It’s hard to walk away from a church, really hard. When you spend as many hours each week with people as you do when you are actively involved with a church, they really become like family.
In fact, it isn’t unusual to spend more time with them than you do with your own actual family. So, just walking away from all of that isn’t an easy choice to make. It takes a catalyst to make that happen. First, you must realize that something is causing you more harm than good.
When that realization is reached, and the decision is made, the action of leaving is the final move… and it is so very painful. You are knowingly deciding to leave your family.
I’ve found some wonderful podcasts to listen to throughout my healing process. One of them is called “Untangled Faith” by Amy Fritz. Another is “Bodies Behind the Bus .” When I listen to these podcasts and hear other people tell their stories, I realize that I’m not the only one. So many other people in this world have experienced things very similar to mine. When you hear others tell their story, you feel validated. You feel like maybe you aren’t crazy, and you feel sad… because it would honestly be better if other people weren’t experiencing church hurt.
As I listen to these other stories and, through them, find myself healing from my hurts, I know that I need to continue to tell my story too. Maybe others need to hear what happened to me to see that they aren’t alone. And maybe, churches, pastors, and leaders need to finally listen to what caused people to leave the church. It’s very possible that they need to change some policies and procedures. Maybe walking away and being silent isn’t what helps the church; perhaps speaking the truth is.
When I resigned, I felt the need to be quiet. I felt like I should do what the pastor asked and control the narrative. I had no desire to tell my story because I wanted to return to the church after my few months off. I planned to just walk back in there as a regular member and continue my life, and saying too much would’ve made that impossible. Our family had zero plans to leave. It wasn’t even on our radar. And then, when things happened that I will continue to talk about in later posts, we knew that staying wasn’t an option. But even still, I didn’t tell people what really happened because I wanted to protect the church. Now I realize that was probably a mistake.
I heard a quote by Mary Demuth: “an untold story never heals… it’s not gossip to process pain”. That resonated with me so very much.
This is my story. I should’ve told it a long time ago. I should’ve requested a meeting with the Personnel Committee. I should’ve sat down with them and told them everything that had happened before I ever left. But unfortunately, silence seemed to be the answer at the time.
Controlling the narrative was the request made by my friend and my pastor. He specifically asked me to make him look good in the situation, and since I planned to return to the church, this seemed to be the right answer. He was also one of my very best friends.
My family loved his family. We were so close, and losing his friendship was the final blow. Watching him walk away was one of the hardest parts, and up until then, I felt an extreme need to protect him at any cost. I don’t think that way anymore. I don’t feel compelled to protect him anymore because I protected him to my own detriment. My loss has been painful, and when we were hurting, he didn’t seem to care. He didn’t even care that he had caused much of it.
At this very moment, my feelings toward the church we left aren’t good, but it hasn’t always been that way. Emily Snook made a comment on “Untangled Faith” that anger is being mad that we know the sad thing. I feel that, I feel mad that I know the sad thing. What I’ve experienced over the last two and a half years is deep grief. It comes and goes. It waxes and wanes; it ebbs and flows. There’s not a pattern, and the hurt can grab me at any given moment.
This is why…. Because we loved our church. We loved the people in the church so very much. They were a part of our daily lives for 12 years, and most of those years were really good. We had many good friends there. I have so many beautiful memories. It would’ve been easy to walk away if it had been all bad, but it wasn’t. It was the place we belonged. It was our family. It was an integral part of our lives, so we grieve that loss. And just to be painfully clear, we have grieved it mostly alone. Because, you see, it seems that the idea of the church is that you are either all in or you are all out. In fact, those are the very words the pastor said to us. We realized very quickly that we were all out, and that realization was even more apparent when we never heard from most of the people again. That heaps hurt on top of hurt.
It has taken me a while, but I know that God moved us away from there for a reason. I know that He will redeem all that hurt and pain.
I know that His plan is perfect.
I know that His ways are not my ways.
And I know that He not only understands my grief, but He walks through it with me.
Grief isn’t a linear thing I’m learning; it’s a series of moments. It’s ups and downs, highs and lows, and different every day.
Until Next Time,
Whitney