It’s been about a year and a half since I started really deconstructing and just over a year since I hit the bottom and questioned God’s existence. Healing from relgious trauma was one of the hardest things I have ever done; there was such a deep root of shame, condemnation, and fear in me. Processing relgious trauma and deconstruction were not easy; they were not fun or pleasant. It took confronting my past, cleaning out old wounds, and forgiving others as well as myself.  I have spent months and months of prayer, EMDR, writing, and talk therapies. After I started healing, I was able to start reconstructing some of my beliefs. It has been a long, hard road to get here.

I had to acknowledge the pain from relgious trauma. After a few weeks’ hiatus, I went back to that old church I grew up at, not as a member of the community, but as a worker. I went back for the girls. I remembered how it felt when I lost my children’s minister and the youth minister’s wife. I knew I was going back when I finally got to meet up with one of the families, and one of my girls buried her face in me and begged me not to leave. I had to go back for them.  I went back for both mine and the girls’ right to say goodbye on our own terms. I had a panic attack in the parking lot, week after week; I stayed hidden in the children’s area. I didn’t know which adults to trust, which ones blamed me, which ones hated me, and which ones were involved in taking my house and wanted me gone. So those walls of ice began to form, and I took that beaten, hurt, and betrayed girl and sealed her behind that ice. It was hard to be warm and loving to the girls, then put the ice back up when adults came around. It was exhausting and unhealthy, but at the time, I didn’t know what else to do. I was so angry, and it was all encompassing, so I put it all in a box. When the girls were promoted to the youth group, I left. No, not left, I fled. I did exactly what I felt those pastors wanted me to do: I disappeared.

When I started going to my new church, I knew I was keeping everyone at arm’s length. I might talk about my story, but it was factual, and like I was reading a book out loud. I was so dissociated from the pain that I might as well have been telling a stranger’s story. I was prompted to join a small group, but I didn’t let myself get attached. I started serving in the children’s ministry again, but I didn’t feel any connection to the kids. I kept other people serving and the children’s pastors away, giving only polite chat; this was such an automatic response that I didn’t realize I was doing it for a long time. As my therapist and I started going through the wounds left by my childhood church. Things began to become clearer. I realized exactly how thick that wall of ice had become, and how adept at acting I had become. Slowly, my therapist and I began to unpack that box, to address all that pain. Piece by piece, we sorted through all that baggage, and I began to forgive my childhood church, but that ice wall remained, and I didn’t know why.

I knew I was carrying around shame; there was a wound buried deep that kept me bound, something that was infected and broken.  It took several talk sessions and 3 EMDR sessions to discover that I had survivor’s guilt, I felt that my freedom had cost others. I also realized I blamed myself for what happened to my friends and the girls. I felt that I should somehow have known, and I should have protected them.  I brought him into some of those friends’ lives, and I thought I had failed to protect “my” girls. The ones he hurt and the ones who witnessed it. The night we found this wound, I called my best friend and wept, then came home and wept for hours. I had encouraged him to go to kids camp that year before so I could selfishly have a break from him. I had thought he was lurking around classrooms simply to invade my space and bait me. My “good girl” reputation was part of his concealment; he used me to hide, he used me to play the victim.  I hated that he had used me, that he had made me the fool. I couldn’t help but think that it was somehow partially my fault. One of the most painful parts of this journey was forgiving myself. Forgiving myself for what happened took time; it was hard and unbearably painful. The day we found this root of shame in my therapist’s office was one of the most painful experiences I have ever had. I got out of my session and called my best friend and wept, and wept, the tears would not stop. Finally, I confessed at the altar in my new church, received prayer, and I finally forgave myself.  Afterwards, I drove through church grounds and around the neighborhood, letting myself remember and feel whatever came up. I journaled in the church parking lot and sat in front of my childhood home. I prayed, I cried, and let that healing wash over me.

When I went to see my father right before he died, he told me he had written letters to his victims, and for the first time, I saw names. I had my suspicions, but this confirmed who he had hurt.  His friend (the same one who sent me the email with verses) told him to write his victims and apologize. Again, I felt like the forgotten victim; they got letters of apology, real or not, I got a letter of condemnation and a post on a blog defending him and saying it was all the medication, all in Jesus name. Apparently, it doesn’t count as abuse when your father is doing it. I struggled a lot with the relgious justification of my abuse. Another EMDR session revealed that I was terrified that he was right; I was terrified that one day he was going to show up at my new church and reveal what a bad person I was, and I would again be outcast. Finally, it began to dawn on me why I was afraid to let my new church close. I was a terrible, ungrateful, rebellious daughter who had turned her back on her father and helped send him to prison. Who was also a terrible Christian for not taking care of him after his release, and it was only a matter of time before my new church saw me for what I was. It took another EMDR session and another trip to the altar to cry and receive prayer to finally be freed from that shame.

In 2024, I received a baby shower invite for one of my girls, and for the first time in 5 years, I stepped foot inside that building. My heart pounded in my chest as I walked into that building. I had no idea what to expect. Right inside the door, I saw the grandma-to-be, and within minutes, my girls were in my arms, and tears were running down my cheeks. It was an emotional but good day. The next year, those girls graduated from high school, and I went back into that building again, as well as several other graduations from that church; each event helped heal some wounds in my heart. The most difficult part was seeing any leader or pastor from that church; I was still harboring some anger towards them, and would have more memories flash before me on the drive home. I had to take each piece and forgive them bit by bit, then remind myself it is okay for me to never want to see those men again. Forgiveness does not mean reconciliation. I can now drive past the building and through that neighborhood without being triggered. I can sit at the park down the street and read or watch mom play with their kids.

This past month, I was in the church building again, this time in the church gym, and I had CPTSD flashbacks the whole party. I heard the sounds of AWANAs, smelled the church dinners, heard the basketballs, and tasted the crushed ice from the kitchen. Then I could hear his keys jingle,  smell him, and hear his voice. I had to go to the bathroom, but it was worse in there, as that was a primary bathroom I used when I was little, and helping him at work. I came back out and had visions of my brother and me playing basketball with him. I heard my little voice asking him questions and the lights being turned off. I could smell the carpeted stairs above the gym “office.” I turned and looked at the doors, the doors that led to the back gate of my house.  I grew up running back and forth from those doors to my yard.  All the good and bad memories swirled and mixed before me, UPWARDS basketball going on while I followed the youth pastor around before his crimes. I saw myself being tackled by kids during childcare nights, I had flashbacks of the gym before the remodel, then I saw a little girl dancing on her father’s feet. Dancing in a rare moment of affection, her favorite songs were being blasted over the gym sound system. For a moment, I had felt he loved me; those moments were so few and far between. I walked back to my seat and hid my shaking hands under the table. I made it a few more minutes, then I had to go. I got to my car and started to cry. I am so glad to have some of the relationships from that church back, but I  don’t know if being in that building will ever get easier.

Sometimes I think back to my old house, I can still see my little back bedroom, smell the trees in my backyard, and feel the carpet on my bare feet. The night before we turned in the keys, I drove to my empty house, and I sat on my kitchen floor and wept. I walked through the house and cried until I had no tears left. I screamed, and I raged at the church that took this last ripped this last piece of me away. That was the night of the news report. I will never understand why those pastors and church committees made the decisions  they did. Did they just not understand the pain they were causing? The danger we were in? I wonder what that youth pastor who got on to me for not supporting my father thought when he heard the news. Part of healing has been making peace with all the unanswered questions and accepting that this side of heaven, I will probably never know the full story. I do not expect to ever receive an apology from them and can only hope they took better care of the other victims than they did me. I can only hope that the youth minister who told me to respect my abusive father learned he should hear both sides of the story next time. Hopefully, he will offer encouragement and understanding instead of judgment and condemnation from now on.

Over the last year, I have heard from two friends from that church whom I reconnected with, one through FB, and a mutual friend. One friend told me she hated what happened to me and said they left the church partially because of how I was treated. Another apologized for not seeing what was happening to me sooner. Both messages made me cry; I never expected to hear anything from anyone after so long. I have forgiven my friends from that church for not helping me, but the apology brought me another measure of peace. I understand now that they did not have the tools or training to see what was happening, and I did not have the words to explain. I am grateful for the few people from my childhood whom I have back. This year marks 9 years since losing everything, and I honestly thought I would never trust a church community again.

 I was out of church for 5 years, all the trauma and pain caused panic attacks, anytime I tried to visit a church. Eventually, I quit trying, and at the beginning, I did not miss it. Then COVID, and I used that as an excuse to stay isolated. But in 2022, I found myself walking into  a church completely different from the one I was raised in. This one didn’t meet in a big fancy 3-campus building, but in a renovated warehouse; this one didn’t sing old hymns to a pipe organ but mostly modern worship with a band. This one didn’t just send money to foreign missions but partnered with those in need in our own city. There was no Sunday school, no big fancy bapistry, and the pastors wore blue jeans to preach. The most shocking difference, though? It had women pastors, who preached from the pulpit, and I loved it. The women at this church were not expected to merely just be “help meets” to their husbands or fathers’ duties or missions (not that they don’t do that as well), but they had their own purpose and callings from God that were not limited to childcare. Again, I am not saying supporting your husband’s ministry or serving in kids is bad. I am saying this church provided an opportunity to women to serve and lead in other capacities. At my church growing up, there were only certain roles women were allowed to have, regardless of calling, capacity, or qualifications. This was the kind of church that 16-year-old Shelby would have turned her nose up at, but this new church was one of the anchors holding me steady during the processing relgious trauma and deconstructing phases of the healing journey. This church called out all forms of abuse from the pulpit, promising protection for victims and survivors should they need it. This church put men’s spiritual health and mental purity on them and not on women in the congregation. They have very strict rules and boundaries to protect our children and youth. At the time, I received that email with the bible verses from my estranged father friend, I requested pastoral counselling, and a pastor sat with me, listened to the story and some relgious trauma she went through, and helped me understand that it was not a sin for me to separate from my father. Even if I couldn’t fully accept it at that time, it was very helpful to be understood by a pastor.

When I started deconstructing, I expected condemnation, I expected disappointment, there were some weeks like that Easter sunday that I just didn’t show up. I turned down some requests to serve and struggled to attend group. In 2025, when I went on my first mission trip, one of the Pastors heard I had anxiety about door-to-door evangelism. Instead of condemning me for having questions and doubts, he listened and talked with me about them (I will share that story next. This year, I did a course called ALPHA with my church. I went mostly for a friend, but also learned some great things from it. It was a round-table discussion where you could ask questions and express doubts about faith, belief, and traditions. We had all sorts of people of varying ages and ethnicities. Everyone came from a different relgious background and upbringing. Even when I did not have questions or doubts, watching others discuss it and how our church members/pastor responded gave me more peace that this was a safe place. In my small groups, I have been free to talk about relgious trauma, mental health, and even deconstructing. Everyone has been supportive and has shown empathy on this journey as I reconstructed my convictions and boundaries.

It took some time, but after processing the pain from my old church, forgiving the wounds inflicted, forgiving myself, and letting Jesus take that shame off of me, I was finally able to bring down that wall of ice between myself and this new community. Slowly but surely, that wall began to melt, and I began to feel safe enough to remove that mask I had been wearing for so long. On the mission trip, while lying in a hospital bed, that last layer of the ice wall finally shattered. After that, I was able to join two new small groups and actually let those women in and allow them to see me. I was able to really form genuine connections. This was also the turning point in my deconstructing journey, the part where I finally invited God into the process.

When deconstructing, I went back and read all those books that formed the beliefs I developed in my teens and twenties. Going back and reading them enabled me to connect the dots and see how I arrived at the conclusions I did. I also went back and watched “Heaven’s Gates, Hell’s Flames” on YouTube and finally saw its true intention: fear. God never called us to live in fear. Re-watching that play and April Ajoy’s books helped me start  unpacking “Raputre Trauma,” and the fear-mongering that came with it. Apparently, it is not normal to panic because you can’t find your family and you are afraid they were raptured, but you are bad and didn’t mean the salvation prayer, so you were left behind. It’s also not healthy to be so afraid that your new friend is going to die on the car ride home because you didn’t teach them the sinner’s prayer and now they are going to hell when they die on the way home. It’s not my job to “save” people; my job is to share the love of Christ and help him take care of them. Realizing those truths and no longer living by someone else’s fear or convictions has brought so much peace into my life and truly helped level out my anxiety.

I am no longer afraid that God is an angry parent just waiting for me to mess up so He can punish me. I no longer believe that God condones and justifies what happened to me or that He condemns me for leaving my father. I no longer believe that as a woman, I am a second-class Christian or that I am responsible for anyone’s purity but my own.  I would never want to intentionally do anything to cause any of my brothers or sisters in Christ to stumble in any area, but their purity is theirs to mind, not mine. I no longer believe that voting for or against a political party defines my commitment to Christ. For years, I believed that you had to be part of a particular party to be a Christian; voting for the other candidate was like turning your back on God. Jesus does not have a voter registration card, and no group is holier than the other. I am simply called to vote for the candidate whose policies best represent Jesus’s teachings. I no longer believe that Jesus calls me to be perfect or completely separate from the world and culture around me. There are definitely things I am called to abstain from, but I am not supposed to isolate myself completely from the world. I am not a pristine doll in a box who loses value when she is brought out into the world.

My purity ring now sits in a box in my closet. I have debated throwing in a lake or off the side of a mountain for a symbolic separation, but have not been able to do it yet. I don’t need a ring to be a placeholder for a wedding ring that might never come. My sexual integrity is not pledged to some future husband, its pleged to God and myself, and while I do still believe in saving the experience of sex for marriage, if I were to break that boundary,  I no longer consider it the “unremediable” sin it once was, I would not be “used goods” or have “stolen” something from my mythical future husband. My sexuality belongs to God and myself, not a mystical man whom I am not bound to in any way, shape, or form. Deconstructing purity culture has freed me to have guy friends for the first time in my life and even say yes to a date.

The hardest part of reconstruction has been politics. I have dealt with a lot of shame surrounding this about my past. This one has been another hard area to forgive myself for because my mistakes impacted not just me but also others. Church, modesty, and purity were personal things that mostly impacted me, but politics and worldviews, which fuel my voting, bills, bans, and political offices, affect everyone. I regret blindly following the party I grew up in, for not asking questions sooner, and for not educating myself sooner. When I was in captivity, my options were very limited, but after escaping, I wish I had figured out what I believe sooner because votes are what help or hurt others, they are what set us up for the future, and I chose to turn a blind eye to that for way too long. This does not mean all my beliefs or opinions have changed, but I now know “why” I believe them, and those views can be debated and questioned. But honestly, I am still really just trying to listen and educate myself. There are still way too many “I don’t knows” in this area, and far too many questions I am slowly answering for myself to speak on this much yet. I also do not believe online is the best place for political debates or discussions, which is why you don’t see much here on this blog or on my social media. I have trusted friends who help teach me and have different perspectives, so I can make informed decisions going forward. Something I have failed to do in the past while blindly following my party. One of my favorite and most helpful books on this part of the journey was “Star Spangled Jeus” by April Ajoy, it’s part memoir, part field guide, and while the author and I may have landed on different conclusions in some areas, a lot of our relgious trauma and political beliefs growing up were the same. No candidate is perfect; no candidate checks all the boxes, but I choose the one who gets the most of them, regardless of their political party. Now I research things myself, and don’t trust a voter guide sent out by a specific political party. I can observe and listen more objectively, knowing my decision is not connected to my salvation. This has also opened the door for much better conversation among my friend groups. I also question all parties and learn from people from all walks of life. I continue to read different political science and history books and watch different documentaries.

With this journey came a bigger table, a table where all are welcome. Why? because that is how my Jesus did it. It does not matter to me if we share the same faith, grew up in the same country, or what your voter registration card says. If you show up willing to be kind and respectful of others, then you are welcome. I grew up believing that sharing my table with those who believe differently from me would influence me, and that impact would be negative. Well, in some ways, they are right; these people have influenced me, we have shared stories, asked questions, and given each other different perspectives, but the impact has only helped me grow and opened up my worldview. I grew up worried about what people would think. I thought there was a big conspiracy among people on the other side of the fence to corrupt me and force their beliefs on me, so I avoided them out of fear. But that is not the example Jesus gave us; Jesus didn’t have to agree perfectly with every person he spent time with; he didn’t require each one to commit to him and his way of living before he gave of his time. He spoke too and taught women when women were legally property. He dined with the foreigner and spoke with the social outcasts. He told us to be kind, to love one another, and to live at peace with all as far as it depends on us. He called out racism, sexism,  the love of money, and legalistic traditions. He talked with anyone and everyone, and as a little girl, I did too. It’s nice to have that part of me back.

I wish I could say I have all the answers by now, but I don’t, I never will. This journey has taught me so much about God, myself, and others. There are a hundred other little areas I have deconstructed from music, movies, books, and fandoms. I have slowly been examining them piece by piece. Examining each piece to determine what goes and what stays. I am still sorting through pieces of rubble, trying to sort some things out. I spend a lot of time on nature walks thinking, praying, and asking myself questions. There is still a whole list of books I want to read. Slowly but surely moving forward and gaining wisdom and understanding. The time I spent in captivity and living under all those legalistic rules, the time I was playing the part, being the “girl they wanted,” seems like a fever dream now. Looking back, it was so clearly not me that I almost want to laugh. I also pity that girl because she was miserable; she was trying too hard to follow others’ convictions and adhere to all the rules, which snuffed out most of the joy in her life. She was so full of shame and condemnation about being out of church, but also so traumatized by the church that she could not go. Sometimes I feel as though in 31 years of life, I have lived through several lifetimes. From the happy little girl full of love and empathy,  to the miserable “good girl” mold that I was forced into, to the forgotten victim, to the rage-filled woman in pain, and finally back to that happy person full of love whom I was always meant to be. I am so grateful for this journey and the community around me; this journey has been hard and long, but for the first time in my life, I feel assured and confident in my faith. For the longest time, I would say I believed something and took the action steps with it, while my spirit and body screamed, “This is wrong”. I never understood why I always felt so conflicted about certain things. I never understood why I felt such deep shame or felt the need to keep secrets of what I actually believed. Acknowledging, processing my relgious trauma, and forgiving those who hurt me brought peace into my life. Deconstructing brought clarity and freedom to my mind. Healing and reconstructing have brought joy and light back in. This journey has been long and hard, but I am so grateful for all it has taught me. There is still a lot of road ahead of me, but I no longer feel alone or burned by shame. As one of my favorite writers once said; Finally, after ‘sleeping so long in a 20-year dark night (Now I’m wide awake) And now I see daylight (daylight), I only see daylight (daylight)”.

Thanks to all who have encouraged and supported me on this journey

Daylight lyrics by Taylor Swift