This is a YouTube video titled "Letting Go of Religion Brought Me Closer to God" containing a heartfelt conversation between two speakers reflecting on grief, faith, and personal spiritual journeys. The dialogue explores themes of loss, questioning religious beliefs, and finding a deeper connection to spirituality beyond traditional religion. The speakers share their experiences of running together as a way to process grief and support each other's faith transformations. The content is introspective and emotional, focusing on personal growth and understanding.
As light life will have it align brings me you align introduces me to you. And I'll never forget. And this is a hard conversation to have, but I'll never forget the day that we sat at the mass for Forfe. For your daughter, and you stood there with a line and you were going to deliver a eulogy or a speech for the celebration of her life because she had passed away. And I sat there with the. The. Probably the deepest pain I've ever had in my life is to have, like, had you experienced that? I mean, I get emotional thinking about it, but I remember sitting in the. In that pew looking at you, and you stood there with this strength and this power, and you held your husband's hand, and you said, I know that I am going to get through this because I am a woman of faith. And you said that, like, I am a woman of faith. And at that moment, I looked at you and my husband looked at you, and we both were like, she is the strongest person we've ever seen, period. And I thought, I don't know if I could ever do what she has done. I don't know. I don't know if I could ever overcome what she has overcome, because I don't think I'm that strong. And maybe it's because I'm not a woman of faith. Maybe that's what it is. And then we. You invited me to run the marathon, and when you did that, and we started running together, and we started training in honor of Fofi, and we started running in honor of Fofi. I didn't realize at the time, but what we were doing was we were using running as a way to process our grief and to find our bond. We were already close, but that running was, like, the thing. I don't know if you remember the day that you and I were running. I think we were doing 12 miles, and I looked at you, and I was like, it all made sense. I literally met a line because he was going to bring me you. Yeah. Like, you were. You were the gift all along. You were the reward all along. And I, I. I made that connection, and I knew that. And during those runs where I challenged you and I challenged your beliefs, and you challenged me, and you challenged my beliefs. You gave me permission to be a woman who can question certain aspects of religion. You can question everything and be a woman of faith. And that changed my life.
When we were running, there were times in which you would say things that were so strong and so against my beliefs that I was like, you're like you were my soul sister. Right. So I was like, I need to pray for her. And I would go home secretly. I would never tell you, but I would go home secretly and pray for him like, God soften her heart. God soften her heart. And, and I, and it was never like, make her believe what I believe. Make her be Catholic like me. Make her, it was like soften her heart. Because when it wasn't so much about what you believed, it was more about, it was, it's, it's a prison. Right? Like the same way in religion. Same way religion can feel like a prison. Like I can't believe that and I can't think that way because I subscribe to being this religion. Not being against it is also a prison. Right. Like it's also a limit.
Yes.
So I feel like I remember going back and being like, just soften her heart. But then because I loved you so much and I saw Christ in you, I would always tell you're the best Christian I know, like just to bother you. I think you liked it because you knew that meant so much to me. But you are, you live a Christ like life and that's what we as Christians are supposed to be and do. So I just, I, I like you was questioning like, how could she not be the real thing? Because she's not. She doesn't subscribe to my beliefs if she acts and be and just ooze what the real thing is supposed to feel like. So you gave me permission to drop judgment, which caro was what separated me the most from God. So you, you showed me that it does not have to look the way it's looked like in my life because my parents were, you know, are die hard Catholics and taught me this and, and I've been raised in the church. It doesn't have to look like that to be the real thing. So you gave me permission to drop judgment, to focus on the whole message, which is live like Christ.
