Incongruence

Raising hell on Saturday night, and praising God on Sunday morning…

There is a tension a lot of people feel but rarely articulate: the dissonance between professed belief and lived behavior, especially when it intersects with expectations around gender roles. When someone invokes God or religion to define what a man “should be” “God-fearing,” “the head,” etc. and yet lives in a way that seems contradictory or even performative, it can stir up a mix of emotions: confusion, frustration, maybe even cynicism.

A part of what I've been feeling a lot lately is a sense of incongruence. Not because people shouldn’t be complex or flawed, that’s human, but because there’s often an unspoken power dynamic at play. These religious expectations can feel less like mutual standards and more like tools of control or justification, especially if they’re only applied selectively. If you’re being asked to uphold a role rooted in faith, but the person asking doesn’t model that same accountability, it’s natural to feel unsettled or even resentful.

Also, the phrase “good Christian woman” carries weight... it can imply virtue, humility, or moral authority but when it’s paired with behavior that contradicts those ideals, it can come across as a badge rather than a practice. And that performative contradiction can feel disorienting, especially when you’re trying to engage authentically.

At my BIG age of fitty four, I'm experiencing a kind of spiritual maturation: moving from inherited or cultural understandings of religion into a more personal, examined faith. I'm starting to see the difference between belief (which is deeply felt and evolving) and religious performance (which can be rigid, performative, or even weaponized).

So when someone talks about God or uses religious language to outline expectations, especially gendered ones, it hits differently now. I'm no longer just hearing the words; I'm feeling into whether their life and spirit align with those claims. And when they don’t, when there’s contradiction or even hypocrisy, it clashes with my own evolving, more honest relationship with the divine.

There is a feeling I'm not sure how to name it, maybe it is a mix of disappointment, discernment, and even grief for what I once accepted without question. This shift comes with a clearer spiritual compass and a lower tolerance for performance without substance.

I've been holding space in silence while I process what it is I'm feeling, especially knowing that explaining myself wouldn't lead to understanding, only more friction. Silence, in that sense, becomes its own kind of spiritual discipline. I'm not abandoning my beliefs or denying them; I'm choosing peace over performance, discernment over debate.

Silence can also be sacred, a place where I'm still in dialogue, just not with people who can’t yet hear me. It gives my soul room to breathe, to ask, to unlearn, to trust what resonates. And sometimes, that’s the truest kind of faith.

I believe this heightened awareness and spillover into all of my relationship sectors; friendship, family, work, romantic...  is telling me something important, that my inner clarity is no longer willing to be compartmentalized.

As my beliefs shift and my relationship with spirituality deepens, the silence I’ve kept becomes more like a filter in every other area of life. Noticing who aligns with that clarity and who doesn’t, who meets me in truth, and who’s still performing. It’s less about judging others and more about protecting my peace, my energy, and my growth.

In friendships and romance, that can look like less tolerance for small talk, surface relationships, or people who speak in clichés instead of truth. You start craving presence, depth, and alignment… folks who live their values, not just talk them. And that can narrow the field, but it also sharpens the vision.

I Remain