I Left the Church

In 2015 I left the church.

I didn’t know I was leaving it then, in fact, it seemed as if I was only becoming more knit it, more married to her, more everything in reference to her. I left one church in order to come on staff at another church. But all wasn’t as it seemed at this new church and then we had to move across the country suddenly and we didn’t get to heal what was broken at that church with that church. And so the broken thing just stayed a little broken for a long time.

It stayed broken in our new city when, week after week, we visited various churches trying to find a home, a place to serve, to thrive again, to become again what we once were. It stayed broken as, throughout a year, we found ourselves at odds with one another in what we wanted and what felt safe to each of us. It stayed broken as we watched church after church from our network fall apart and had to ask ourselves what culpability we played in the same systems. It stayed broken when, finally, after almost a year, my husband convinced me to try a strange and unfamiliar liturgical tradition. Even for those weeks and months, I held my breath on the drive each Sunday, clinging to the arm of the man I loved, hiding in his shoulder. From what? I don’t know. Myself?