Tears fill my eyes as I reflect on the past.

On the night I was baptized in 1999, while others celebrated the new millennium, I sat clutching instant noodles I had stockpiled, waiting for 'that day' to come. And yet... nothing happened.

A young woman, who had clung to her faith despite her difficult circumstances, eventually left the church. Overnight, she was labeled as "a foolish believer waiting for the wrong time."

But while the church claimed we shouldn’t wait for a specific time, they constantly bound me with warnings that “the time is near.”

When I considered attending graduate school, a regional leader discouraged me, saying, "Father is coming soon, so what are you thinking?" Under the weight of such faith-based reprimands, I gave up on my plans.

In another year, when the church claimed it was a significant time for evangelism, I changed my job to part-time and threw myself into frantic evangelism, convinced that “the end must be near.” Yet every time I tried to pursue further studies or a stable career, the church created an atmosphere as if the world were truly ending. This left me in a frustrating limbo—neither thriving in the world nor in faith.

At some point, the church started publicly surveying members with professional careers. I vividly recall the times when I opened a book to study, only to be chastised for being "entangled in worldly matters" because “the time is near.”

I couldn’t help but think: If only the passion they poured into coaching children for presentations about 'Mother' were redirected to helping them academically, wouldn’t these children be better equipped to stand tall in the world and share the Word confidently? This disappointment festered for so long that it eventually turned into anger. What else could this demand for unwavering obedience and faith be but a tactic to send us into the world to evangelize professionals?

At the start of every new year, after visiting “Mother,” regional leaders would passionately argue, with even more upgraded logic than the year before, that this year was truly the year we would enter heaven. This fervor stripped away my reason, and I spent years pretending to obey, trapped in that environment for far too long.