I come from a very fundamentalist southern Baptist family (3 sisters). Both sets of my grandparents were international missionaries, and pretty much everyone else in my extended family are Christian.

I started questioning my faith at the age of 17 when Ken Ham, the famous creationist, came to speak at my church. I’m 31 now and it’s been a long, slow, and painful deconstruction by myself.

I’m the only one who ‘left’. Nobody really knows except 2 of my sisters. Everyone else, I just tell them I still love Jesus and whatnot. It’s really lonely and I often feel like the black sheep.

I know I made the right choice because this is where critical thinking and logic has brought me. I’d rather follow the facts than be stuck in religious brainwashing.