Sorry this is long but looking for some advice....I'm a 30 year old female and I previously attended a wonderful, vibrant church close to home. The Church was a huge support to me and gave me purpose while I was facing some very challenging personal problems in regard to my mental health. I had already left this church once and I now see this was my anxiety at play again. My anxieties usually drive me to retreat from everything, including my church family which were an extremely positive influence on my life. The first time i left church i had a conversation with a church leader as I had commitments to this church at the time. I later regretted this choice as my mental health deteriorated and traditional therapy wasn't the whole solution for me, i needed spiritual intervention. Two years later i returned to the church and was welcomed back with open arms. It took some time to rebuild relationships but on the whole everyone was very understanding. I spent another two years in church, and I was doing very well until I took a new job with additional responsibility and stress and anxiety began to manifest again. I went from absolutely loving church each week to becoming anxious around people and socially awkward. A lot of my anxiety is based around social reasons and therefore a huge trigger for me. When my anxiety is active it's like a light switch, and suddenly I don't enjoy anything and I can't connect with anything anymore. So I ended up leaving the church again, but on this occasion I didn't communicate with anyone prior to leaving. I feel terrible about this, and in my normal state of mind I would never behave this way. I was enjoying church and I realise and my doctor realises that these sudden changes in my thinking and behaviour are part of my on-going mental health issues. This brings me to now, so it has been a few years since i left and i haven't walked away from my faith and I have tried to attend other churches. During the pandemic I have had time to reflect on these things and the best course of action to more forward. In my spirit I feel that due to the nature of how I left the church last time I don't think I can expect to rebuild things a second time around. Now i'm a lot better in terms of my mental health and God has healed so many parts of my life and I want to give back to that church in some way and I feel God pressing me to do something, but I don't know what. In my heart of hearts I would love to return and I feel I have learnt huge lessons, but I don't feel this would be fair on the church family and I assume it would be hard to trust me again. I basically feel like I need to do something to repair the situation somehow but I don't know what is the right course of action. Any advice on this would be appreciated..
