The Reality of Healing Part 1

Audi

This is Anonymous Church. Every week we share real stories behind faith and ministry, the kind that people don't always feel safe to say out loud. Our hope is that by listening you'll remember you're not too much, you're not alone, and your story matters.

Audi

Today's guest is my friend Ashton.

that she's boldly shared her story, but this is the first time that she's shared it out loud in an interview format.

From the very beginning of Anonymous, I knew she had a place here, but the timing was not right. I'm so glad that now it is.

This is the first of a multi-part series where Ashton shares the reality of healing.

Ashton

Are you ready? Welcome to the podcast. How are you? I know we're both nervous.

Audi

Yeah, I think so.

Feeling good.

Yeah, but my nerves are like, am I going to be able to like speak with clarity? The other thing is, mean, just the nature of what we're doing, what we're talking about, it's not bad, but it's, I think to the world, it's putting a dark cloud on some things because we're talking about the bad. mean, yeah, that's an even better way to put it. Like we're actually going to talk about things that are heavy and hard. So.

That makes me nervous anyway. I'm kind of past the point of, am I going to piss everyone off? But there's a realness to like, I don't want to dump all my hurt onto other people. Like I'm not going to just live in this place of resentment and bitterness and I don't want to come across that way.

Audi

Yeah, so I don't think you do. I want to make sure that I create a space for you to like be your most authentic self. And I know it can be hard when you're like talking into a microphone and there's a camera in your face to like be yourself, but I hope that that's what you can do.

Ashton

I think I can do it. I feel like I've sat in it long enough. You're too. I listen, I trust you and I do not feel like your heart is, it's just, there's just no ego there.

Audi

It costs us a lot already.

I don't want to exploit you. want to handle this so carefully because you're a person. It's not just a story. It's not just something that people are reading or hearing. This is your life.

Ashton

Thank you for that. yeah, I appreciate that.

Audi

So I'm gonna start the same way I start every one of our podcasts and ask you were in vocational ministry for a long time. Yeah. How did that start for you? Well,

Ashton

I guess I don't know if they would consider it a long time, four years, at the same church for six years.

Audi

So really quick for context, before we get started, we worked together. Yeah. Like it was just such a weird thing. Like I went through a really traumatic event in my personal life and I ended up leaving one location to go to another one. And then we had lunch, we had pizza. least. First day was my last day.

Ashton

But like not at all.

my first day. We

were like telling you guys bye. It was just so crazy because I was coming in as an intern. They were asking questions. It's a bunch of us women. And it was honestly shocking. It wasn't like a judgmental like what the hell is she saying? But I literally was just like, my gosh, like what the hell has happened? Like what's going on? Because what you were talking about- no context. No.

Audi

And I was

going through like the darkest time of my life.

Ashton

Well, they had asked

you it wasn't even like you were just like oversharing like they were asking you like honestly kind of heavier questions Yeah, and trying to like sin like say goodbye well and give you space to like process But yeah, I mean like like when I tell you I Drove to the campus was I don't even know that I even went to the campus first that might have been the first stop on my first day So, know, you have a leader obviously, so I'm pretty sure she was like hey just FYI like

Some stuff happened and I'm like a bait. I mean, I was a total baby. Like I had volunteered for a while. Honestly, not even that long. Like, so just for context, when I got to the church, I got baptized in 2018. I was a freaking worship intern January 1 of 2019.

Audi

That's so funny that you were straight in. Like that.

Ashton

I've been serving for little while, but it's like, I I go from like a fair divorce going through like just all the, I mean, all the stuff like single mom. I mean, I was in survival mode, like living paycheck to paycheck could barely pay my bills. Like just having a rocky time with most of my family. Like I was alone very much so. I, but I remember being so enamored and like,

accepted at this at this church that it was just like man I'm all in give me the Kool-Aid. Here's my blood like what else do you need where do I sign it mean and that's kind of what happened and I don't even mean that in like an ugly way it's not I but like truly that's how fast it was right and I went from all this like I mean I was so I was hurting so bad I don't even think I mean I totally disassociated with it and that's what's interesting to me is like

Audi

Whatever you

Ashton

I so badly wanted to not be who I was. I wanted so badly to right all of the wrongs and like become somebody totally different. And I think that that I don't I don't think it was a lie. I don't think that it's not that I couldn't be but what I thought that was in Christ was not it. It that was not it. And

So yeah, I mean, I go from all of that hurt and I'm like now a pastor because that's what that pastor, like he would tell me that every day as an intern, like you are a pastor right now, today. I just, again, I'm not saying that to like trash the church or anything like that, but that's the reality of what happened.

Audi

When I understand their intention is to like empower you, but when you're when you're somewhat, you just don't know someone's story, you know, we

Ashton

think

you do, but the thing is, it sounds really good because it sounds like that church rescued me. Right. And we can talk about that from stage. will.

Audi

Yeah, it's a story now that we can package and make branded and you know they're not you're exactly right. anyway, so yeah, so we met briefly you got the worst version of me literally probably like no actual context of who I am.

Ashton

They're not telling my story today.

hilarious.

Like, I'll be totally honest. I remember thinking this person is safe because you were honest.

Audi

And I mask my trauma with humor, so I'm just like probably making all the jokes. So I go to another campus, the campus you were previously at, to Heal. Like that's why I was going there. And to be really transparent, I had a wonderful boss. My immediate boss was truly, if I had worked for him the whole time I was there, I would have nothing negative to say. was wonderful. He was...

Ashton

to.

Audi

a friend and just so kind, so understanding. He did not get frustrated with me when I asked questions, which is not something I had experienced before. Anyway, so it was the perfect place for me to heal, really. And I'm working through that. I remember a big event that we had and we had to decorate our church as a... Newie. Yeah. And there was a lot of sand. I just remember everything was brown. It was... Peter Pan.

Ashton

Because

we built a, yes, we built a giant ship. That was when I started. started, that would have been construction week. That was my first week and I just gotten engaged.

Audi

And I remember

Yeah, so I remember talking to you exhausted. I think we were eating ice cream or popsicles or something. It was like 10 o'clock at night and I'm a kids pastor. So I'm like, tell me about your kids. Like trying to get to know you. what I said. I don't remember, but that's the first real interaction I remember having with you. And then we weren't super close. And also to be fair, as I was going to say, it was a very large location. And I went from being on a team where I had one person on my team in my ministry to where I had five.

Ashton

What was huge at that time?

Audi

So like, just for perspective of how much bigger it was. Yeah. It was crazy. then there was also just a lot of change happen.

Ashton

But Christmas, we have 12 services that year. I won't ever forget it.

Audi

Over

five days. Yeah, I still so this will be I don't know my fifth Christmas not being there and I still get like anxious that I'm not gonna have enough time with my family because I spent all of my young adult life and all of my kids growing up missing things like that. Yeah, and that's hard for me to like forgive myself for but I believed at the time that I was doing something good. I don't know. I feel like I've had to like greet that.

Ashton

The verse that I keep coming back to and I hate even like quoting, I love quoting scripture, but it just looks different now. the verse I think of is, will restore back all that the year of the locust took. I've just had to come back to that. Cause I would imagine that everyone who's out of it feels that it has some of that. I've actually, I've talked to many people who have felt that. That has actually been a really hard thing to overcome.

all of the decisions that you made that you really believed were wholesome and good.

Audi

I think there's like stages of healing, right? When you come out of ministry, I think this is universal, but there's the first like, man, ministry is harmful to me. This harmed me. And then you start to heal a little bit more and it's like, I was also the ministry. I harmed myself. And then you move further and you're like, I perpetuated harm to other people. And I feel like that's kind of where I'm getting now is, well, I mean, over the last several years, grieving and forgiving myself for like really harming other people. It's kind of funny how those small things like infiltrate.

All areas of our life. Anyway, so you were there for four years, but six years really, because you were serving. And how did that begin for you? Like, did you grow up in church?

Ashton

So a little bit, but not really. We weren't there like every weekend. We moved around a lot. My dad was in law enforcement. My mom was a dental assistant and they both worked all the time. I'm one of four. So we would go a lot with my grandparents because they did go every weekend. Right? Like they were very well known. And so anytime we were in town.

we just went with them. I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandpa, that I actually write about in my sub-sec, is the one that taught me Psalm 23 from a very young age, right? I had to recite it anytime we'd go to church with him, which I just loved. thought I was like, my gosh, I know this verse. That was also in tandem with the grandmother that if you were bickering in the back, she would take off her shoe and just start swinging and...

I don't know, I just always think of that too and it makes me laugh now. It's like terrible, it's just like funny because you know, it's like back then that was just so normal. I went with my parents too. I mean looking back now, especially with everything that I've been processing and reflecting on, I think there was a lot of a like spiritual presence, but it was still very performative. think going to church at all was performative. And when I think back, it was like,

Audi

We all grew up with it. Yeah, yeah.

Ashton

If we were driving to church, it was likely that my parents, like you just sense the stress, right? It felt like every time we were going, it wasn't this peaceful thing. actually felt like.

just a lot of chaos. We all have to make sure that our hair looks a certain way. Me and my sister are always wearing matching dresses. I'm not saying any of that to dog my parents. think that's how they were raised too. It's been interesting to look back on that. Any holidays, so Christmas, Easter, we dressed to the nines and had big, know, poofy dresses and it was a big deal. But I don't remember, you know, there being a whole lot of community in that. Not from like ⁓ a kid's perspective. When I look back on it, it's not like I had friends there or anything.

As I got older, I would go like Wednesday nights, right? Like our little Baptist church there in town. But that was because my friends were there. I mean, we went and again, it just felt like you have to be on your best behavior. And it doesn't matter what the car ride was. You're not going to act like that in here or don't be a kid in here. Basically, it was kind of how I felt about it, I think. Like, I can't breathe.

Audi

yourself.

Ashton

Yeah, and then on top of that, I remember my parents from a very young age really wanted me to sing every opportunity I got. But I remember singing, was called like Without You or something. I was probably like seven. Yeah. No idea what I'm singing. And I remember asking my mom, can I like sing with the words? Can I have the words in the background? Please don't make me do this like karaoke style, you know? It was, it was just really stressful, I think. It just, it felt very, if it's not this, it's not going to be that.

and that is unacceptable and that means something about you, right? Even just processing everything that I've experienced while working for the church and then even my time afterward trying to be a part, it feels very parallel to that, which is kind of challenging in moments for obvious reasons. Anyway, by the time I got to be a teenager and would go on the weekends or if my boyfriend was there on Wednesday night or Sunday, I wanted to sit with him and

I do remember like a pastor that just yelled a lot and you know at that time from my perspective our family felt like kind of the talk of the town because of just the abuse that I went through just as a kid and that coming out and the way that it came out and so going to church felt not only is it performative and I have to like be perfect.

I knew what people were saying and I knew none of them were saying it to me or my family. And so that was really, it's hard. It's hard to sit with all these people around you and you feel like you're the only one that is, that's got issues. And so I didn't go a lot. It wasn't consistent. I do remember going to False Creek. That was like just the best. I remember one of the nights they're doing, I didn't know this at the time, but it was like an altar call and everyone who raised their hand, obviously to be saved went down.

the front and it might I think it was like me and my brother and a couple of other people we weren't really like paying attention it just like I'll just be honest like we like we were kind of jacking around and just not even like we're laughing at what's going on we're like doing our own thing yeah yeah like like teenagers right I remember one of the like leaders you know chaperones was so pissed at us she has tears in her eyes

Audi

Is

Ashton

and comes up to us and she was very much like a mom. She was a mom and that's what was kind of coming out. I remember her being like, this is the only thing that matters. This, come on, what are you doing? Didn't upset me. I think it just, I just felt bad. I felt like very guilty in that moment that I was not engaged and I wasn't being a part. How old? my gosh. I think I was like 13 maybe. I've like really had to process all of this.

Audi

Both for you.

Ashton

recently, I have kind of entered a season where I can no longer just not understand some things about my past. Being crazy enough or brave enough to start looking back on all of it, I just have been able to like put some things together. And one of the biggest things is that every time I was in a church building or even around that environment, this religious environment, it was just filled with such shame. Like, I just don't belong here. Just I should not be here.

I think honestly that made me really avoidant and I really had no interest in understanding who God was. I do remember, because I went to Fall Street several years in a row and I remember one year I did raise my hand and I did give my life to Jesus. But even looking back, I just had no idea. I had no idea what I was really doing. It 100 % was centered around the idea of like, you are supposed to believe this and if you don't, right, you're going to go to hell.

So obviously you'd have to be like stupid to not choose hell or heaven. Well, yeah, I want to belong here. And this is what you're supposed to do. You're going to be somebody that is good. And I don't know, like just in general, good. That's really the only word I have for it. And ⁓ at that point in my life, I had, I really

Audi

Yeah. Eternal fire?

Yeah.

Ashton

I mean, I really believed there was something wrong with me. was defective and just bad. And a lot of that I didn't know had stemmed from the sexual abuse that I went through as a kid for so many years. I mean, it's not like I had somebody to process that with. again, as a kid, a teenager, you just kind of make the assumption, unfortunately. I think I just knew, like, I'm not good enough for whatever this is.

Audi

Well, and if it's a constant reminder of shame that you're feeling, why would you not avoid that? Right. Innately, we don't want to feel that way. So it's like, I can avoid this by just ignoring it, great, I'm just not going to do it anymore. Yeah.

Ashton

I eventually moved to the big city. I just wanted more opportunities. So I moved in with my dad and just struggled. I did my best and I tried to kind of hold it all together, but I just didn't know what I didn't know. And I was hurting so bad. There were just things that were so deeply embedded, like wounds that I just, had no understanding of. And again, I just carried that mentality of like, this is, this, this is it. This is who I am. I'm unclean and I'm, I'm never going to be justified or righteous or.

of that. And so eventually I ended up having my daughter at 20. I mean, I got pregnant at 19 and her biological dad, you we chose to go our separate ways. I moved to the city. That's where I stayed. did not. So now I'm 20 years old with a baby. And I remember thinking, you know, she doesn't turn out like me. I think back about that. It chokes me up. I mean, she changed my whole life for the better.

Audi

Right.

Ashton

There was just, it just felt like every season, while there were good things, yes, hurt was just like compounding at that point. Hurt is just being like stacked on top of the last hurt that I got. And on top of that, like when you're hurting, you hurt other people. It's not just what's been done to you and how that's affected your brain chemistry. I'm living out of that and making decisions out of that. When I tell you I got in a barrel and fell over and just rolled, you know, down.

Audi

guilt from that on top of the hurt.

Ashton

And here I am at 32, that's kind of what it feels like in a lot of ways. And I don't think that's necessarily bad, right? I don't, my faith I think is strong enough and deep enough that I don't look at it as I should have done all these things differently. You gotta live it to learn it. I want whatever the change is going to be. That's going to be my idea. You're not going to tell me.

Audi

Yeah, even if you've told me a hundred times, I still don't believe you. Right. I mean, you do it myself. That's me too. I completely relate to that.

Ashton

And some people would call that pride, and I'm I don't know that it is. I don't know that it is pride, though.

Audi

I almost feel like it's hopeful because it's like sure that happened to you, like I don't think it's gonna happen to me. Everything's gonna be fine for me.

Ashton

I absolutely agree with that. Thank you for putting words to You're welcome. So anyway, by 20, I'm in music school and I end up having my daughter and then I meet her adopted dad there. Very like Jerry Maguire situation. He was amazing and he loved her instantly. I can remember being pregnant and going to class and he asked if he could make her a crib and I just thought he was freaking weird. Didn't even take him seriously. was just like...

Sure. I can remember it feeling like fairy tale, right? Like, why does this person want me and my kid? And that sounds bad, but when you've gone through certain traumas even, I mean, I really, there has been a self-worth since I can remember. I ⁓ was skeptical of his kindness, I think.

Audi

issue.

Ashton

I tried really hard to kind of just fall into him. I tried really hard to just be all in, but there was just always something in the back of my mind waiting for this person to change his mind and leave. Things were good for why we actually ended up getting married and he adopted her and we literally got pregnant with our son on our honeymoon and it was like bliss, right? Like people from the outside. I mean, I remember having people message me on Facebook and just like, wow, look at what God has done.

Yeah. know, and I didn't deny that. I was just like, know, isn't he amazing? You know, and I have no relationship with him, you know, with God. So it's like, I've always had this belief in God and I've always known there's something there, right? But this whole idea of like personal relationship, just I had never really been taught that in church and I just didn't understand it. And, you know, from that point, like relationships had been so dysfunctional.

On one hand, have this grandfather who I spend ridiculous amounts of time with. Not even all of that time is me being hurt by him. But, you know, I thought I had a very deep relationship with him. The hurt happens. I'm sexually abused by him and there's no processing it. It's just up on the news one day. On the other side of it, while all of that is happening, I've got a dad who I feel like is just constantly pissed off at me. You know, and then my mom.

She was so fun and loving, but she had gone through similar things. Now that I look back on all of it, so much of it has made it damn near impossible to have a relationship with God. And I don't blame them. I really don't blame my parents for what happened at all, to be totally honest. I've been humbled in ways you could not imagine. And you can. I know you can. I do think that's been a gift is just today where I sit.

Audi

Thank

Ashton

It's not black and white and I can look at all of it go, it's not as simple as they let this happen to me. I don't believe that. But when you're a kid and that happened, not only does it happen, but like you can't talk about it. Nobody's like sitting you down to go, this shouldn't have happened. This is not okay. We're all so traumatized and in our own heads and honestly just kind of trying to survive. The only like assumption or conclusion that I can come to is that something's wrong with me.

It was either my fault or again, I got in trouble or something bad happened to me because I did something bad. So it's just been really interesting to unpack all of that. But all that to say, really when I came back to church, so to speak, I just had like really come to the end of myself, honestly. There was nothing else. I was so low in life. My daughter's adopted father, him and I ended up getting a divorce. That thing in the back of my mind, he doesn't really want to be here. He doesn't care. He's going to leave at any point in time.

As that feeling I think grew, because we were busy. I mean we were opening a multi-million dollar studio, recording studio, production facility. I'm eight months pregnant. It was insane. I need to graduate from college. There was so much going on and God is not a part of any of it, right? We weren't going to church. We're not inviting him to be a part of it. All that to say, as that thought in the back of my mind kept...

It just got bigger and bigger and louder and louder. I mean, I believe that we have a spiritual enemy and I know he's just waiting, you know, to take us out, right? And that's what it was. This was such an easy situation to do so. He took my entire past and laid it out in front of me and was like, here's the data. What other proof do you need? He's going to leave you. Like he's not going to stay. And I ended up like meeting somebody and I ended up actually having a miscarriage and it devastated me.

I don't want to overuse the word traumatic, but it was. Like I remember passing out on my floor when I get to the hospital. It's realizing this person that I have developed all of these feelings for is not coming. They're not gonna meet me here. And I don't know if we'll keep this part in there, but having this realization of like, am alone. I am like on my own.

Not only do I feel destroyed as a person, but I have destroyed everyone close to me that I really, really love. Whether I really did that or not, that's how I perceived it. Well...

Audi

It also like that person not showing up confirms all of these tiny doubts you had your whole life. It's the time you actually were like, okay, I'm going to trust this process and believe it. And then now I really am alone. Yeah. It's like, can see like hindsight's 20-20. Like you can see like all these tiny little things that compounded until this big realization.

Ashton

It

was awful. needed something. I needed help. you know, around that time, I remember videos of **** kept popping up, you know? And this is like, this is new to me, right? The celebrity pastor thing. I mean, I know it had been around for a while, but all of sudden, I start seeing the photos with the quote, and there were really things that were speaking to me. I mean, that word...

that were making me feel like, man, I'm not alone and I do have purpose. I don't know that I actually believed it, but I just started seeing that on my social media. And then I started seeing a video here and there. And then that led me to church online, watching stuff on YouTube and things like that. I feel so dumb even saying this. It took me forever to even realize that the church I worked for, obviously I hadn't gone there yet. Realizing that they were in the same state that I lived in, like down the street. I think.

Audi

That's

actually common. Like I think I hear people say that often. It's funny. Yeah, how frequently that happens. That's the year I started hating. I'll obviously edit this out. It's because I loved. Okay. And then one year he spoke it. Well, I'm sitting on the second row. Okay. And he says, Audie day, I've been watching you take notes. But what he didn't know is that my phone had died. I was writing notes on the back of a tithing envelope. And he was like, give me your notes.

And he reads them out loud and he was like, this is wrong. Somebody else give me your notes. He goes through, no one could figure out what he was saying because it was so weird and backwards. After that I was like, I'm out. You're dead to me. You embarrassed me from all these people.

Ashton

Yeah, I mean, that would have been... That is traumatizing, honestly. it, like... ⁓

Audi

I never

sat in the front row again. For the rest of my life, I sat in the back.

Ashton

It's just like that

is, yeah I can't. Like that right there is the problem. It's so dumb.

Audi

It's so silly. Sorry, it's so embarrassing. See, all my traumas are coming up now. This is why I sit on the front row anymore. No, I'm just kidding.

Ashton

You should leave some of this stuff in there because the podcast audience will. I mean, I can relate to that moment. It wasn't like that, but I can tell you right now it was just as humiliating. Yeah.

Audi

and

you're like, I don't want to do this. Yeah. Well, and talk about performative, literally all I wanted, especially in that time of my life. I was at a point where I was supposed to be further along than I was because I had been on the team for so long. Sure. But I wasn't.

Ashton

One of those.

Audi

Yeah, and I was like, I'm supposed to be like in this team leader role, but I'm trying to prove myself constantly. I also hated those events. They brought me so much anxiety because I felt like I was in a fishbowl and I felt like it did not matter what I did. Everything was wrong. And also I had to spend three days away from my family. Like we were fostering at the time. It was just horrible. The whole thing was horrible. Sometimes I look back at those events and think about things that happened and I feel like I need to go to therapy and talk about all the trauma I experienced just from those.

Ashton

And I think too, if you were to put that up against what I've written about, Like, this is silly. The thing is, that kind of shit over time though, turns into like, you can't walk in a room without like, okay, where are the exits? Okay, who is sitting where? You're constantly on high alert. And that is exhausting. It's toxic. It's unhealthy. I'll just say this. There's been times where I like write something and I'm like, you know, this is pretty pit.

Audi

My therapist refers to it as a lowercase T trauma where it's not this huge event that like

Ashton

It's not, but it is context that is needed. And that's kind of like in my writing, you know, there's times where I have, you know, the intrusive thoughts of like, this is stupid, don't talk about this stuff. But for us to like understand the fullness of what happens in a ⁓ culture, like the one you and I have worked at, the petty stuff is just as important as the horrific, you know, capital T trauma. It's just as important because without it, I'm going to dismiss everyone else.

who has had moments like that and have been like really hurt by them. It has rewired their brains on some level. Most people have not experienced, well, I think there's a lot more than anyone's willing to admit or yeah, than we realize, but I'm not gonna belittle somebody's pain because I think something is trivial or it's not big enough to talk about. All of it is worth talking about because it helps paint a whole picture of a toxic culture.

Audi

And I think it's important for you. think my favorite thing about your writing is that most people can find themselves in it. Even if no one experienced the exact same thing, we can relate to, I don't want to like jump too far ahead, but like there are so many people who have submitted things to Anonymous about getting a phone call when they stopped tithing and no one realizing for a year or no one even caring that they didn't go. So like... ⁓

Ashton

That's helpful for

me to hear.

Audi

Yes, but saying those small things other people are like, wow, okay, I wasn't wrong to think that was a big deal. Right. Because I think we can convince ourselves of that be like, this is so stupid. I just need to get over it. This was just an accident. was a fluke, but it wasn't.

Ashton

Maybe a handful of times fine. There's nuances, whatever's her. When it's happening constantly and you've got more than a handful of people talking about a very similar structure that is not working and it's actually causing pain and suffering, that's systemic. This is no longer, oh, well, that's just that person's personality. We fired them. They're not here anymore. Okay. How did that person get trained up in that way for that thing to happen?

So anyway, we can get into all, I have like something to add. I'm like, you've asked one question and I've talked to her.

Audi

I

But that's what I was hoping I think that's why I said I may not even ask these questions because you may naturally get to them Yeah, and I think that that's even better

Audi

Anonymous Church started as a place for people to share what they experienced in church safely, anonymously, and without shame. Typically, we share those stories here at the end of our podcast,

but today I'm going to share an excerpt from Ashton's sub-stack titled, Immersion.

God calls us all to trust him with the truth. To do so, we must tell it. When I think about the day I was baptized, I see the pool sitting in the lobby. I can picture the doors of the auditorium, the once sacred space where I reached out to God and surrendered my life to him. I always see my daughter's beautiful face, and then I always see the face of the pastor who held her as I went under and came back out of the water. And for a moment,

I can't seem to breathe.

my hands start to shake, my head pounds and my chest tightens while my abdomen turns and turns because the same realization surfaces over and over again. That same pastor, just a few years later, would become my team leader on staff.

That same pastor would unbutton his pants and expose himself to me on a couch during an all-team Microsoft Teams call as my team leader.

Yes, in that very same lobby, just a few feet away from where I was once baptized,

Just a few yards away from where I walked into an auditorium one day and stood up from my seat a brand new person.

It doesn't matter what I do. The memories endlessly dance around in my mind. What happened can't be undone. In the grand canyon of silence I find myself in now feels like a declaration of how fraudulent it all was. A complete and total counterfeit.

Was any of it real? I don't know yet. I'm still working out that part with God daily. I retell him the story daily as if he doesn't know, as if he forgot. I keep trying to make sense of what happened, every choice I made, every choice I didn't get to make. I try to come to terms with the pastor's wife being the only one who seemed to care. She read the detailed email I wrote, a report filled with shame and abuse.

She wasn't the only one who read it, but she was the only one of maybe three women who cared enough to say anything at all. There were no meetings held, no questions asked, silence. I became a ghost, a shell.

But my husband clocked in daily for his nine to five there and every weekend to play on the worship team. Not one word was spoken, just a great big cloud of nothingness.

That's the thing that haunts me most. It's not even what happened to me.

It's the silence that came after I finally got the courage to say what happened. The deafening, shocking silence from the people who called themselves friends and pastors. sickening betrayal of disillusionment is what keeps me up at night. How dare I believe someone when they told me I was cared for and loved. The audacity I had to believe someone when they said they were my friend.

or worse, when they said they were my pastor.