Why do young women hang around the church if it makes life so difficult for us?

This was my favorite question that fellow Talking Taboo co-editor, Enuma Okoro, and I answered last week during our interview with Doug Pagitt of Doug Pagitt Radio, "religious radio that's not quite right."I've been thinking about this question a lot as I begin work on a new book about why, as a young Christian feminist, I've stayed in the church and continue to feel called to belong there. Am I no more hopeless than a woman who returns again and again to an abusive lover? Or am I holding out hope that being wed to the church is not always about "becoming the best me there is" but experiencing a unity that requires me to compromise and conform and therefore, at times, feel like I am decidedly not thriving?What's the difference between committing to an imperfect partnership and one that's downright toxic?I'm not denying that the church can be a crazy place. But as Enuma reminds me during the interview, God lives in crazyville, too.