It was the summer of 2007 and I shouted “Lord, you told me I’d always be there!” The Lord quickly answered back, “No, that’s what YOU always said.” I thought about that for a moment and He was right. The light had come on in my world and I began to see that I had been living in a matrix, a bubble, if you will. A world filled with hopes and dreams that would never be realized the way I thought they would. Quickly, my mind began to race with questions. How could this be? I thought Pastor was my “covering”? What about all the memories, all the years, the friendships, the teaching, the dedication, the dreams we held collectively and stood on through the years? You can’t leave a church without “knowing” where you’re going next, right? Right?! At that point, I had already been given many confirmations that I needed to leave, but I asked the Lord to confirm His will by His written Word. So He said, “Acts 7:3”. I turned there and read, “Leave your people and your country, and come to the land that I WILL show you.” Wow, there it was. I knew what this meant and where this was going. What was once the “unthinkable” became true in my life. All the thoughts that maybe “it's just me, something must be wrong with me” came to a peaceful end. I had finally come to the realization that my decision to leave Cornerstone Church after 10 yrs. was the right one. Now it was time for me to OBEY what God had been showing me for months. I had to make a choice that day… "Do I follow the voice of the Holy Spirit or the voice of man?” Not to mention the fear that my friends in the church would think I was crazy or “off”-as they would put it. Yes, leaving would cost me a lot. But, God had spoken and it was time to pick up my tent and continue on.
Did I know I was attending a spiritually-abusive church? Did I know what an authoritarian leader was? No, not when I first left. You see, I had basically “grown up” in this church. Of course, I had a solid foundation in church as a child, but this was MY first church as an adult. I was proud of myself for finding it on my own and becoming a dedicated member. And I loved my Pastor and the members very much. So, as much as it was exciting at first to be following God’s direction, it was extremely difficult because of my relationship ties. Little did I know the transition I would go through.
One step at a time the Holy Spirit taught me, healed me, and corrected any false perceptions of God and His Word that came over the platform. Many unhealthy things were shown to me, but I also found that there were many GOOD and true things taught to me during my season at Cornerstone as well. Not everything was bad, I just had to learn to separate the two. I began to see that I attended a church that BECAME spiritually abusive. I began to see that the leadership was set up like a hierarchy that taught members that the Pastor himself was their
