Friday morning. That was the day I resigned. Three sentences. Three cardboard boxes with seventeen years inside.

Pastor Dan walks in while I’m wrapping the African violet Martha Hennigan gave me when my husband died.

“What’s happening, Hannah?” Concerned. Pastoral.

I try to explain. The church feels less like a community and more like an organization. Less like we’re making decisions together and more like we’re implementing his vision.

He appears to listen. Then, gently: “I hear you. And I want you to know that your perception is valid, even if I don’t share it. But Hannah, I wonder if what you’re experiencing isn’t really about change. It’s about growth. Organizations that are growing? They do feel different. And it can feel uncomfortable, especially for those of us who remember what it was like when we were smaller.”

He pauses. Puts his hand on my shoulder.

I shrink back.

“I’d hate for you to make a decision based on misinterpreting the good God is doing here.”

Maybe you’ve been in that conversation too.

You try to name something wrong and watch it get reframed. Only now it’s you. You’re wrong because you’re calling it out. Your concern becomes spiritual immaturity. Questioning becomes disloyalty. Leaving becomes misinterpreting what God is doing.

It’s brilliantly disorienting.

Because maybe he’s right. Maybe I am misinterpreting things. Maybe I’m resistant to growth, clinging to the past, unable to embrace what God is doing.

Or maybe Pastor Dan has built a church around his ego and convinced everyone it’s God’s will.

I don’t know anymore.

All I know is I can’t stay.

That night I check my email. Forty-three messages from church members.

Diane Robertson stands out. Three paragraphs about how Pastor Dan shared (with love and concern) that I was going through a difficult season and needed space to process some personal struggles. How the church would be praying for my healing and restoration.

He didn’t lie. Not exactly.

He just reframed my resignation as a personal crisis. Made it about my struggle instead of his leadership.

Now everyone thinks I’m the one with the problem.

Here’s what led to Friday morning:

Jim Bartlett steps down as treasurer. “Every time I ask about the budget, Dan turns it into a spiritual conversation,” he tells me in the parking lot. “About faith. About trusting Jesus. About whether I’m hindering what God wants to do.”

Jim continues: “Last week, I questioned spending twenty thousand on new AV equipment before fully funding missions. You know what he said? ‘Jim, you’re thinking like an accountant. You need to think like a visionary. Which kingdom are you building? God’s or your own?’”

He shakes his head. “Maybe I don’t have enough faith. Or maybe Dan is really good at making people doubt themselves.”

Linda Chen stops leading the choir she built. “Every suggestion I make is ‘not quite what we’re going for,’” she tells me. “I thought ‘Come Thou Fount’ would work beautifully for communion. Pastor Dan said it’s too traditional. ‘Linda, we need to focus on God’s power, not our need for God.’”

She’s fifty-two. “Pastor Dan makes me feel like a grandmother clinging to hymns from the past.”

Less than a month later, Diane Robertson is leading the choir. The Robertsons just donated fifty thousand to the building fund.

Kathy shows up at my desk one morning without her usual coffee. “How long have you known something’s wrong with my marriage?”

Dan’s not having a physical affair. But emotionally, he’s gone. When she tries to talk about it, he says she’s not being supportive of his calling. That ministry is demanding. That she needs to trust God’s plan.

“Maybe he’s right,” she says. “Maybe I’m being selfish. He’s building God’s kingdom. Who am I to complain about being lonely?”

Then her tears come.

Questions reframed as spiritual immaturity. Loyalty valued over truth. Power centralized while preaching empowerment. People emotionally erased while being told they’re valued.

Church hurt with no smoking gun. Just fog rolling in so slowly you don’t notice until you can’t see the road.

And the silence. So much silence.

Because how do you name something that leaves no evidence? It’s like ice melting on a hot summer day. Once it evaporates, there’s zero evidence it was ever there. How do you call out manipulation that sounds like pastoral care? How do you prove someone is building a kingdom around themselves when they’re using all the right God-language?

You can’t.

So you stay silent.

Or you leave.

Four years later, I drive past the church by accident. Construction detours me through the old neighborhood.

The building looks smaller. Dimmer.

That night, I pull up their website. Barely updated. Service times reduced from 2 to 1. A Facebook post: “Please pray for our congregation as we navigate this season of transition and healing.”

Cryptic comments about “everything that’s happened.”

So it kept happening. And eventually, enough people saw it that it couldn’t be ignored.

But not enough to change anything.

I reach out to Kathy.

We meet at Bean and Brew. She looks lighter.

“I filed for divorce two years ago, Hannah. The church split over it.”

She tells me what happened after I left. People kept leaving. Katie. Linda. Jim. They all said the same things. She defended Dan until she couldn’t anymore.

“I was angry at you for a long time. You left. You knew something wasn’t right and didn’t say anything.”

My chest tightens.

“But I was really angry at myself. It was easier than admitting the truth. That you did warn me. You saw what was happening and tried to tell me. I didn’t want to hear it. None of us did.”

She squeezes my hand.

“Leaving when you did? That wasn’t cowardice, Hannah. It was sanity.”

She pauses.

“Some systems are so broken that trying to fix them from inside makes you complicit.”

Kathy tells me others are still in town. People who left but stayed in the area. Still carrying what happened. Still wondering if they were wrong.

“They need what you gave me today. Someone to tell them they weren’t crazy. That the pain is real.”

So I start reaching out.

Jim tells me about letters he wrote to denominational leaders who did nothing. I apologize for not backing him up. “I blamed you for leaving,” he says. “Thought you were a coward. Now I wish I’d left when you did.”

Katie runs a support group now for people healing from spiritual abuse. “We just tell our stories and listen.” I apologize for not taking her concerns seriously. “Thank you, Hannah. I feel less crazy now.”

Not everyone responds. Some are still angry. Some block me. Some write back, listing everything I should have done differently.

I read every word. Don’t defend myself. Just say: thank you, I hear you, I understand.

Linda agrees to meet for coffee. She’s cautious.

I tell her I saw how Dan marginalized her. How he dismissed her input while claiming to value it.

“I should have said something, Linda. I should have named what I was watching instead of letting it happen to you.”

Long silence.

“Nobody said anything, Hannah. That was the worst part. Watching people see it and just… look away. I thought I was imagining it.”

Before she leaves, she scribbles her phone number on a napkin.

“Call me in a month if you’re serious about this.”

That’s the test.

Saying the right words once isn’t enough. You have to show up. Again and again. Your concern has to outlast the initial guilt. You have to be willing to stay in the uncomfortable space with people who have every right not to trust you.

One month later, I call. We talk about Linda’s garden. Her kids. The weather.

Nothing deep. Just presence.

The next month, Linda asks if I think God is still at Lone Oak. “I don’t know about the institution,” I tell her. “But I think God is with the people who were hurt there.”

“Could that be the same thing?” she asks.

Last month, Fran (a woman I barely knew at Lone Oak) reached out. “I need to know if what I experienced was real.”

We spent two hours talking.

“Thank you, Hannah. I needed that.”

“I’m sorry you didn’t hear it sooner.”

“But you’re saying it now,” she says. “And that matters.”

Here’s what I’m learning about reconciliation when systems fail, and leaders won’t change:

It’s not about fixing what broke. It’s about showing up for the people who were hurt. Telling the truth. Letting people decide for themselves whether they’re ready to receive it.

It’s acknowledging your failures without excuses. “I should have said something” carries more weight than “I didn’t know what to do.”

It’s consistency. Proving you’re serious by staying present over weeks, months, sometimes years.

It’s accepting that some people will never be ready. And that’s okay.

It’s doing what’s right regardless of the outcome.

My word for this season is voice.

Not the kind that’s always loud. The kind that refuses to stay silent when silence protects the wrong people. The kind that goes through the fire instead of around it.

The kind that keeps reaching out even when people don’t reach back.

For years, I was silent because I couldn’t name what was wrong clearly enough to make anyone believe me. Including myself.

Now I’m learning a different kind of speech.

The kind that says: What you saw was real. You’re not imagining it. You’re not crazy. You’re not alone.

The kind that shows up. That stays. That acknowledges failure and offers presence anyway.

The kind that doesn’t need everyone to forgive me or validate my choices. That does what’s right even when the response is silence.

So here’s my prayer:

God, give me the courage to break the silence. To name what I see, even when I can’t prove it. To acknowledge my failures without excuses. To reach out even when people don’t reach back.

Protect the people drowning in fog. The ones who know something’s wrong but can’t name it. The ones who left and still wonder if they were right to go. The ones who stayed, carrying wounds they can’t explain.

Let my words be honest. Let them be present. Let them say: you’re not crazy. What you saw was real. And you’re not alone.

And when the silence feels too heavy, remind me: speaking truth doesn’t always change systems. But it changes people.

One conversation at a time.

One phone call a month.

One cup of coffee where someone finally exhales and says, “Thank you for not making me feel crazy.”

That’s voice.

Not surviving the hurt.

Refusing to let the hurt silence me.