on murky internal phenomena, I looked to nature, hoping to find answers and reassurance. I sat on the rooftop of our guesthouse, looking out over the jungle ravine below, hoping the trees would quell the spiral of fear circling my heart and mind. Was I safe? Was I secure? Did I matter?
What did I see reflected back to me? Thousands of nameless, unimportant, seemingly purposeless trees melting into the jungle landscape. If one died, who cared? The jungle vines covered it up never to be seen again and perhaps another tree emerged in its place. No one even saw them. The jungle felt so cold and impersonal that day, mirroring its bereft reply to my desperate pleas for meaning. It did not offer me any hope, and I could not shake the haunting despair.
This was a soul-crushing moment from which I could not easily rebound—which told me it was a spiritual transformation event. Feelings come and go from day to day; spiritually transforming events shake us to the core.
For the next two years, I experienced frequent anxiety along with a gloomy sense of abandonment and being adrift, preventing me from feeling whole or safe in this world. It was like my childhood and young adulthood all over again. From my earliest memories, I rarely felt at home in my skin or elsewhere. No doubt this sense of separation was rooted in the prolific false religious teachings heaped upon my impressionable mind from the time I was barely conscious:
“This world is not your home. You were born into sin, eternally lost, separate from God—and only WE have a remedy—you must follow our prescribed path exactly the way we tell you, and you cannot trust yourself or your own attunement to Spirit. Your heart is deceitful and wicked. Your greatest offerings to God are like filthy rags.”
Such lovely worldview (and self view)-developing theology for a three-year-old.
Corroborating that narrative was my home of origin, which was frequently characteristic of strife, violence, fear, and loneliness, robbing me of any sense of security, safety, or belonging.
But then finally, I became of age and could begin to shape my own sense of safety—my own sense of home. I began my young adult life in marriage, certain it would satisfy my longings for significance, love, and security. But my experience of creating home throughout my twenties lacked everything I sought, emphasizing my disappointment in life, and especially in God. My first husband and I—barely more than kids—were two empty vessels trying to find our filling in each other. We were like two sinking ships anchored to each other in hopes of being rescued by the other. It was no one’s fault that our marriage died after twelve years of quiet desperation—we were barely conscious of our formative wounds and could not sustain ourselves, let alone each other.
When husband number two, “Shucks” and I got married, I had gone through an immense healing season as only a complete Ground Zero event can elicit (the only way to go is up). After losing almost everything I cared about, I emerged like a Phoenix rising from the ashes—much more open-hearted, emotionally stable, and inhabiting my inner power than ever before. I had faced my greatest fear of abandonment and lived to tell about it. And while my sense of safety and security—my inner home—has blossomed within this twenty-five-year marriage, our external world has always been in a constant state of flux.
For example, we moved eighteen times in the first twenty years together! It was not because we were on the FBI most wanted list or hiding out in the witness protection program—we were living from our hearts and this was the course life took us through. And despite the outer upheaval, we’ve lived with no regrets.
But each move kept me from anchoring. Just about the time I would get nested into a sense of comfort and security, it would be time to uproot again. I must say, this was a great strategy for keeping our personal belongings at a minimum…although I still insisted on lugging my rock collection with us wherever we relocated. Shucks was not impressed and made me reduce it by half each time (which just encouraged me to find new rocks). I do hope in a future lifetime I’m more attracted to feathers, or rare buttons, or exotic seashells, or maybe stamps. But I digress.
What is Home?
Home. Is it a building? A body? A feeling? Is it my spirit? Is it God?
In recent years, I have been forced to take a new look at the word and concept of home. With no physical world ties for so many years of my life, and the death of the primary person who felt like home in 2009 (my mom), I eventually made a great realization: Home is wherever I am. No matter where we moved, I always found—or created—a sense of home around myself that felt good, beautiful, safe, inviting. I began to realize that I cultivated and, more importantly, embodied the magic of home. It was not found in a building, or another person. I created this sense within or through myself.
The same is true for you. Home is always within you and, is by nature, the opposite of being lost.
“Home” coincidentally has the same energetic resonance as the ancient chant, “ohm.” The meaning behind Ohm (or Aum) perfectly expresses the feeling of home and all of the implied security. From an AI summary (Google search):
“Ohm holds a profound meaning in many spiritual traditions, particularly Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the primordial sound of the universe and the creative force behind all existence. It is believed to be the sound from which all other sounds and creation emerge, encompassing the beginning, middle, and end of all things.
“Ohm represents the union of mind, body, and spirit, capturing the essence of the connection between the individual self and the universe. It symbolizes the fundamental oneness of all things, promoting a sense of interconnectedness and unity.
Chanting Ohm is believed to have numerous spiritual benefits, including:
-Reducing stress and anxiety.
-Promoting calmness and focus.
-Enhancing self-awareness and spiritual growth.
-Cleansing the mind and fostering inner peace.
If that doesn’t describe the feeling, experience, and permanence of the concept of Home, I don’t know what does!
The notion of home within myself—as opposed to a fixed building—parallels the word and concept of the tabernacle. In the OT days, the people moved around as nomads, setting up temporary tabernacles or dwelling places where they met intimately or “dwelled” with God. As it should be, the tabernacle was as mobile as they were, moving with them from place to place.
As the OT revealed itself as more symbolic than literal to me, I began to see how the tabernacle was a metaphor of our temporary, earthen vessel as a dwelling place for God within us—as us. We carry the presence of God with us from place to place, and fellowship is our default reality wherever we are. All that is needed (or missing) is our conscious awareness!
During the reign of Solomon, the tabernacle model was replaced by the first temple built with stone, a permanent, fixed place of outer worship and sacrifices. The temple was destroyed and rebuilt a few times, and ultimately it was permanently destroyed in 70 A.D. during the Roman occupation that basically wiped out Jerusalem. There is talk of rebuilding the Temple in modern Israel, but it has not been initiated yet.
The Jewish Temple may not have been reconstructed, but religious leaders have been trying to crystalize or encapsulate God into stationary buildings ever since. I’m sure it’s from pure motives and has nothing to do with money/power or control though. 😩
The idea of movable booths or tabernacles was Divine Source giving us our design model. God does not want us to brick and mortar our dynamic, intimate relationship with him/her into some permanent, stone-clad structure located outside of the malleable, forward moving human heart. A physical temple “out there” will not survive the test of time because it is not viable (or inhabited). God desires to fellowship through our nomadic hearts where we are growing, discovering, and transforming; He/She is not fixed in a stuffy, outdated building or set of beliefs.
For a bit more light on the subject, the NT Greek used two words for temple—one was a physical building (hieron), and one was the sacred inner chamber within a person (naos). Hieron was always used for buildings; naos was used when referencing the temple located in/as a person. This is where studying from the Greek can shed light on the significance of concepts. For example, Jesus used it in the following verse: “Destroy this temple (naos), and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). Clearly, Jesus was not talking about a building, but about himself as a temple. Naos was used throughout the NT in regard to the temple of God in all people.
“Do you not know that you are a temple (naos) of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” (1 Cor. 3:16).
Let this beautiful reassurance sink in: Home is your default position. The only way you and I can ever be lost is only in our minds—through our untrue beliefs while living in separation consciousness. We came from Home (Ohm), and we always carry Home inside of us. When you die to the old separation theology heaped upon you in this murky realm, you begin to understand Colossians 3:3 in a new light: “For you died (your ego, the part of you that perceives itself as separate from Home) and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” Safe and secure.
No matter how much you wander, no matter how lost you feel, no matter what lies anyone else tells you about yourself or your destiny, you cannot, will not ever be lost. You may lose your bearings for a spell, but no matter how dark the path, you can rest assured that you are being safely carried in the arms of Home.
I Was Never Lost
By Julie Ferwerda
After years beneath their shadows—
I remembered my own light.
They told me I was hollow,
A flawed vessel begging notice
from an untouchable Deity,
a sinner in constant need of salvation.
Let them speak no more.
I have shed their ill-fitting garments,
peeled away their doctrines like layers of old skin,
marveling at how the blinding light of disclosure,
melted against the sweet release that followed.
There were nights I trembled,
terrified to look at my own vastness,
my timeless beauty,
my invincible power,
my intrinsic perfection,
clutching their well-worn narratives
like talismans against the dark.
The familiar prison felt safer
than the boundless unknown,
or daring to trust myself.
But something ancient stirred in me—
older than their texts,
deeper than their rituals,
wider than their beliefs,
more tangible than their promises
of distant paradise.
I am not what they named me.
I am not the shame they planted.
I am not the unworthiness they harvested.
I stood before their judgment
and found it small, feeble,
a house of cards,
a muddy puddle surging against
the ocean I have always been.
My prayers no longer beg outward
but feel and know inward.
My worship has become wonder
at the cosmos breathing through my lungs,
at the mirror reflecting pure Light,
waiting for my recognition.
My communion is with the sacred ordinary—
sunlight dancing on water,
the delight of rain kissing my bare skin,
the intricate wisdom of leaves,
the quiet courage of showing up as myself.
Some days I still hear their voices,
but softer now,
like distant thunder after the storm has passed.
I answer with gentle knowing:
“I was never fallen.
I was never separate.
I was never lost."
The miracle wasn’t in finding a god out there,
it was discovering that Home had never left.
It pulses in my blood,
speaks through my voice,
loves through my heart.
I am the temple.
I am the prayer.
I am the answer.
And when I stand in this truth,
the universe recognizes itself in me,
and then everything…
even the long years of forgetting—
becomes sacred.
The truth of my belonging,
the experience of my becoming,
whispers in my heart,
Home is here and now.
I am safe.
I am whole.
I AM.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is among (meta or “within”—see screenshot) the people, and He will dwell among (within) them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them” (Revelation 21:3).
Beautiful.
Thanks for writing this, it has come at a perfect time for me and is super encouraging.