During my time in my original church I twisted verses and their meanings into verbal and contextual pretzels to make them say what the teaching of the church was. My desire to be intellectually honest chipped away at much of the teachings. Finally, only a very few teaching remained but they were really being held on to for the sake of not completely letting go of the church. Finally, when my struggle of trying to blend the gospel of grace with the remaining law became obviously futile, I had to make the hard decision to leave.