When the Table is Gone
The Kind of Hurt That Changes Everything
I’ve been struggling with going to church recently.
I’m not having a crisis of faith, doubting the love of God, or losing sight of who Jesus is. No, those things are still deeply rooted and flourishing. Right now, though, I’m deep in a wrestling match with God over all things “church” and “faith-based organizations.” And I have to tell you, I don’t think I’m getting out of it unscathed.
Jacob came out of his wrestling match with a limp, and I’m definitely coming out of this one with some scrapes, bruises, and breaks—the kind that need time to heal and that will inevitably leave scars.
This wrestling match has been going on for almost six months now, and I am tired. Amidst all of the clichés we typically offer people in seasons like this, a wise friend reminded me of the weights I’m carrying—specifically the ones I was never meant to carry. In so many ways, I feel like I’m wrestling with a weighted vest on, one I keep taking off and putting back on.
When I’m wise enough to take the weighted vest off, two questions surface: Who am I, and where do I belong?
Why This Feels So Disorienting
I’ve already gone through a season of faith deconstruction. Ironically, I wrote the book on faith reconstruction. No, this irony is not lost on me.
And yet, here I sit today wrestling with whether or not I’ll go back to church, whether I need to find a new church, and how to sort through the rubble of the decimated table I’ve sat at for years.
You’d think, after writing the book about all of these things, I would have all of the answers. I don’t. In fact, I feel like everything is suspended in limbo.
I think I’ve finally figured out why.
I’ve written the systematic guide to faith reconstruction. I understand how to guide you through analyzing the tenets of your faith, dismantling faulty theology, rebuilding a faith grounded in Jesus, and finding a community beyond the church.
What I didn’t address was when church hurt went beyond theological and into the relational.
I’m not talking about when Sally said something mean to me “in the name of Jesus” or when Joe stepped in and started teaching Sunday School and pushed me out.
No, I’m talking foundation-shattering relationship damage in the church—the kind that is so destructive the table is decimated, and you are left sorting through the rubble of what used to be.
You’re Not the Only One Sitting in the Rubble
As I’ve pondered it for the last six months, I haven’t written about it. In fact, I haven’t written about much of anything because it’s nearly impossible to create when your table has been blown up and you’re exhausted from a wrestling match with God.
I’ve convinced myself I’m not writing about it because I don’t want to center myself in the narrative, and this topic goes against my promise to write with my reader in mind.
Sitting with this, though, has reminded me that my experiences are not isolated. There are so many of you walking this same road. While your situations are certainly different, your struggle is still the same.
You have found yourself with a decimated table and the question of “What now, God?” And, like me, you find yourself asking God to make it make sense.
What Jesus Actually Says About Betrayal (Luke 17:1–4)
I spent 2½ years studying and writing about the book of Luke for one purpose: to go beyond the WWJD movement and dig deep into what Jesus did do. I wanted to know Jesus instead of simply knowing of Jesus. After those 2½ years, I can say, with confidence, I know Jesus.
As I’ve been wrestling with God and asking Him to make this all make sense, God keeps reminding me of one theme of Jesus’s teaching woven throughout the entire book of Luke. If I were going to sum it up in one word, it would be this: posture.
In this teaching, Jesus is not only revealing the posture of the betrayer. He is also shaping the posture of the betrayed.
The teaching of Jesus I keep coming back to in this wrestling match is found in Luke 17:1–4.
One day Jesus taught his disciples:
“Betrayals are inevitable, but great devastation will come to the one guilty of betraying others. It would be better for him to have a heavy boulder tied around his neck and be hurled into the deepest sea than to face the punishment of betraying one of my dear ones. So be alert to your brother’s condition, and if you see him going the wrong direction, cry out and correct him. If there is true repentance on his part, forgive him. No matter how many times in one day your brother sins against you and says, ‘I’m sorry; I am changing; forgive me,’ you need to forgive him each and every time.” (TPT)
“Betrayal” is such a strong word. The language alone tends to cause us to minimize our own hurts because we ask, “It hurt, but was it a betrayal?” In the original text, this word was σκάνδαλον (skandalon). The connotation is something that trips, traps, wounds, destabilizes, or spiritually damages another person. This is the soul-level hurt we are talking about here.
And before I go any further, I need to say this out loud because it matters.
I know I’m not only capable of being the one who’s been hurt. I’m also capable of being the one who hurts.
I’ve had my own moments where I’ve gotten it wrong, where I’ve caused harm, and where I’ve needed to take responsibility and do the work of repair.
But that’s not the seat I’m sitting in today.
Today, I’m writing from the rubble.
From there, I’m looking back at Luke’s discussion of Jesus’s teaching on betrayal, forgiveness, and posture, and I’m reminded of the process Jesus gives us when we find ourselves left in nothing but the rubble.
And, the process mirrors what we learn in therapy. Because Jesus is relational; He understands human relationships. And that could not be more apparent than in this process Jesus gives us in this teaching.
1. Jesus tells us to be alert to our brother’s condition.
Jesus introduces betrayal at the beginning of this teaching. He talks about the cost of betrayal for the betrayer. Then, though, He gives us our first action step when we’ve been betrayed: to pay attention to our brother’s condition.
From a therapist, this might sound like encouragement to pay attention to actions instead of simply listening to words. If you’ve been in therapy, you might recognize this as reality testing, or staying grounded in what is actually happening, not what you hope is happening.
This requires awareness without denial. It means we don’t minimize harm, excuse repeated behavior, or override our intuition to keep the peace simply because we’ve heard an apology but haven’t seen changed behavior.
I think we struggle with this, especially in the church, because we have been taught to focus on the plank in our own eye instead of the sawdust in someone else’s. It doesn’t come naturally for most of us to focus on the behavior of others without turning inward instead.
Jesus states it plainly here. He teaches us to be alert. He wants us to see the betrayal clearly.
This requires us to have a posture of honesty instead of denial.
2. Jesus tells us if we see someone going the wrong direction, we are to speak up.
The second step in this process is to speak up when we see the person who has hurt us continuing in the hurt or going even further in the wrong direction.
I have to be honest here: I absolutely hate this part of the process. Confrontation reveals who people are at their core. When you see into the depths of someone’s soul, you can’t unsee it.
But confrontation also reveals our posture. Will we avoid truth to keep the peace, or will we engage honestly and clearly?
From a therapist, this might sound like practicing clear, direct, and honest communication within the parameters of clear boundaries.
Neither Jesus nor therapists encourage confrontation for the sake of control. Instead, though, this looks like assertive communication instead of passive silence or aggressive reaction.
This type of confrontation includes:
Naming the behavior without attacking the person
Using “I” statements
Expressing impact (“This hurt me” instead of “You’re terrible”)
Clarifying expectations moving forward
This is also where boundaries come in—determining what is and is not okay and having clarity moving forward.
We only have control and responsibility for one thing during these conversations: communicating clearly. We are not responsible for how the listener receives or reacts.
Jesus isn’t just shaping our behavior here. He’s shaping our posture toward truth, courage, and clarity.
He’s also allowing us to see the posture of the person who hurt us through the conversation around the confrontation.
3. Jesus connects our forgiveness with their repentance
Jesus tells us that if there is true repentance, forgive him.
This is likely the part of this process that makes those of us who have grown up in the church scratch our heads. We’ve been taught over and over again that we need to forgive without conditions. So, this idea that forgiveness and restored access are connected to repentance feels a little sticky to those of us who have grown up with “unconditional forgiveness.”
I’m still wrestling with God on this one, but as I’ve pored over this, I think Jesus wants us to be attuned to our betrayer’s posture before allowing access. Jesus has already walked us through being alert to how he’s acting and to call out the hurt. This teaching follows naturally because Jesus is telling us to look for true repentance from the person who hurt us.
It’s about protecting us from future hurt, and it really pinpoints the heart of the issue here: the posture of the person who hurt us after they’ve been confronted.
Jesus teaches us to pay attention not just to apologies, but to posture—both theirs and ours.
Are they moving toward humility, accountability, and repair? And are we moving toward wisdom instead of self-abandonment?
From a therapist, this might sound like encouraging us to look for accountability and behavioral change, not just an apology.
Therapy differentiates between:
An Apology (“I’m sorry”)
Accountability (“I understand what I did and how it affected you”)
Repair (changed behavior over time)
This should sound familiar.
Because repentance also includes:
Apology
Confession
Change
True repentance, therefore, requires:
Ownership without defensiveness
No minimizing, blaming, or spiritual bypassing
Consistent change over time
A therapist would not equate forgiveness with instant restoration of trust or position in the relationship, and it certainly doesn’t seem as if Jesus is asking us to do that either.
4. Jesus addresses when to forgive when people harm us again and again
In the original text, the word Luke uses to convey Jesus’s teaching on sinning against us again and again is ἁμαρτάνω (hamartanō). This is a pretty standard Greek word for “sin.” At the end of this teaching, Jesus is speaking specifically about ongoing relational harm (sin) within close community.
In the original text, the word used for forgiveness here was ἀφίημι (aphiēmi). It literally means to detach, to send away, or to release. It does not inherently imply restoring access, pretending nothing happened, or removing consequences.
This distinction matters.
I can’t say this loudly enough—forgiveness here does not imply immediate restoration of relationship or place. Instead, it means detaching and releasing the hurt/betrayal.
The posture Jesus is inviting us into here is one of release.
In a similar way, therapy language frames forgiveness as:
Letting go of the need for revenge
Processing anger in a healthy way
Refusing to let the harm define you
But it also affirms:
You can forgive and still limit access
You can forgive and still say, “This is no longer safe for me”
You can forgive and still walk away
If you have been betrayed and your betrayer wants access, restoration, and a seat at your table without demonstrating true repentance—apology, accountability, and changed behavior to repair the damage—Jesus does not teach that we have to allow them access.
Knowing this intellectually and accepting it emotionally are not always the same thing, though.
When Walking Away Is the Right Next Step
When we read Jesus through the lens of healthy relationships instead of through the lens of our trauma, His words stop feeling like impossible spiritual demands and start looking like deeply grounded relational wisdom.
And, as Lysa TerKeurst so eloquently pointed out in her book Good Boundaries and Goodbyes, “health cannot bond with unhealth.”
Even in the church.
Especially in the church.
We can’t pray people into health, not in their recovery, not in their relationships, and not in their life choices. They have to choose it.
I’m going to be blunt here: some people are not ready to choose health.
They don’t yet have the capacity for genuine repentance.
They cannot create a safe environment for restoration or reconciliation.
They will likely remain the victims in their own stories, and they are often the people who have decimated your table.
Sometimes faithful posture does not look like endless access. Sometimes it looks like wisdom, honesty, boundaries, and release.
If you are sitting in a place where shattered relationships in the church have destroyed your table and left you asking, “Who am I?” and “Where do I belong?” let me encourage you to work through this scripture to determine your next right step.
And let me give you permission to walk away from tables and relationships where your betrayers still sit if they are not willing to take responsibility, do the work of repair, and demonstrate real change.
Walking away is not a failure of your faith.
Sometimes, it’s the clearest expression of it.
Reflection Questions
What am I seeing clearly in this situation—and what have I been minimizing, excusing, or hoping would change?
When I look for true repentance, what have I actually experienced: apology, accountability, and change? Or just words?
What is my next right step in this season—and does it move me toward healing, even if it feels uncomfortable?
I write in two spaces.
A Seat at the Table: Faith, Healing, and Honest Conversations After Church Hurt is where I explore faith, healing, and making room for honesty after it’s been made complicated.
Ink & Intention: Practical Writing Support for Nonfiction Authors is for writers who want to show up with clarity, discernment, and integrity—especially online.
I’m also the author of Breathing Again and several guided journals, and I work with writers who want thoughtful, grounded support as they find their voice and shape what comes next.
If something here resonated, you’re welcome to explore more at your own pace. You can find everything in one place here:
Kristen Neighbarger | Author, Writing Coach, and Resources for Writers
