(this is the longest and most overdue post in lifenut history)
A story of faith. Everybody has a story of faith—even if they profess to have none at all. What do you believe? Why?
When I was six months old, I was Christened in the Catholic church where my parents were married three years earlier. My grandmother’s funeral mass took place in the same massive, sublime space. Under a soaring ceiling, soothed by marble, cradled by gorgeous honey-colored woods, lulled by lush flowers, I saw where my faith journey began. In those hard moments I was reminded that I was once cooing in a long white gown, held, blessed. No one cherished me more than God.
But I was not raised Catholic.
My mother grew up attending Protestant churches. She admits she fell away from going to church and pursuing a relationship with God until I was born and we moved into a neighborhood where the moms on the block had a weekly gathering called Bible Study Fellowship. We began going to a Baptist church when I was a small child. I remember the car ride to church featuring a steep winding hill that tickled my tummy every time we crested the top. I remember the church grounds had an underground passage beneath a courtyard. It was scary and mysterious, yet I always liked to ask my mom if we could take that thrilling route. In Sunday School, I was introduced to the felt board, the preferred teaching method of matronly volunteer teachers everywhere. It was in this church, at this Sunday School, where my first conscious impression of church was formed.
Almost exactly two years ago, I shared this story:
Once, when I was about four years old, I was in a classroom and noticed cookies. I ate one. The scolding I received was so severe I still remember it and think unkind thoughts toward the woman who directed it at me. So I began to think of Sunday School as The Place Where You Get Yelled at By Complete Strangers.
Sunday school filled me with dread. It didn’t seem like a safe or gentle place any more, at least in my perception. Was the God they were talking about waiting to yell at me too? We continued attending church there, every Sunday, up and down the hill, wearing tights and pigtails and making sure to only eat cookies with expressed permission from pursed lips.
I had a large children’s Bible, given to me by my parents to commemorate Christmas 1974. I loved looking through the pages at the amazing pictures. The one that struck me the most was a terrifying depiction of Satan tempting Christ in the desert. Satan was ugly, Christ was beautiful and bold, not shrinking from the leers of the enemy. It was this picture I was showing two of my friends, Sarah and Danielle, when my mom overheard this conversation:
Sarah: Well, I am Jewish!
Danielle: I am Catholic!
Me: I’m an American!
I was five years old.
When I was six we moved to the other side of the state. Our new home was Grand Junction, and my late great-grandmother lived there. I had met her a few times but didn’t know her very well. She was quiet and serious. Her house was full of delicate figurines encased behind glass. We weren’t allowed to touch anything. Every Sunday, we drove her to the church she had attended for decades. It was a Disciples of Christ church. Most of the regular attendees were elderly and seemed to delight in having children around. Sunday school classes were small and cozy. I began feeling comfortable and welcomed, cherished and important. It was at this church I graduated from my large and unwieldy (but fabulously illustrated) children’s Bible to a real Bible. I was expected to use it!
I learned the books of the Bible via a catchy song I still hum from time to time. I was finally taught how to look up books, chapters, and verses. How to use concordances and dictionaries. The geography of Bible lands, the timelines, Patriarchs, major stories. I memorized Scripture dutifully, thinking of the story my mom told me about prisoners of war who had no Bibles. But it was okay, because the Word was hidden in their hearts, recalled at a moment’s notice. Scripture was sustaining food for the soul. The years flew by and I grew. Every time I heard the believer’s prayer, I couldn’t help but pray it too. My heart leapt when I witnessed people being baptized. I volunteered to be a candlelighter because I had a great desire to be a part of the services.
My mother spoke in tongues once, when I was literally dying of an asthma attack. I will never forget her arms around me as a language I did not and do not understand to this day came out of her lips furiously and passionately. I realize many people (even some Christians) scoff at this spiritual gifting, but I was there and I know it happened. I was in fourth grade. I never heard her speak in tongues again.
At home, my mother read a book called “Little Visits With God” to us every night. They were devotions and moral stories, and I loved that time. I still have this book today. It is in Aidan’s room and covers everything from racism to obedience to gossip.
In junior high, I joined the youth group known as Chi Rho. We did service projects, studied Passover, took refuge in each other as the teenage years loomed and the pressure was on to conform to the world. When I was fifteen, I was baptized.
In early high school, some very serious issues came to light at the church we had attended for nearly ten years. These weren’t issues my mother felt could be ignored because they flew in the face of Biblical doctrine (for example, a prominent member began claiming she was communicating with the dead). We left the church. It was a sad and hard time because of the relationships and fellowship we had built over the years. My mom found another church for us to attend. It was a non-denominational church with good Biblically-based teaching.
But I didn’t want to go. I resented being taken away from people I had grown to love. In my childish heart, I didn’t see how the experience was critically important. I needed to be moved. The old church was slipping into embracing relativity and things straight out of The Sixth Sense, no longer teaching the Bible but teaching around it to suit their beliefs.
I fought my mom about going every single Sunday morning for nearly two years. My dad didn’t go! Why should I? I know how much it hurt her and realize how she worried. I also know she continued praying for me through those years when I was uber gloomy and had a poster of Robert Smith above my bed. I doubt I cracked open my Bible. But I have fond memories of those years because while I wasn’t fully embracing my faith, I know that God never let go of me. He chased me. I’d have bursts of being on-fire and go right back to turning my back on my faith. I did a lot of teenager-in-the-80s things. I admit, I had a great time. I wasn’t always the picture of angelic behavior, but I was pretty well-behaved and never got into serious trouble. My driving alone proves the existence of angels. It was during those years when I finally began to like where we lived. I began to write. I’d find myself praying again, but only at night when the worries of the day caught up to me. And I continued watching my mother, silently, from the peripheral.
She was a rock. She was unflinching, unfailing, faithful. She was gentle but firm. I never doubted her love, even when I made her so mad her bottom jaw stuck out in that way it does…I watched her read the Bible, daily. I watched her pray, filling up notebook after notebook of prayers answered. She was a prayer warrior. When I worried, I’d ask her to pray for me, with me, holding my hand…we two, gathering in His name.
I went to college at CU-Boulder. I didn’t go to church once. I don’t remember if I took my Bible, which tells me I probably didn’t. I did things there that I should not have done and I didn’t take my newfound freedom seriously. I met a lot of people who weren’t and probably will never be Christians. Shared smokes with them. Studied with them. Road-tripped with them. Liked them. They were nice people. But I never felt like I truly belonged, because I didn’t.
Something was nipping at me. My heart began stirring again—a hunger awakening. Billy Graham calls the Holy Spirit “The hound of Heaven”. Yep.
“Whether you turn to the right or the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying This is the way, walk in it.”
~Isaiah 30:21
I let go of Him, but He never let me go. Circumstances, an unpaid library fine that held up my fall schedule, a sense of being fed up, a strong desire to flee—all these things led up to me dropping out of CU after three years. In one afternoon, I disenrolled, quit my job, moved out of the house I was living in with three or four (who knows!) other people, packed my car, got in it, and drove home.
Just. like. that.
I moved back into my skeptical parents’ house. I got a job right away. When the new semester started, I enrolled at our local state college. I met the man who would become my husband and graduated. I went to church with my mom, occasionally. I had to work on Sunday mornings a lot, but when I was free I’d go along. I was tentative and casual, almost shy with God.
About a month after our wedding my husband and I found out a baby was on the way. We were stunned, but excited. It was this blessing that led me back to church. I knew I wanted my baby daughter and all our children to have a strong spiritual beginning. We began going to church regularly. We dusted off our Bibles. We opened them.
And I am glad.
This is my testimony. I have been sustained, comforted, blessed. I have been saved by the blood of Jesus. It’s a free gift for anyone who believes. I will never forget where I came from. I imagine who I’d be without the Grace of God, and I shudder. The more I learn, the more I want to learn. I have a heart for those who grew up in the church, but fell away. That was me. If you are a person fitting this description, you may feel like it is too late, that you’ve done too many bad things—but that isn’t true! God will take you just as you are. He will forgive you, restore you, lift you up. But He will not allow you to stay the same—you must change and follow Him moment-by-moment. It isn’t easy and it isn’t always pretty. You can’t stay where you are and go with God.
One of my favorite songs is “Beautiful Sound” by The Newsboys. The lyrics are a good representation of my walk thus far. A snippet:
To have found You, and still be looking for You,
It’s “the soul’s paradox of love.”
You fill my cup, I lift it up for more.
I won’t stop now that I’m free.
I’ll be chasing You
Like You chase me.
I am a Christian. If you don’t want to read my blog anymore, I wish you well. Really. I’ll be here, writing about tutus and pie and the dog. There will be pretty pictures to see. My heart might be broken, again. It will be restored, again. I may be wildly blessed. This is the record of my walk as a prodigal daughter, inheritance restored. With hope and an eye on eternity, I will write as long as God allows.
