Around the age of nine and a half, my mom and I moved into the basement of my sister Amber’s two-bedroom apartment. It couldn’t have been more than two or three weeks later—maybe even less—when I woke up one morning with an immediate sense of panic. My mom was gone.
I went upstairs to tell Amber I’d need a ride to school. She asked where Mom was, and I told her I didn’t know. I honestly don’t remember how I got home from school that day, but I vividly remember Amber on the phone with my mom later.
“When are you coming to get her?
Okay… then when will you be back?
I already have my son to take care of.
I can’t, Mom.
Are you serious?
Fine.”
After she hung up, I went over to her. I had just said hi to Greyson—her one-year-old son—when I asked, “When is Mom coming to get me?”
“You’re going to stay with me for a while,” she said. “Mom moved back in with John, and she thinks it’s better if I keep you.”
At some point after that, Amber took my parents to court and was granted guardianship of me. And my parents let her. Just like that.
That feeling—the one where you realize you’re not wanted—took over my life. The prayers I had been whispering every night for my parents to get back together went into overdrive. All I wanted was to feel chosen. To feel wanted.
But I wasn’t.
They gave up on me.
And I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t good enough.
My relationship with Amber was complicated. She was my sister, but I was expected to treat her like my mother. Over time, she stepped fully into that role. She loved me. She disciplined me. She made sure I was clean, dressed well, and rarely sitting still at home. In many ways, she did everything a parent was supposed to do.
Then Amber found the church.
And because she did, so did I.
For a while, it felt like we were the perfect little family—the three of us. Then Amber met Trevor. He was young, sweet, and eager to please. Greyson and I adored him. He followed Amber wherever she went and believed in whatever she believed in. Loving God was no different.
Trevor went from dealing drugs to becoming a disciple almost overnight, and not long after, they got married. That’s when our lives turned into a series of moves from city to city, spreading the word of God.
At first, church felt real to me. God felt real. I felt close to Him. But it didn’t take long to realize that church wasn’t really about God—it was about performance. About proving how godly you were to everyone else.
Every morning, Amber woke me at 5 a.m. to pray. We read a chapter of the Bible and prayed for an hour. I was a kid—I fell asleep during prayer. She’d wake me and make me continue until she was satisfied I was truly awake. After that, I’d get dressed and start my chores.
As Amber became more consumed with appearing godly, my appearance changed too. Long sleeves to my elbows. Skirts to my ankles. My hair long and almost always pulled back. At one point, she even tried to make me wear an Amish-style head covering.
That’s when I knew something was very wrong.
What made it worse was that Amber didn’t hold herself to the same standards she enforced on me—even though they were supposedly what God expected.
I hated religion.
But I loved church.
Because that’s where my friends were. Kids just like me—wanting to be themselves but forced to compete in a quiet, exhausting game of who could appear holier.
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