Daisygirl,
I love that image of you crying if your parents wouldn't allow you to go to church...not the crying part, but the deep love that you already had for church and God.

I had such a deep love for God all through my childhood. The only time my Mom had to drag me to church was when there was a Shirley Temple movie on the TV, but that wasn't very often, especially on a Sunday morning. Most Sunday mornings, I couldn't wait to go to Sunday School and church.

Like you, I've been heavily involved in church most of my life, starting choir at the age of 6, teaching Sunday School for years, studying theology for 2 years, serving on the Parish Council and various committees, and continuing to play piano and help to lead the choir right up until I was 40. Then I just completely burned out. That's when I began to experience the dysfunctionality of church firsthand...my experience was that as long as I was giving, giving and giving until I had no more to give, I was a welcome, beloved member of the congregation. But when I became too burnt to give, and unable to bring my guitar to church functions anymore, I suddenly became invisible and discarded. It was very disillusioning.

But because of my faith history and personal relationship with God, I was able to separate that disillusionment and dysfunctionality of the human side of church from the core reason for being there...because it IS much better to walk the path with others.

But, like you, I had to learn how to create and maintain those boundaries, keeping the toxic out and letting the good (God) in, before Church could be the same joyful place it had been all my life before my breakdown. It was during that time of disillusionment (and feeling totally abandoned by the very church I had loved, served and given to for so long) that the "2-3 together" thing kept me from walking that path totally alone.