— The Church Hurt Me. Jesus Didn’t —
“The difficult and sacred work of learning to love the Bride of Christ again after being hurt by those who were supposed to represent Him.”
Before I begin, I want to acknowledge something.
This is not a story I have ever shared publicly.
In fact, outside of a few trusted people in my life, I have rarely talked about it at all.
Not because it didn’t deeply impact me.
Not because it wasn’t one of the most painful experiences of my life.
But because church hurt is incredibly difficult to explain to people who haven’t experienced it.
It’s hard to talk about the place where you met Jesus becoming the place where you experienced some of your deepest pain.
It’s hard to explain how people carrying the name of Christ can sometimes leave wounds that take years to heal.
But I also know I’m not the only person carrying these wounds.
So today, for the first time, I’m sharing a small piece of my journey.
— The Church Hurt Me. Jesus Didn’t —
Several years ago, I experienced a level of spiritual trauma that deeply wounded me. It was the kind of church hurt you only hear about in the news, not something you ever imagine happening in your own life. At least, that’s what I thought until it happened to me.
It was through this experience that I realized how absolutely rampant spiritual abuse is within many churches.
It was through this experience that I realized just how damaging and traumatic this evil is on victims and their families.
Ever since that trauma, the concept of church has often felt painful, confusing, and fearful.
The spiritual abuse I encountered changed the way I experience church itself.
Since then, I have spent years trying to find my way back.
Trying to trust the church again.
Trying to trust church leadership again.
Trying to trust church systems again.
Trying to trust people again.
The truth is, no matter how hard I’ve tried, it hasn’t happened the way I thought it would.
I’ve come a long way in my healing.
I’ve continued attending church.
I’ve continued worshiping.
I’ve continued seeking God.
But it’s never been quite the same.
As a counselor trained in trauma and spiritual abuse, I carried a tremendous amount of the emotional weight from what happened. I loved the people impacted. I loved the church. I believed in what the church was supposed to represent.
I think that’s one reason this trauma has been so difficult for me to overcome.
The other reason is that this experience didn’t happen in a vacuum. Like many survivors, I was already carrying layers of previous wounds and trauma that needed healing. Every layer of trauma, makes the healing process harder to sort through.
Of all the parts of recovery, finding my way back into church community has been one of the hardest.
It’s difficult to know how much of that struggle is my trauma, how much is the cultural shift taking place within many churches today, and how much is simply the fact that I have changed.
The answer is probably all three.
Trauma changes people! Which is why it is so hard to process and work through. This trauma has changed me in ways, those closest to me recognize. Creating a new version of me I often can’t recognize. Healing requires a process of reconciling the older version of self with the new version of self. Hopefully, allowing the traumatic event to make us more like Christ, stronger in our resolve, and more compassionate to others who are hurting.
Deep down, I do believe there are good churches.
I know there are good and godly people.
God has faithfully placed many of them in my life.
In fact, I’ve been blessed to be part of some wonderful churches throughout my life.
I found Jesus in a little church when I was fifteen years old.
I attended churches in high school and college where I experienced genuine community, discipleship, and love.
I’ve seen the Church at its very best.
But I’ve also seen the Church at its worst.
And once you’ve been deeply wounded in a place that was supposed to be safe, it changes you.
It changes the way you walk into a sanctuary.
It changes the way you listen to sermons.
It changes the way you trust those in leadership.
It changes the way you worship.
It changes the way you interpret warning signs that other people might overlook.
It changes the way you participate in church.
For a long time, I felt frustrated because I couldn’t just “get over it and move on.”
I thought healing meant returning to who I was before the trauma.
I thought faithfulness meant pretending the wounds no longer existed.
I thought forgiveness would somehow erase the impact of what happened.
But healing has looked very different than I expected.
Healing has not been forgetting.
Healing has not been minimizing.
Healing has not been forcing trust where trust has not yet been rebuilt.
Instead, healing has been learning to bring my pain honestly before God.
It has been allowing Him to sit with me in the grief.
It has been learning that Jesus is not threatened by my questions, my disappointment, or my fear. Jesus is not disappointed with my fear of church. He understands. He was there!
Most importantly, my healing has been learning to separate Jesus from the people who misrepresented Him.
In some of my darkest moments, He was the only reason I attended church services.
I remember sitting with tears streaming down my face not long after everything happened, talking to a dear friend who had been a counselor for many years.
“I hate the church,” I told her.
At the time, I meant it.
The pain felt overwhelming.
The betrayal felt unbearable.
The thought of ever trusting a church again felt impossible.
I’ll never forget her response.
With incredible compassion she simply said:
“That’s okay, honey. Just don’t hate Jesus.”
I needed someone to tell me that it was okay for awhile to hate the church who shattered our lives. It was okay to hate the pain forced into our lives by the pastors who were called to shepherd the vulnerable. Secondly, I needed the reminder to cling to Jesus through the pain.
Because while people had hurt me, Jesus had not.
While leaders had failed me, Jesus had not.
While systems had disappointed me, Jesus had not.
While people claiming to represent Him had wounded me deeply, Jesus had never once abandoned me.
Those words have stayed with me for years.
In fact, God has brought me back to them over and over again throughout my healing journey.
Because the truth is, there were seasons when walking away from church felt easier than staying.
There were seasons when the idea of church membership, church involvement, and church community felt overwhelming. This season seems to be quite elongated.
There were seasons when I wasn’t sure I could ever love the Church again. Thankfully, I’ve learned to love the Biblical Church, and separate it from the church that hurt me.
But a life without Jesus was never an option.
Without Jesus, I realized I had no hope.
And slowly, over time, God began teaching me something I desperately needed to learn:
The people who hurt me carried His name, but they did not reflect His heart.
Jesus did not manipulate me.
Jesus did not abuse His authority.
Jesus did not ignore my pain.
Jesus was not aggressive, intimidating, or hostile.
Jesus did not abandon me.
I came across this quote in a book I’m reading after posting this and knew it was from the Lord.
“ I try to picture an immovable power. Magda how’s lost her faith. She and many others. “ I can’t believe in a God who would let this happen.,” they say. I understand what they mean. And yet I’ve never found it difficult to see that it isn’t God who is killing us in gas chambers, in ditches, on cliff sides, on 186 white stairs. God doesn’t run the death camps. People do.” — Dr. Edith Eva Eger, The Choice
This morning, I found myself discouraged again.
Recent events within the church world stirred up old questions and old fears. Even something as simple as a conversation about church membership felt surprisingly difficult.
For many people, membership is a joyful next step.
For me, it feels much more complicated.
When you’ve been hurt by a church family, becoming part of another church family can feel terrifying.
You want to trust.
You want to belong.
But your nervous system remembers what happened last time. It’s a process to calm down the heightened nervous system and this takes time, it takes patience, understanding, and mostly it takes a whole lot of Jesus.
Church hurt is difficult to talk about because many people don’t understand it.
Some people minimize it.
Some people dismiss it.
Others make you feel like you’re overreacting.
And when trust has been broken, sharing your story can feel almost impossible.
Tonight, as I was wrestling with all of this, I found myself asking God:
“How hard do I keep fighting for church?”
“When do I stop fighting to find your way back into a safe church?”
And I felt Him gently remind me of something I needed to hear.
My focus was never supposed to be on finding the perfect church.
My focus is supposed to be on Him.
When I focus on Jesus, the things that frighten me about church don’t seem quite so frightening.
I don’t go to church because of people.
I don’t go to church because of the pastoral staff.
I don’t go to church for anyone in the congregation; I go because Jesus is worthy of my worship.
Trauma has a way of pulling our attention toward danger.
It keeps us scanning.
Watching.
Evaluating.
Protecting ourselves.
And while those responses make sense, they can also become distractions that pull our eyes away from Christ.
The answer isn’t pretending church hurt didn’t happen.
The answer isn’t forcing trust before we’re ready.
The answer isn’t ignoring wisdom or discernment.
But perhaps part of healing is learning to place our focus back where it belongs.
Not on the failures of people.
Not on the disappointments of institutions.
But on Jesus.
I’m still working through all of this myself.
I don’t have all the answers.
But I think the answer I needed today was simple:
If church hurt has left you discouraged, confused, fearful, or exhausted, keep your eyes on Jesus.
Talk to Him.
Pray to Him.
Worship Him.
Bring Him your questions.
Bring Him your wounds.
Bring Him your fears.
The church hurt me.
Jesus didn’t.
And little by little, He is teaching me how to love His Bride again.
Hebrews 12:2 — “Fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith…”
Psalm 121:1-2 — “I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord…”
Deuteronomy 31:8 — “He will never leave you nor forsake you.”
Hebrews 13:5 — “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”
Matthew 28:20 — “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Psalm 34:18 — “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.”
Psalm 147:3 — “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.”
1 Peter 5:7 — “Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.”
—- Reflection —-
I suspect many of you understand exactly what I mean.
How many of you have been hurt in a church?
How many of you have struggled to trust church again after enduring spiritual abuse?
How many of you attend church but still keep part of yourself guarded?
How many of you have found church overwhelming, triggering, or emotionally exhausting at times?
Blessings, Crystal Ridlon, LPC
The Flame Within 
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