The God I Was Told to Love And the Church That Taught Me to Hate Myself

 

Disclaimer:

The following blog contains mild theological chaos, deep emotional honesty, religious trauma with a side of snark, and a heavy dose of reclaiming my damn life. If you’re still clinging to the idea that questioning the church means I’m bitter or backslidden—buckle up, buttercup. This one’s not for the faint of faith.

Reader discretion (and maybe a therapist) advised.

The God I Was Told to Love

And the Church That Taught Me to Hate Myself

“I spent years listening to the voice of a god I now realize was shaped by men who never met him.”

It didn’t happen all at once. There wasn’t one dramatic moment where everything collapsed—but today, something in me cracked open just enough to let this spill out. I watched a video. A simple TikTok. A pastor casually mentioned that none of the Bible was written by people who actually knew Jesus. And while I’ve heard whispers of that truth before, this time it hit different.

I sat there, feeling a swirl of emotions I’ve come to know all too well on this journey: anger, betrayal, a little sadness… and mostly, numbness.

I was raised to believe the Bible was infallible—the inerrant word of God. Not just inspired, not just important, but perfect. I was taught—both subtly and directly—that the books of the New Testament were written by people who walked with Jesus. Who knew the sound of his voice. Who had dirt on their sandals from the same roads he walked.

But they didn’t.

And somehow, even though I spent a year and a half in Bible college, no one ever told me that. Whether they didn’t know or didn’t want us to know, I’m still not sure. But what I do know is this: it was a deception. Maybe unintentional. Maybe not. But either way, it changed me.

Looking back now, everything feels different. Sermons I once clung to. Scriptures I recited like lifelines. Sunday school songs and altar calls and desperate prayers whispered into the dark. It all feels… tainted. Like I was sold a bill of goods—at best, incomplete. At worst, laced with lies.

I forgive you.

Not because I’m ready. Not because you deserve it.

But because I’m tired of being angry.

And I need somewhere to begin.

The God I Was Sold

I was taught that God was holy, jealous, and the ultimate judge. There were moments when he felt close—moments in worship, in prayer, in desperation—but even in those brief encounters, I never felt worthy. His love was always just out of reach, dangling like a prize I had to earn. And I never earned it.

I was told that even the smallest misstep could damn me. That salvation was a tightrope and hell was waiting below. I was constantly anxious, constantly repenting, constantly failing. It didn’t matter how hard I tried—I always felt like I was just one thought, one word, one inch of fabric away from the lake of fire.

In my world, salvation had a dress code.

The rules were endless:

Men had to wear long pants and keep their hair cut short.

Women—well, we were sacred objects wrapped in shame.

Only skirts or dresses. No makeup. No jewelry.

And modesty? That moved like a ghost from church to church. What made you “holy” in one place could make you “hell-bound” in another. It was never about God. It was about control.

Sin was everything.

Everything was sin.

And the fear of backsliding, of losing your salvation, of disappointing God—it was constant.

We were taught obedience, not love. Compliance, not curiosity.

When I followed the rules, I was praised. The good child. The obedient saint.

But when I questioned, when I doubted, when I simply wanted to breathe—I was shamed.

I forgive you for calling it holiness when it was really control.

For chaining me with rules and calling it “righteousness.”

For convincing me that I would never be enough—not even for God.

The Cracks in the Foundation

There wasn’t a single moment when everything fell apart. No thunderclap, no spiritual earthquake. Just a quiet, steady erosion. A slow hollowing out of certainty.

But if I had to name something that started to pull the thread—it was this:

I began researching the organization I had been a part of for most of my life. I discovered that, worldwide, there were maybe 5 to 6 million members. That’s it. Out of a global population of over 7 billion, I was taught that this tiny sliver of humanity held the only truth. That this specific church, this exact doctrine, was the narrow path—and everyone else was wrong. Everyone else was lost.

I couldn’t unsee it after that. I tried.

But the math didn’t lie. And neither did the ache in my gut.

I kept my questions private. I did my searching in silence. Because I knew what would happen if I spoke them aloud. I knew how quickly doubt would be dressed as rebellion, how curiosity would be recast as sin. And I was right.

When I stopped attending regularly, the whispers started. Not to my face, of course. But they got back to me. Condescending comments. Thinly veiled pity.

“She’s backsliding.”

“She must have been weak.”

“They’re not praying enough.”

No one asked me what I was feeling.

No one asked why I was struggling.

They just asked where I had gone.

And I had tried to hold on. I really did. Even when the teachings stopped making sense. Even when the fear stopped working. I stayed out of guilt. Out of habit. Out of sheer spiritual exhaustion. Because when you’ve been indoctrinated for over half your life, letting go feels a lot like failing.

I forgive you for teaching me that salvation was fragile.

That truth was narrow.

That love was reserved only for the obedient.

I forgive you for making me fear the freedom I was slowly waking up to.

The Breaking Point

There came a time when I couldn’t pretend anymore.

No more praying it away.

No more begging God to make me “normal.”

I can’t count how many times I pleaded to be cisgender. To be straight. To be the version of me that would finally be enough for them—and for God. But that prayer was never answered. Because it wasn’t supposed to be.

At first, when I stopped trying to force it, I didn’t feel much of anything. I was numb—emotionally, spiritually. Years of fear and guilt had dulled my senses. But beneath the numbness was something else: clarity. A quiet voice saying, You were never the problem.

It was terrifying to admit that what I had been taught for most of my life was wrong. That the God I had feared might not even exist in the way I was told. That the truth I’d built my life around wasn’t truth at all—it was control.

Walking away meant loss. Real, painful loss.

When you grow up in a vacuum of one belief system, especially one that warns you never to question, never to wander, never to listen to anyone outside the walls—you don’t just lose your faith. You lose your people.

I lost friends. I lost a community that had defined me.

I lost the identity they gave me and the structure that kept me from asking why it didn’t fit.

But I gained something sacred:

I gained freedom.

I gained peace.

I gained sanity.

And I began to find the one thing they always tried to silence—my voice.

Letting go didn’t mean I stopped believing in something bigger.

It meant I stopped believing in a version of God that demanded I erase myself to belong.

I forgive you for making me pray to be someone I’m not.

For calling it obedience when it was really self-erasure.

For telling me that the only way to be loved was to disappear.

Rebuilding & Reclaiming

I’m still learning, still unlearning, still fumbling my way through the pieces—but something is shifting.

I’m beginning to understand that my worth was never supposed to be measured by the clothes I wear, the church I attend, or the rituals I follow. Those things can be meaningful, yes—but they’re not the sum of my soul. They’re not what makes me worthy of love, peace, or belonging.

Some days I still struggle. Some days I sell myself short, caught in the echo of voices that once told me I was never enough. But the difference now? I know they were wrong.

My voice feels sacred now. My community. My peace.

And no doctrine, no theology, no system of fear will ever be worth more than those.

Healing hasn’t been clean. It hasn’t been linear. It’s looked like tearing apart beliefs I once clung to with shaking hands.

It’s been anger. Sadness. Rage. Joy.

It’s been tearful therapy sessions and quiet moments of realizing:

I’m finally free. Or at the very least, I’m on my way.

I’m reclaiming so many things I was told were sinful.

Clothes that feel like me.

Movies that move me.

Laughter at concerts. Cheering at sports games. Even something as simple as going swimming without shame.

(I still don’t understand how canoe trips with mixed company were fine, but swimming wasn’t. The mental gymnastics were Olympic-level.)

I’m reclaiming my joy.

And if I could whisper one truth into the heart of the younger me—the girl who prayed to be someone else, who tried so hard to be holy—it would be this:

Be authentically you. No matter what.
Because that’s who you were always meant to be.

I forgive you for trying to make me small.

For taking my joy and calling it sin.

For telling me that my freedom was dangerous.

I forgive you.

Not because it didn’t hurt.

But because I’m done letting your shame shape my story.

The Echo That Remains

There are things I’m choosing to leave behind, once and for all.

Fear.

Guilt.

Silence.

The gnawing hunger for approval that kept me small.

Not all fear is wrong—some of it protects. But the kind I was taught?

The fear that said I’d never be enough unless I disappeared into someone else’s version of holiness?

That fear can go. It doesn’t get to stay in my body anymore.

My spirituality now is a work in progress—and maybe that’s the most sacred part of all.

I’m not an atheist. I’m not agnostic.

But I’m certainly not aligned with the twisted, politicized, control-hungry version of Christianity that America’s evangelical movement has distorted into something monstrous.

What I believe now is simple:

I believe in truth.

I believe in becoming.

And I believe that no divine being worthy of worship would demand I hate myself to belong.

If you see yourself in any part of this—if you’re reading these words and feel a lump in your throat or a fire in your chest—I hope you know:

You’re not alone.

You’re not crazy.

And you are not beyond hope.

There is life on the other side of fear.

There is love that doesn’t come with conditions.

And you are allowed to begin again.

I forgive you.

For all the things you told me I had to be.

For the voices I believed.

For the years I lost trying to make myself small enough to be loved.

And most of all… I forgive myself.

For tying my worth to things that never deserved it.

For not knowing sooner.

For surviving the only way I knew how.

I’m not done healing.

But I’m finally free to begin.