Social media account Jubilee Dawns Instagram has shared a deeply emotional video with thousands online after a woman in the video recounted how she says a pastor she trusted disappeared from her life while her mother was dying from stage four breast cancer.
In the viral clip from the Healedish Podcast, narrator Krys Lighkt ( @thequeen.krys) described the pain she experienced while participating in a church internship program connected to the Bethel Church community.
According to Lighkt, she informed her spiritual leader that her mother’s condition had become critical and that she needed to return home to support her during what would become the final months of her life.
“My mom has stage four breast cancer,” she recalled telling him. “She’s saying that she feels weak and she feels very alone.”
Instead of receiving comfort or support, Lighkt said the conversation left her stunned.
“He was like, ‘But you just started the internship,’” she recounted.
Lighkt said she repeatedly tried to communicate the seriousness of the situation, explaining that her mother wanted her children close during her final days. But she felt the gravity of the moment was ignored.
“I was like, my mom is at home with stage four breast cancer,” she said. “It was not clicking.”
According to Lighkt, the pastor’s primary concern appeared to be whether she intended to return to the program.
“He was like, ‘I guess you’re going to leave me,’” she recalled.
Lighkt said she ultimately returned home, spending the last two months of her mother’s life caring for her before she passed away. What hurt most, she explained, was the silence that followed.
“I didn’t get one phone call,” she said. “I didn’t get one text, one check-in from him the entire time that I was gone.”
The emotional testimony has sparked widespread discussion online about spiritual leadership, grief, and religious trauma, with many viewers criticizing what they viewed as emotional neglect disguised as ministry.
“That’s so heartless and cruel, she deserved so much better,” commented @_ashafrass
Another IG user commented: ‘This guy is a narcissist and a vile human being. It’s all about him. Good on her for calling him out.”
Lighkt explained that the pastor had previously described himself as her “covering” and spiritual father figure, though she told him she only wanted a pastor, not a replacement parent.
After her mother’s death, Lighkt said she unexpectedly encountered the pastor again during a worship gathering. She recalled him appearing visibly shaken upon seeing her.
“I know you’re angry at me,” she remembered him saying. “I know you want to scream.”
But instead of lashing out, Lighkt delivered the statement that has since become the emotional centerpiece of the viral clip.
“You know what you did,” she told him. “You know that you dropped the ball and you failed me.”
She said the pastor began crying and asked her not to tell anyone about the interaction.
The story has struck a nerve with many former church members and survivors of religious trauma, particularly those who say faith communities sometimes fail people during moments of profound grief and vulnerability.
By the end of the encounter, Lighkt said she realized she no longer wanted anything to do with the institution that once played such a major role in her life.
“I am done with this place,” she said. “I have nothing that I need from this place.”
