Silas
Beloved of All
Your need to step back and deliberately do nothing is not a sign that you are wasting your life. When you have been running for a long time, exhausted and carrying more than you can bear, choosing to pause is wisdom, not failure. It is voluntary, not forced, and it protects your health. The feeling that you are doing nothing with your life in those quiet moments is understandable, but rest is not emptiness. It is the space where your body and soul can breathe again, and without it you will break down.
That major change you mentioned has left you unsettled, and the solitude of stepping back has given your thoughts more room to run. Going over and over the same painful events, the two congregations and their leaders and people, the couple who used your image to cover their own engagement, the negative information that came to you without a clear source, your own feelings that hurt you while you felt you had no right to express them, will not bring clarity. The more you examine and reexamine, the heavier it becomes. It is good to reflect, but endless rumination in isolation makes the burden worse. Bring those tangled thoughts to Jesus, who you have already been talking to every day. He heard you even when no person asked you a single question. Your longing for someone simply to ask what you were living through is deeply human, and the fact that it did not happen after a year and a half of having to chase people, justify yourself and fight to be heard, is a real wound.
What you describe about that planned public questioning is also understandable to fear. When people have already formed a fixed image of you based on prejudice, when they have not truly asked about your experience, when there is slander behind your back and facts are exaggerated or insulted, a public forum will not seek truth. There is a real risk that anything you say will be used against you. You have already lived through meetings where a congregation tried to justify its own injustice toward you and then humiliated you, and you say this is not even the worst you have endured. That history matters. The failure you have experienced is not proof that God has failed. The story of the church through history is often a story of failure, of hypocrisy and compromise entering in, and when that leaven is tolerated the power and presence of God lifts. That is not God's fault. What God intends for His people is seen most clearly in the pattern of the early church in Acts, a people marked by love and by good works, a discerning people who did not tolerate evil but also did not live without love. Where love is missing, His presence does not remain. Even when systems become corrupt, the Lord always keeps His faithful witnesses within them, but you are not required to submit to an unsafe or prejudged process to prove your worth.
It is also understandable that you struggle to trust pastors and other Christians right now. You have tried to reach out and have received judgment and fresh wounds. Setting boundaries is especially hard when those crossing them hold authority, and it is painful when speaking honestly and respectfully about your hurt is met with retaliation that wounds even more deeply than the original hurt. You do not need to paint everyone as evil to acknowledge that harm was done. You can be grateful for the good you received from people and still tell the truth that their actions hurt you and that you need limits. Cooperation and patient explanation do not obligate you to stay in a place where you are not heard or safe.
Feeling numb, confused about what is true and what is false, not feeling safe to go out, wanting at times to flee, these are signs of deep exhaustion and distress, not signs that you are unstable. God is not waiting to hurt you when you do something wrong. That fear is not what Scripture means by the fear of the Lord. The true fear of the Lord grows from love, a love that does not want to hurt Him because you know how much He loves you. He is a safe refuge, and He sees the injustice and the slander even when others do not.
You said you hated writing these things because you long to move forward and these weights feel like they hold your feet. That desire to advance is good. Healing will not come from forcing yourself to carry all the answers at once. It will come step by step as you stay rooted in Christ and allow Him to sort what is true from what is false. Give your reflection a contained place, perhaps writing for a limited time and then bringing it to the Lord in prayer, and seek one or two wise, loving, and spiritually mature people outside the conflict who can listen without an agenda, who value both truth and love. Care for your body with real rest and medical care as needed, because your health matters to God. If a public meeting is proposed, you have the right to ask for wisdom about whether to participate, to bring a trusted advocate, to ask for a private and fair process, or to decline an abusive one. You do not have to fight alone to be heard.
May the Lord give you clarity where there is confusion, peace where there is fear, and rest for your body and mind. May He guard your heart from slander, surround you with people who love well and discern well, and lead you in the way He intended for His people, a way of holiness and love that carries His power. He has heard every prayer you have prayed in these long months, and He will continue to guide you toward the decisive step forward you long for.
That major change you mentioned has left you unsettled, and the solitude of stepping back has given your thoughts more room to run. Going over and over the same painful events, the two congregations and their leaders and people, the couple who used your image to cover their own engagement, the negative information that came to you without a clear source, your own feelings that hurt you while you felt you had no right to express them, will not bring clarity. The more you examine and reexamine, the heavier it becomes. It is good to reflect, but endless rumination in isolation makes the burden worse. Bring those tangled thoughts to Jesus, who you have already been talking to every day. He heard you even when no person asked you a single question. Your longing for someone simply to ask what you were living through is deeply human, and the fact that it did not happen after a year and a half of having to chase people, justify yourself and fight to be heard, is a real wound.
What you describe about that planned public questioning is also understandable to fear. When people have already formed a fixed image of you based on prejudice, when they have not truly asked about your experience, when there is slander behind your back and facts are exaggerated or insulted, a public forum will not seek truth. There is a real risk that anything you say will be used against you. You have already lived through meetings where a congregation tried to justify its own injustice toward you and then humiliated you, and you say this is not even the worst you have endured. That history matters. The failure you have experienced is not proof that God has failed. The story of the church through history is often a story of failure, of hypocrisy and compromise entering in, and when that leaven is tolerated the power and presence of God lifts. That is not God's fault. What God intends for His people is seen most clearly in the pattern of the early church in Acts, a people marked by love and by good works, a discerning people who did not tolerate evil but also did not live without love. Where love is missing, His presence does not remain. Even when systems become corrupt, the Lord always keeps His faithful witnesses within them, but you are not required to submit to an unsafe or prejudged process to prove your worth.
It is also understandable that you struggle to trust pastors and other Christians right now. You have tried to reach out and have received judgment and fresh wounds. Setting boundaries is especially hard when those crossing them hold authority, and it is painful when speaking honestly and respectfully about your hurt is met with retaliation that wounds even more deeply than the original hurt. You do not need to paint everyone as evil to acknowledge that harm was done. You can be grateful for the good you received from people and still tell the truth that their actions hurt you and that you need limits. Cooperation and patient explanation do not obligate you to stay in a place where you are not heard or safe.
Feeling numb, confused about what is true and what is false, not feeling safe to go out, wanting at times to flee, these are signs of deep exhaustion and distress, not signs that you are unstable. God is not waiting to hurt you when you do something wrong. That fear is not what Scripture means by the fear of the Lord. The true fear of the Lord grows from love, a love that does not want to hurt Him because you know how much He loves you. He is a safe refuge, and He sees the injustice and the slander even when others do not.
You said you hated writing these things because you long to move forward and these weights feel like they hold your feet. That desire to advance is good. Healing will not come from forcing yourself to carry all the answers at once. It will come step by step as you stay rooted in Christ and allow Him to sort what is true from what is false. Give your reflection a contained place, perhaps writing for a limited time and then bringing it to the Lord in prayer, and seek one or two wise, loving, and spiritually mature people outside the conflict who can listen without an agenda, who value both truth and love. Care for your body with real rest and medical care as needed, because your health matters to God. If a public meeting is proposed, you have the right to ask for wisdom about whether to participate, to bring a trusted advocate, to ask for a private and fair process, or to decline an abusive one. You do not have to fight alone to be heard.
May the Lord give you clarity where there is confusion, peace where there is fear, and rest for your body and mind. May He guard your heart from slander, surround you with people who love well and discern well, and lead you in the way He intended for His people, a way of holiness and love that carries His power. He has heard every prayer you have prayed in these long months, and He will continue to guide you toward the decisive step forward you long for.
