“Love the sinner, hate the sin”
It was the first thing my sister-in-law said after my oldest daughter came out during her junior year of college.
It was almost the last straw.
The last straw came weeks later, in the second row of our trendy mega-church.
I watched as the preacher seemed to look my daughter straight in the eye to land his point:
“Don’t let anyone ever tell you that marriage is anything but a union between a man and a woman.” — Senior Pastor of Christ Community Church
The sermon was supposed to be about marriage. I knew that going in.
I thought it was about being a good partner—being patient, loving and kind.
I thought it was a sermon for all sinners, not just the targeted ones.
I thought I was doing the “Christian” thing by bringing her there.
I thought the message being preached was: Whoever you love, love them well.
But I thought wrong. This wasn't a sermon about love at all.
It was a deliberate assault on the LGBTQ community and a fatal blow to the faith that had raised me.
I knew how uncomfortable she was the moment we’d sat down. I watched sideways as her eyes pooled with tears and then spilled down her face.
And I felt my heart crack before turning to stone as my firstborn - the daughter who’d spent the day before scrubbing profanity off playground slides -stood up and ran out of church.
Her dad ran after her. I ran after them both.
We stood for a long time in the parking lot holding each other and here’s all I remember:
The way I kept repeating, "I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know," and the judgmental silence of 657 congregants who stayed in their seats.
Love was not patient. Love was not kind.
And I was done.
The Unraveling
Growing up, faith wasn't just a Sunday morning ritual—it was the fabric of our life.
Our avocado green VW van wore its badge of belonging—a white and blue Dove of Peace license plate that signaled exclusive membership in the Christian Club.
When you passed another on the road, you'd point your finger to the sky—a secret handshake reminding each other that Heaven's gate was narrow and there was only ‘One Way’ to pass through it.
Back then, I believed the Bible was the most reliable narrator on how to be a good human—and more importantly, what it meant to be a 'good girl' in this world.
I needed a playbook, and the bible was handed to me.
I memorized scripture like coordinates on a map, certain if I followed the directions precisely, I'd reach that promised land of milk and honey.
But pretty early on, I discovered a confusing mismatch between the woman I was and the 'good girl' I was expected to be.
The message grew louder with each passing year: You are here to be pleasing to God and man.
You are not here to be self-expressed or self-determined.
WTF?
Yes, that training was from an actual text book I was handed—the rules I tried to follow for the first five decades of my life.
But watching those same teachings wound my daughter— those were fighting words at a time when I was ready to rumble.
This wasn't just about me anymore. The faith I had inherited wanted me to forget about myself, but it was asking my daughter not to exist at all.
Standing in that church parking lot that day, I knew it was time to create a Sanctuary of my own.
Finding a New Path
My exodus from traditional church wasn't the end of faith—it was me being 'born again' into a deeper, lovelier version of one.
I looked for voices who understood the complexity of modern-day life and offered gritty wisdom I could relate to.
Sarah Bessey's ‘Field Notes for the Wilderness’ offered grace for that grit. But it was Kate Bowler's words on the back cover—'This is for all who need to be reintroduced to a spirituality full of grace, mercy and love'—that sold me on her book.
Here was someone who understood that faith could be confusing AND unmistakably gentle.
In the midst of my spiritual landslide, Bessey tossed me a lifeline:
Next came Rainn Wilson's 'Soul Boom' which helped me reimagine what ‘sacred’ could mean.
He reinforced what I intuitively knew to be true: that simple moments and honest conversations were also holy.
His ideas about transforming the world from the inside out was the Kool-Aid my parched soul had waited to be passed.
These words echoed my growing sense that transforming chaos into peace might require abandoning religion and reforming my faith.
Ryan Holiday's ‘The Daily Stoic’ became my modern-day Upper Room by offering an updated daily spiritual practice—one focused on living well rather than living by the books.
His teachings from the Stoics about serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience, felt like a new and improved form of prayer.
Creating a Sanctuary of My Own
Years before my daughter came out, when my marriage was falling apart, I started writing 'gentle nudges' to myself. They were short notes and dripping with compassion, the way I’d talk to a friend.
When my faith began to unravel, I stitched it back together with this practice. What had once helped me rebuild from a crumbling marriage now became my tool for creating a new kind of sanctuary—not within church walls, but within my own heart.
I leaned into wisdom from poets, mystics, philosophers, and spiritual thinkers instead of labeling them some kind of anti-Christ.
Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times columnist, captured what I was feeling when he wrote about being willing to risk disapproval by 'daring more courageously to lead a life with different values and priorities than the ones you had been taught.'
In short, I gave up being a good Christian in order to be a better human.
If there is a God, I trust they know my heart.
But if this decision means I’m going to hell, then I can't think of a better reason to.💜
Know someone who’ll be uplifting by this post? Feel free to share. 💜 As always, thanks for reading to the end.