The Family I Found, and the One I Left

It would be impossible to write about community, belonging, or the ache of loss without acknowledging the elephant in the room: my own family and the complicated distance between us. That story is braided through everything I write and everything I am, but it isn’t one I’m ready to unearth here. Not yet. Just know that it lives quietly beneath these words, shaping the contours of what comes next.

What I can talk about right now is the other family I grew up in — the family of church. The fellowship halls and Sunday school rooms. The VBS summers and AWANA badges. The lock-ins where you stayed up too late eating pizza on a church floor, whispering secrets to kids who felt like your whole world.

Not all of those memories are easy. Many came with a sting... the ways I felt “othered,” even as a child, without having the language for why. But some of them were genuinely sweet. Comforting. Formative in the ways that mattered.

My memories live in this t-shirt quilt.

And in my twenties, church didn’t just shape me — it became everything. My job. My weeknights. My friendships. My sense of purpose. My entire ecosystem of belonging. When people talk about “church family,” I know exactly what they mean, because I lived it. My co-workers weren’t just colleagues; they were my confidants, my support system, my daily rhythm. My pastor was the person who knew my fears. My small group was where I cried, prayed, processed, and hoped.

Church was my nine-to-five, my Wednesday dinners, my weekend plans, and my safety net. It was family in every way except blood.

Walking away wasn’t a single dramatic moment — it was something I didn’t realize I was doing until I was already halfway out the door. But there is one memory I return to over and over: the day I drove away from that massive building that had held my secrets, my laughter, my milestones, my heartbreak, and every version of myself I knew at the time. I sat in my car and felt something collapse inside me. Not faith, exactly. Not belief. Something simpler, and somehow heavier: the loss of a home I didn’t know I was leaving.

As the person I am now, I often mourn what the church gave me. Fellowship. Friends who became family. A place to be known. A community woven into the everyday fabric of my life.

I miss all of that. I still miss it.

But I also can’t ignore the cost. The ways the church draws close to some people while pushing others out. The harm it can inflict under the guise of love. The values and beliefs I now hold with my whole chest that simply cannot coexist with the doctrines I once lived by.

And so I live in this tension — grieving the good, acknowledging the harm, and holding both with open hands.

I don’t know if “church” will ever look or feel the same for me again. What I do know is that the longing for fellowship, safety, belonging, and chosen family is real. And it’s human.

Maybe that’s part of why I write. 

Maybe this is the way I build something new. 

Maybe this is how I remember the sweetness without sacrificing myself to the pain.

Maybe this is how I find family again — differently, slowly, and on my own terms.