The Faith I Did Not Start With

How belief matures, sheds illusions, and deepens

By: Geoffrey Schmitt

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

What if the faith you started with was never meant to last?

In The Faith I Did Not Start With, priest and chaplain Geoffrey Schmitt tells the story of a faith that had to be dismantled before it could become real. This is not a story of rebellion or abandonment, but of maturation—where borrowed belief gives way to truth, truth alone proves insufficient, and faith is slowly re-formed through encounter, loss, love, and presence.

Schmitt writes candidly about early disillusionment, a profound encounter with God, a call to ministry, and the long road of formation that followed. Seminary study, spiritual direction, charismatic prayer, 12-Step recovery, hospice chaplaincy, prison ministry, caregiving, marriage, illness, death, and new love all shape a faith that learns to endure rather than explain.

This book does not promise easy answers or quick resolution. Instead, it offers companionship for readers who have found that certainty fades, strength fails, and doing can no longer justify being. With pastoral wisdom and gentle clarity, Schmitt invites readers to discover a faith rooted in presence rather than performance, relationship rather than results.

If you have ever:

• questioned the faith you inherited
• felt disoriented by loss or suffering
• struggled with doubt, recovery, or burnout
• discovered that love sometimes endures without fixing
• or sensed that faith must grow smaller to grow truer

this book is written for you.

The Faith I Did Not Start With is not about arriving.

It is about learning how to walk—honestly, humbly, and accompanied.