One Sunday five years ago, I sat at the back of a classroom full of 30-some-odd children, plus a few teachers, ready to give my lesson on repentance. Sitting in that tiny, child-sized chair felt a little like fetal position, but upright.

An intense reluctance plagued me. I didn’t know why. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared. I had colorful visual aids and magnetized word strips, coupled with a faith-promoting anecdote from one of our church leaders.

Nerves didn’t fully explain it either; I’d done such lessons a hundred times before.

Tears welled; I wiped them away before allowing them into existence. I couldn’t let my inability to pull it together show, if that’s what was happening.

Pull it together. Pull it together.

For all my self-coaxing, I couldn’t imagine standing up and giving the lesson.

I want to go. I want out of here. Where did that come from? I couldn’t just up-and-leave. I’d never been one to drop the ball and certainly not one to make a scene.

What is happening? The disquiet got so loud, it would not be ignored.

A woman was visiting our Primary that day — someone whose role was to offer help if needed. It dawned on me that perhaps her moment had arrived, like Esther, for such a time as this. I tapped her shoulder, gently pulled her aside, and asked if she’d give the lesson for me.

Her expression fell somewhere between shock and loving concern. ‘Helping’ usually meant quieting noisy children or carrying props. But she was happy to oblige and thankfully asked no questions. I handed over my materials, thanked her profusely, and bolted from the building.

A parking lot full of empty cars greeted me. The tears came with abandon now. What the hell just happened?

As yet, I had no answer.

I drove home, apologizing to God for cussing on church grounds, all the while knowing I’d need to return soon to retrieve my husband and two children. It didn’t matter. In that moment, I needed to leave, and I listened.

In my journal that night, I tried to work out an explanation. Was I depressed? Overemotional? Premenstrual? Mostly I blamed myself, as I’d been trained to do. Yet there was something else on the page. Now, as I read the words, I’m filled with understanding and compassion for that woman, five years ago, trying so hard to make it work:

“I’ve paid my dues, done all kinds of hard things in the name of church service and I just don’t feel like it anymore. The question is why. The why is not meeting the desire.”

That was the first time I’d allowed myself to write words of dissent from the religion I’d grown up in — to admit that I was questioning my why. Even writing it down felt terrifying. My posterity might read this one day!

Implying anything but the highest enthusiasm for the church, its teachings, its leaders, was unacceptable. Walking away, well, that was impossible.

To believers, there is literally no valid reason to leave the church. Certainly, you can leave other churches to join ours, but once you accept the one true gospel, you are in it for life or you are banished from God. To “leave the boat” is to be lost, gone astray, deceived by the evil one.

Is God really like that? So precise, so exclusive?

Listening to your own soul and forging a path of your own choosing — despite the church’s fervor for agency — becomes a tragedy to be mourned instead of a triumph to be celebrated.

If you disagree with a point of doctrine, there is something wrong with you, not the doctrine. Never the doctrine. Keep your head up. Keep doing. Keep affirming. Keep going through the motions even if they feel stilted and your limbs no longer feel like yours.

If you have questions or doubts that have gone unanswered — despite your searching — just stuff them into your soul until it’s packed so tight that one day it may explode.

That’s what happened. My soul exploded. I did not want to get up and teach little children about repentance. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to rest.

I wanted to stop the hustle for heaven.

Not until I sat down to write this article did I remember other vanishing acts I’ve performed over the years — other times I’ve left church meetings in tears or otherwise distressed.

Am I easily offended? A rebel without a cause? No, but I’m very attuned to my feelings, as long as I don’t discredit them. Trouble is, all my life, I was taught to do just that. Because the church can never be wrong, when my own ideas clashed with the church’s, I deferred to the church. It’s what a good saint would do.

All I’ve ever needed was to listen to myself, my own heart, my own intuition. When it says run, you run. Period. Ask questions later. Oh, and if one of those questions is, “What’s wrong with me?” The answer is “Nothing.”

I acknowledge that others are happy in that space. They find peace and fulfillment within those walls. I used to be one of them. I also recognize that as a person navigates their way through life, they are allowed to change, grow, and alter course. They may come to a crossroad where something that used to fulfill them no longer does. I am one of them.

Many Sundays have passed since that day. Most of them, I tried diligently to live in that in-between space. Just focus on what you do believe, not on what you don’t, I told myself. For a while, it worked. But even as my soul expanded, there left little room for competing ideologies. Competing theologies.

The God I believe in would never banish me from heaven for being true to myself. Wasn’t it God who gave me my inner voice?

As my own path emerged, the less time I wanted to spend inside the church walls. When the pandemic hit and our church temporarily closed its doors, I felt such relief. Relief in a pandemic? Something in my life clearly needed closer reflection. And reflect I did, on my entire to-do list, and took back only those things that gave me peace and supported me in my journey.

The doors have opened again, but I haven’t returned. For now, I’ve felt peace in the non-hustle. I don’t have all the answers, but what I do know is I can stop running and start listening to the only voice that was custom made for me.

One Sunday five years ago, I sat at the back of a classroom full of 30-some-odd children, plus a few teachers, ready to give my lesson on repentance. Sitting in that tiny, child-sized chair felt a little like fetal position, but upright.

An intense reluctance plagued me. I didn’t know why. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared. I had colorful visual aids and magnetized word strips, coupled with a faith-promoting anecdote from one of our church leaders.

Nerves didn’t fully explain it either; I’d done such lessons a hundred times before.

Tears welled; I wiped them away before allowing them into existence. I couldn’t let my inability to pull it together show, if that’s what was happening.

Pull it together. Pull it together.

For all my self-coaxing, I couldn’t imagine standing up and giving the lesson.

I want to go. I want out of here. Where did that come from? I couldn’t just up-and-leave. I’d never been one to drop the ball and certainly not one to make a scene.

What is happening? The disquiet got so loud, it would not be ignored.

A woman was visiting our Primary that day — someone whose role was to offer help if needed. It dawned on me that perhaps her moment had arrived, like Esther, for such a time as this. I tapped her shoulder, gently pulled her aside, and asked if she’d give the lesson for me.

Her expression fell somewhere between shock and loving concern. ‘Helping’ usually meant quieting noisy children or carrying props. But she was happy to oblige and thankfully asked no questions. I handed over my materials, thanked her profusely, and bolted from the building.

A parking lot full of empty cars greeted me. The tears came with abandon now. What the hell just happened?

As yet, I had no answer.

I drove home, apologizing to God for cussing on church grounds, all the while knowing I’d need to return soon to retrieve my husband and two children. It didn’t matter. In that moment, I needed to leave, and I listened.

In my journal that night, I tried to work out an explanation. Was I depressed? Overemotional? Premenstrual? Mostly I blamed myself, as I’d been trained to do. Yet there was something else on the page. Now, as I read the words, I’m filled with understanding and compassion for that woman, five years ago, trying so hard to make it work:

“I’ve paid my dues, done all kinds of hard things in the name of church service and I just don’t feel like it anymore. The question is why. The why is not meeting the desire.”

That was the first time I’d allowed myself to write words of dissent from the religion I’d grown up in — to admit that I was questioning my why. Even writing it down felt terrifying. My posterity might read this one day!

Implying anything but the highest enthusiasm for the church, its teachings, its leaders, was unacceptable. Walking away, well, that was impossible.

To believers, there is literally no valid reason to leave the church. Certainly, you can leave other churches to join ours, but once you accept the one true gospel, you are in it for life or you are banished from God. To “leave the boat” is to be lost, gone astray, deceived by the evil one.

Is God really like that? So precise, so exclusive?

Listening to your own soul and forging a path of your own choosing — despite the church’s fervor for agency — becomes a tragedy to be mourned instead of a triumph to be celebrated.

If you disagree with a point of doctrine, there is something wrong with you, not the doctrine. Never the doctrine. Keep your head up. Keep doing. Keep affirming. Keep going through the motions even if they feel stilted and your limbs no longer feel like yours.

If you have questions or doubts that have gone unanswered — despite your searching — just stuff them into your soul until it’s packed so tight that one day it may explode.

That’s what happened. My soul exploded. I did not want to get up and teach little children about repentance. I wanted to breathe. I wanted to rest.

I wanted to stop the hustle for heaven.

Not until I sat down to write this article did I remember other vanishing acts I’ve performed over the years — other times I’ve left church meetings in tears or otherwise distressed.

Am I easily offended? A rebel without a cause? No, but I’m very attuned to my feelings, as long as I don’t discredit them. Trouble is, all my life, I was taught to do just that. Because the church can never be wrong, when my own ideas clashed with the church’s, I deferred to the church. It’s what a good saint would do.

All I’ve ever needed was to listen to myself, my own heart, my own intuition. When it says run, you run. Period. Ask questions later. Oh, and if one of those questions is, “What’s wrong with me?” The answer is “Nothing.”

I acknowledge that others are happy in that space. They find peace and fulfillment within those walls. I used to be one of them. I also recognize that as a person navigates their way through life, they are allowed to change, grow, and alter course. They may come to a crossroad where something that used to fulfill them no longer does. I am one of them.

Many Sundays have passed since that day. Most of them, I tried diligently to live in that in-between space. Just focus on what you do believe, not on what you don’t, I told myself. For a while, it worked. But even as my soul expanded, there left little room for competing ideologies. Competing theologies.

The God I believe in would never banish me from heaven for being true to myself. Wasn’t it God who gave me my inner voice?

As my own path emerged, the less time I wanted to spend inside the church walls. When the pandemic hit and our church temporarily closed its doors, I felt such relief. Relief in a pandemic? Something in my life clearly needed closer reflection. And reflect I did, on my entire to-do list, and took back only those things that gave me peace and supported me in my journey.

The doors have opened again, but I haven’t returned. For now, I’ve felt peace in the non-hustle. I don’t have all the answers, but what I do know is I can stop running and start listening to the only voice that was custom made for me.