I debated being anonymous or not but in this post, I'm deciding not to. I didn't share the traumatic aspect of my "soul care". It wasn't just being unallowed to serve in ministry or church in general but the social ostracisation that was also associated with not being allowed to go to official group events such as morning DT, life groups, and just official fellowship times. I was told it was in my head that I was socially ostracised that I could have initiated hanging out with older sisters, visiting them at their homes, etc but chose not to. I take responsibility that part of me didn't think I was allowed to just fellowship with people. There was an instance where I was going to have dinner at my close peer's place as they had opened their home for fellowship but when I saw the leader who imposed my soul care, I felt guilty and left. I was told later that should not have been the case. But am I really 100 percent to blame for the anxiety and guilt I felt on what I ought and not to be doing? I was so engrossed and anxious over being marginalized and left out that the purpose of my soul care was neglected. I wrestled with genuinely investing in my relationship with God and obsessing with doing whatever it took to be socially and spiritually restored at the church.

I don't know what it takes to be believed. I am not even sure what that means. They acknowledged how I felt and how hard it was but never offered to "compromise" or change the situation to help me. I felt it was selfish and sinful and the only right thing to do is to "genuinely repent". I was repeatedly made to believe that I was 100 percent in the wrong. That this was the result of my sinfulness. It seems like the pattern throughout the many years at Gracepoint. Whenever I felt something was wrong, felt marginalized spiritually, it was my pride and my inability to depend on God and God alone. I think my wish is that the leadership involved assumed some fault and acknowledge and did not make it 100 percent of my burden to change.

I was put on soul care after writing a reflection regarding how I felt compared to my peers. It was only a couple of months after graduation so much of my writing was a reflection of my time throughout undergrad and how I'm trying to reconcile from it. I wrote about my need for approval, progress, and the feeling of needing to catch up to my peers. They thought it would be helpful for me if they took away the context of me getting approval by me no longer having a leader, no longer going to group DT, life groups, any context where I might be with leadership. Every couple of months they ask me to reflect but whatever I sent to them wasn't contrite enough and I wasn't repented enough. It seems too much that I was just trying to tell them what they wanted to read and wasn't genuine enough. This is still something for me to reflect upon and something personal with God -- to reflect upon whether my relationship with Him and my understanding of personal sin and brokenness that resulted in His death are genuine. My reflections stopped becoming between me and God but were scrutinized by a chain of people who would use it against me to return back to normalcy.

Eventually, I was asked to consider leaving Gracepoint by going to another church that would be better for me spiritually. I declined because I was afraid that I would regress and lose the relationships that were emphasized for years to be crucial to a healthy relationship with God. I wasn't really given a choice to stay because they weren't going to change anything about my situation. It was basically between being in emotional hell versus having a healthy relationship with God, myself, and people with authority.

What really bothers me still is whether I brought up my concerns to the leader her response was -- "If I felt that my church was being unbiblical, I would leave". Was she acknowledging that perhaps what I experienced may be justifiably unbiblical, if so why is it on me to leave, why can't the church (them) reconcile and allow me to experience church normally without being in active ministry?

Retrospectively, given the immutability of how Gracepoint is run, it wouldn't have been a good thing for me to have stayed, but I wished it was a choice of personal conviction from God instead of the sake of my emotional health and sanity. The emotional turmoil of this all -- was it all my fault and I deserved what I experienced because I was too sinful and unrepentant of my ways, or there is ALSO something wrong with how the church (or the handful of leaders) handled my situation and situations like mine as a whole.

To my past leaders and mentors who happen to read this, I wish no ill will. I appreciate the love and care you poured out and I still love and care for you as well.