Leaving the Fold

In the last three weeks, I’ve wrestled with whether to share this story. Sobriety has a way of forcing reflection and bringing old beliefs and buried questions to the surface. Some parts of that journey have been light, full of clarity and growth. Others have pulled me into deeper places, asking me to confront parts of myself, my faith, and my identity that I had spent years avoiding.

I had been heavily involved in the church since I was a baby, sitting in the same pews my parents and grandparents once did, reciting words I didn’t fully understand, believing I would one day. For years, faith was measured by attendance, memorized verses, and knowing the right things to say at the right time. I performed Christianity the way I had been taught, but somewhere along the line, I realized that performing belief was not the same as living it.

I studied the Bible every morning before school and every night before bed. I attended Sunday School, praise danced (complete with the white face and gloves), sang in the choir, and even choreographed dances for the younger kids at my church. I ate, slept, and breathed Christianity, mostly at the behest of my grandmother, Mema🕊️. Back then, we didn’t question why we had to go to church or the passages we studied daily. You went and participated because you were told to.

Even as I immersed myself in the church, doubts began to creep in. At first, they were small, contradictions in scripture, or the disconnect between what was taught and how people actually lived. I tried to ignore them, thinking faith was about obedience rather than questioning.

The moment that shifted things for me came during an evangelist’s sermon, when homosexuality was condemned as a sin in a way that felt more rooted in fear than love. I remember sitting there, uncomfortable and conflicted, trying to reconcile what I was hearing with what I had always believed about compassion. This wasn't the first instance I experienced, but it was the tipping point for me.

I came across this conversation from KevOnStage recently, and it echoed a tension I had already been feeling in my own experience but didn't have the words for.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVd_QnySUCc

I was gone before the congregation could say "amen". As I swiftly walked to my car with a heavy heart, I realized I could no longer ignore the gap between what I had been taught and what I felt was true in practice. Leaving the church didn’t mean abandoning what I had learned. It meant I could no longer pretend that everything I was taught aligned with how I wanted to live.

That realization didn’t come all at once. It showed up in conversations that felt more like judgment than understanding, in subtle pressure to conform rather than grow, and in my own quiet awareness that I was starting to question things I had once accepted without thought.

Leaving the church was not a single decision. It was a slow unraveling and a series of questions I could no longer set aside. A quiet acknowledgment that the version of faith I inherited no longer fit the person I was becoming.

So I stepped away.

Not from the values I was raised with, but from the structure that taught me to perform them instead of truly living them.

I don’t claim certainty about God or the afterlife. But I still carry the principles I was raised with, love, patience, integrity, and compassion. I’m learning that living those values doesn’t require a label, only intention.

The choices you make when no one is watching matter just as much as anything spoken from a pulpit. Living with intention, showing up for others, and trying to become a better person are what matter most to me now.

Leaving the church didn’t take those lessons away from me. It gave me space to finally understand how to live them in a way that feels honest, personal, and real.