Machine

Sundays are for church. And apparently now, Sundays are for me talking about church.

A best friend asked me a question that hasn’t left me alone since: is truth relative? And instead of answering it the way I used to, clean and certain, I’ve been sitting with it while everything in me shifts. Because the more I live, the more I see that truth isn’t something I can just repeat, it’s something I have to experience, wrestle with, and actually own. And maybe that’s what this is for me now—not rejecting truth, but stepping into it in a way that’s real enough to live. Figuring out what it means to stop borrowing someone else’s version and, for the first time, paint this town with my very own vision… and yeah, somewhere in here I can practically hear the faint voice of judgment whispering that this evil rock music has clearly corrupted me and that’s why I’m lost now… my point is made, I could end here, but why would I.

And the thing is, I didn’t answer it the way I would have a few years earlier. There was a time when I had a clean, confident, well-rehearsed response ready to go. But by then, I was already done pretending I believed something just because it sounded right. That kind of certainty, when it isn’t actually yours, leaves you empty. I knew that. So instead of answering, I sat with it.

And I’ve been sitting with it ever since.

Because if two people can sit in the same room, hear the same message, read the same words, and walk away with completely different experiences, then something else is happening beyond just the content. The words don’t change. But the person does. Their life, their awareness, their timing, their questions, all of it shapes what that moment becomes.

That realization doesn’t tear truth down. It exposes how we’ve been taught to hold it.

I spent 13 years inside a church environment that told me what truth was, how to protect it, how to respond to it, and how to stay aligned with it. I was all in. Fully committed. A ride or die for the mission, the structure, the belief that this was how you built a meaningful life.

And I’m not here to pretend it was all bad. It wasn’t. But I am here to say it worked exactly as designed… just not for me.

Because what I see now is that a lot of what I was being shaped into didn’t actually serve me becoming who I was meant to be. It served the system. It served consistency. It served something that needed people to stay in line more than it needed people to become fully aware.

You don’t realize you’re being trained… until you become the example of what happens when someone leaves.

And that’s where it gets real.

Because from the inside, people like me look unhinged. Lost. Like we’ve wandered off or let something get to us. But what you don’t realize when you’re in it is that you’re being taught to see it that way. You’re conditioned to believe that if someone leaves, something is off with them, not the structure they left behind.

And then you become the person on the other side of that story.

No one came. Not one conversation. Not one real attempt to understand. Just silence.

My husband, who gave over twenty hours a week in service, didn’t even get a real conversation. It was a phone call. Not even from leadership directly. Just… done.

And I sat there waiting, thinking surely someone will reach out. Surely there will be a moment where someone cares enough to ask what actually happened. Or at least someone to call and see how I am doing since my cord wasn’t cut off but my husband was no longer there… They were fine never addressing the things happening and I think they knew I would unravel.

Nothing. No checking in.

Once you see the system, you can’t unsee it… and that’s when it stops working on you.

Because then you start asking better questions. Not just what is truth, but whose truth have I been living inside of?

Because for thirteen years, I lived inside one that told me how to interpret my life, how to respond, how to belong. And I followed it. Fully.

But my experience didn’t match the narrative.

And that matters.

Because if truth were only something fixed and external, something you could memorize and repeat and never question, then none of this would make sense. We wouldn’t walk away from the same place with different outcomes. We wouldn’t need to wrestle with it. We wouldn’t need to sit in the tension of what we’ve been taught versus what we’ve actually lived.

But we do.

And that’s where everything changed for me.

I don’t see truth anymore as something I just hold onto and defend. I see it as something I encounter. Something that meets me in the raw, honest reality of my life. Something that asks me to be present enough to actually see what’s there instead of forcing it into something that feels easier to explain.

And I know that doesn’t fit neatly into what I was taught.

But neither does real life.

And if I’m being honest, Sundays don’t look the same for me anymore. Sometimes it’s me sitting in my living room with my laptop, headphones on, wrapped in a Mickey blanket from Kohl’s, thinking, writing, actually paying attention to what’s happening inside of me. Sometimes it’s my husband bringing me coffee and refilling my snacks while I stay right there in it.

It might not look spiritual to anyone else.

But it feels real.

And right now, that matters more to me than performing something that looks right.

So when you ask me if truth is relative, I don’t rush to answer.

I just know this.

If something claims to be absolute, but cannot hold real people, real experiences, and real outcomes without dismissing them…

then it’s incomplete.

And I’m not a part of incomplete systems anymore.

Sundays still belong to something for me.

Just not something that needs me to shrink, stay quiet, or fall in line to belong.

I’m not a part of your machine.

And for the first time… that feels like truth.