I Used to Feel Guilty Choosing a Vacation Over Bethel

I didn’t just feel guilty about my choices…I felt like people were judging me for them. And honestly, that wasn’t in my head.I heard the conversations.I saw how people talked about others behind their backs.

Who was “spiritual.”

Who wasn’t.

What choices people were making… and what that supposedly said about them.

So when it came to my own life, I already knew how it worked.There was this unspoken scale.Things that were “theocratic”and things that weren’t.

And I knew where Bethel fell on that scale.It meant something.It showed something.It was the kind of choice people respected.

But choosing something like a family vacation?

That didn’t carry the same weight. In 2014, we chose to take our family to Mexico instead.And I remember feeling so much guilt.Not because I wasn’t enjoying it…I actually was.There were moments I felt happy, present, connected.But underneath all of that… there was this constant feeling:

I’m not supposed to be doing this. Like even in the middle of something good, I couldn’t fully relax into it. Because part of me was still aware of what this choice might mean.

How it might look.

What people might say.

Or think.

And when you’ve seen how quickly people talk about others for these kinds of things…you don’t need them to say it to your face.You carry it with you.So it wasn’t just about a vacation.It was about what that choice said about me.

Was I spiritual enough?

Were my priorities right?

Was I choosing myself over what I was “supposed” to do?

Looking back now, I can see how much that took away from the experience. How even joy had guilt attached to it.Not because the choice was wrong…but because I believed I was being quietly measured.And that’s the part I’m unlearning now.

That my life isn’t something that needs to be approved by others to be valid.

That I don’t have to filter my decisions through imagined conversations happening behind my back.

That choosing something that brings real connection and joy with my family…is not something I need to feel guilty for.

Even if, at one point, I was taught that it should be.