I stayed in the church for years after losing my faith. I truly believed that despite my doubts, I was doing good by staying put. I believed I was providing an example of patience and enduring to the end. I thought others respected me. But one day, after a particularly trying time of hearing the same unchanging rhetoric from the pulpit, I came home and looked into the mirror. And I couldn’t believe what I saw. Physically I was exhausted, but spiritually I felt abused. I didn’t recognize this person that had allowed themselves to be beaten and scorned and ignored and made to believe all along that I was the problem. That I had done something wrong and in-fact deserved this treatment. And from that day forward, I said ‘no more’.