Religious Trauma & Finding a Home Anyways

Many of us carry some sort of religious trauma, that even when we think we’ve handled it enough to come back to church, catches us off guard. A word or even a smell can send us back to a time when we weren’t sure about our faith or belonging due to deep church hurt. So, what do you do? Do you leave again, unable to exist alongside the triggers, or do we find a way to live with them, but not letting them control our lives? 

Talking about my experience in graduate school when I left the church after being done with its BS, and finding my way back only to still be talking with my therapist nearly 11 years later and realizing that I still have a lot of unpacking of imbedded theologies that routinely try to ruin my life, even as a Pastor who studied these things and know they’re toxic theology. 

Our trauma is ours, but we are not our traumas. We may leave the church because of the harms it has done to us, but God does not leave us when we walk out those doors and say we are never coming back. God stays with us, all throughout our lives, whether we end up back in a pew or not. 

Coming back to church is a recognition that we are beloved children of God and that we deserve a place that is what we need for our souls and hearts. Returning to church is defiance to those that say we don’t belong and ran us out the door. And in our stories, we can find truths and understandings that shaped us. These truths are vital to the work of the church in becoming more like the kindom of God, a place of healing and hope for our own souls and our communities.