Uploaded August 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Every Part of Your Journey Matters: My Experience Growing Up In and Leaving the International Churches of Christ - Laura Davis
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Disclaimer: This session was delivered for the 2023 ICSA Conference. The speaker of this session does not speak on behalf of ICSA as an organization.
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Abstract: My journey, being born and raised as a "Kingdom Kid" in the International Churches of Christ, and everything that led to me leaving and healing. My husband has succinctly said, "The first half of your life was easy but fake, and the last half of your life has been hard but real." Growing up in the church, life was "easy" in the sense that it was formulaic and predictable. I knew all the rules and eagerly looked forward to my life as a faithful disciple. However, at 12 years old, that bedrock shattered, and I found myself alone in the real world.
In this talk, I will discuss in more detail how the things that broke me also put me back together again – not piece by piece like a puzzle or a formula, but like a mosaic or a kaleidoscope. I will talk about my experience with identity loss and dissociation, developing OCD and severe depression at 15 years old, realizing that I had no sense of who I was among a group of secular homeschooled kids, finding a safe church that became my home, flunking out of college, and more.
Dr. Dan Siegel, the psychologist, has said, "It is not what happened to you as a child that matters; it's how you make sense of what happened to you." My hope is that listeners would walk away feeling educated, empowered, and seen. I want them to be reminded that every part of their journey matters – even this part, right here and now. Maybe it seems like a fragmented mess, and maybe it is, but that's okay. It's a piece of their own unique mosaic, a stained-glass work of art that only they can create.
Every Part of Your Journey Matters: My Experience Growing Up In and Leaving the International Churches of Christ - Laura Davis
-
Disclaimer: This session was delivered for the 2023 ICSA Conference. The speaker of this session does not speak on behalf of ICSA as an organization.
-
Abstract: My journey, being born and raised as a "Kingdom Kid" in the International Churches of Christ, and everything that led to me leaving and healing. My husband has succinctly said, "The first half of your life was easy but fake, and the last half of your life has been hard but real." Growing up in the church, life was "easy" in the sense that it was formulaic and predictable. I knew all the rules and eagerly looked forward to my life as a faithful disciple. However, at 12 years old, that bedrock shattered, and I found myself alone in the real world.
In this talk, I will discuss in more detail how the things that broke me also put me back together again – not piece by piece like a puzzle or a formula, but like a mosaic or a kaleidoscope. I will talk about my experience with identity loss and dissociation, developing OCD and severe depression at 15 years old, realizing that I had no sense of who I was among a group of secular homeschooled kids, finding a safe church that became my home, flunking out of college, and more.
Dr. Dan Siegel, the psychologist, has said, "It is not what happened to you as a child that matters; it's how you make sense of what happened to you." My hope is that listeners would walk away feeling educated, empowered, and seen. I want them to be reminded that every part of their journey matters – even this part, right here and now. Maybe it seems like a fragmented mess, and maybe it is, but that's okay. It's a piece of their own unique mosaic, a stained-glass work of art that only they can create.
