Abby grew up as a pastor and missionary's daughter in the Pentecostal Holiness movement, but later left in her early 20's. She continues to pursue Christianity and an understanding of God in her own way, but struggles to find her place in a new church community and in the world. 

"I feel like life was so much easier in the holiness movement, because it was a world of black and whites. You were told what was right and wrong, you didn't have to think too much. Your path was laid out, you had these clear expectations about what you were supposed to be, who you were supposed to be, so I feel like it was just easier, because all you had to do was stay inside your community and inside your parameters, and follow the rules and you'd pretty much have a pretty easy life. You're given an identity, and I think that's something I struggle with now is okay, I don't belong in the holiness movement, obviously, I don't want to. So, spiritually or tribe wise, where do I belong?

The other night, I told my friend that I was at Camp Blessing, She really wanted to analyze why I was there. She asked, ‘what did you feel?’ I felt nothing. And it was kind of a refreshing feeling to feel nothing, because I could sit back, and I could look from a place of reason. I feel like instead of the emotion and all the usual hype didn't work on me anymore like it used to.

It wasn't sadness, it wasn't like I didn't feel like I lost anything, really, which was kind of refreshing because I think I romanticize it maybe a little bit like looking back in the past, like, oh, you know, I had these great experiences that I love so much, and I missed that, I missed the community. And then there I am again, I’m okay without it. I think that’s just another step forward.

 When I was first doing a deconstruction of my faith, I was doing therapy. In therapy, I expressed that I was afraid of losing my faith. [Pentecostal Holiness believe] it's a slow progression to losing your faith if you go searching for something else, and you're just trying to appease your flesh. 

You're just trying to comfort yourself while you're backsliding. I was fearful of that. I was like, well, since I'm not having these intense spiritual experiences, maybe that just means that God isn't with me anymore. Because I remember those specific sermons too, it always warned that people would lose touch with God because they had been away from him for so long. It was a warning against allowing yourself to drift away from the faith. 

You need to keep coming back, stay in the faith, be as intense as possible, basically, to make sure that you had that connection with God - because you could lose it. 

So it was like, well, shit, maybe I just lost God. Maybe I can’t feel it anymore. 

I don’t really have that fear anymore.”