As someone who grew up in a church family, but no longer goes now I’m an adult, I can confirm it’s often hard for the children to find their own way when still living with parents. Often the parents’ only friends are also churchy people and often the only social engagements are church adjacent, and whilst I love my parents, I do to some extent resent having to go to church every week and listening to essentially lectures. And that was at a typical Anglican church, not one of these super intense non denominational ones. Sometimes I got invited to those and they scared me because whilst there is often good intent at the heart of it, the people can be quite intense in their beliefs about sin, heaven, hell, and the music can often be quite emotive, often I’d find myself crying and sad because we’d be singing about someone who will take your sins and pain away, yet you’d still be ill, unhappy etc and and it didn’t feel like I was being ‘saved’.
I can see how Grace doesn’t have much scope to get out of that upbringing, and her marrying into it will just set her up for that, for life. It can for some bring a strong sense of community to be part of those churches, but it can also be isolating for people like me who never got included with the “in crowd kids” in the church and finds socialising difficult. It can get very clique-y.
It must be very hard when you are the last sibling too, because a precedent has been set and she clearly loves her family and was never likely going to break away and do her own thing.
I just hope this fiance is a good guy, she deserves that.
