2 - Lauren: Her Search for a Place to Belong

(This is the second part in a series of blog posts based on interviews I did with 7 adults ages 26-32 about their experience growing up in an American evangelical Christian church setting. All names have been changed to protect their identities.)

Lauren was 32 years old when I interviewed her. She grew up attending a single church until middle school.

The pastor there “knew my name. I always felt loved by him, by everybody there.”

Her description of this church was “the happy, typical church experience,” but what she described was something almost too-good-to-be-true.

When her parents left that church to search for another, she struggled with feelings of insecurity and isolation. Her entire world revolved around her relationships at church and when they were taken from her, she felt totally alone, unloved, and unknown.

Her family bounced around from church to church. “There wasn’t any one person I could look back at that time and say that person truly cared about me really…. At that point I was a preteen and teenager and I felt like a ghost. I didn’t really belong anywhere.”

This loss of place, loss of identity stuck with her in the following years.

Sarcastically, she described her parents looking for “the perfect church in the county”, she felt like she was placed in very uncomfortable situations week after grueling week.

“So we went to all these different churches and you can imagine, middle school girls aren’t easy for anybody and now I’ve been ripped away from my friends and sort of that comfort and security, and thrown into these awkward, awkward situations of churches making you stand up and introduce yourselves and having you go to Sunday School class after Sunday School class with all these people that you don’t know and looking at you… and being on the outside. I was not an outgoing person at all and really shy, and it was just horrific. When I think back on my life, that was like the most… darkest, and uncomfortable, and just lost feeling ever… and I’m so angry at my parents for pulling me out of church.”

A detailed story that she shared illustrates how this time of transition between churches impacted her and actually helped her to discover strength that she didn’t know she had.

“I went to the overnight sleepover at this church, not really making any friends, nobody was talking to me. I was by myself the whole time. Then, they played a game of hide and go seek.

We hid and I had a really good spot, a great spot, and the game was over and nobody had found me, and I just sort of waited to see what would happen, and they just started the next activity. They didn’t realize I wasn’t there. It was purposeful. It wasn’t like I was stupid sitting in the dark not knowing what was going on. I knew that they wouldn’t notice, and they didn’t.”

This had an interesting effect on her. Instead of feeling unloved and unwanted, she had this feeling of being in control. She had put them to the test and they had failed to care about her. “I remember actually having a better time after that point because I realized that they didn’t care about me, and I was able to have that self-worth.”

When she realized that no one there cared about her, she took control and enjoyed herself without having to test them anymore. She could just take what they had to offer, the program, the event and have fun. She didn’t make an effort to try to build relationships. She knew that wasn’t part of the deal.

She later described these churches in this way. “They were running programs, it wasn’t there because the people that were involved truly cared about what I was going through.”

It was not until years later that she felt accepted, like she belonged anywhere.

Worse yet, Lauren never felt accepted by her parents. She felt like she could never make them happy, no matter how hard she tried.

“I wish I had grown up with the acceptance of people who had flaws, as opposed to this rejection of people who had any sort of flaws.”

A Church Family

Her family finally settled into a church, but she hated it. So, in ninth grade, she decided to start attending church with a friend.

She CHOSE to go somewhere other than where her parents went.

As an adult, she thinks it is strange that her parents would let her do that, but at the same time, she believed that having that choice and that independence helped to shape her identity.

Lauren described her time at her new church as reminiscent of her time at her first church. It was here that she finally felt like she belonged again.

She regained her sense of safety and security. It was here that she felt loved and accepted.

“I always will look fondly at [that church] because I had an Aunt [Rachel] and an Uncle [Bill] and I had Mrs. [Johnson], I had Mr. [Johnson], I had Uncle [Bob]. It was all these people that I didn’t know, they weren’t my family and yet they immediately became my family. You and Rachel, okay now I’m not going to cry, you never made me feel, I never felt insignificant. I always felt important.”

As she detailed many people from this church who became an extended family to her, the emotion rose in her voice. Then, she remembered a humorous story to illustrate how far this love and acceptance went.

As a teen, the youth group was preparing to leave for a retreat when the driver noticed that the headlight wasn’t working.

“He told me to hit it, and I decided to kick it. I don’t know why. I wasn’t like that. And I broke it, and it wasn’t something like, it wasn’t even the light that broke, I broke the…, the whole thing kicked in. The light stayed intact. I was horrified.

In my house, I would have been done. And here they were totally—I will never forget, it was the most, one of the most embarrassing times in my life—I remember they were both, they were cracking up that I had done it, and they were so loving and caring and it shocked me.”

She perceived the church family as being even more accepting and understanding than her own parents. This allowed her to grow in her identity and self-worth. She went on to say, “I think the churches that stick out in my mind are the churches where somebody noticed me; somebody cared; somebody paid attention; somebody KNEW MY NAME; somebody asked me a question; somebody cared about me.”

With this confidence in herself and guided by her understanding of what God wanted for her, she was able to move out on her own after high school, go to college, get a few jobs that she really felt good about. She became successful.

Perfection vs. Imperfection

As an adult in her twenties, she was actively involved as a volunteer at church and unknowingly had adopted this attitude of rejecting people who showed signs of imperfection. At one of the volunteer Christmas parties, Bill gave her the book, Ragamuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, which is all about God’s gracious love for broken people like the author, who was an alcoholic.

She recalled, “I read that book and this is literally what I said at the end, ‘This book is a joke. This isn’t true. You shouldn’t be allowed to mess up like this and then be able to write about it and make other people think it’s okay.’ That was my impression of that book and I couldn’t understand what [Bill] or anybody saw in it. I thought it was absolutely wrong and that nobody—you shouldn’t promote things like that.”

Her inability to accept others stemmed from the feeling that her parents could never accept her. She never felt good enough for them. So, she made sure that no one else was good enough either.

During what turned out to be a pivotal time in Lauren’s adult life, she felt frustrated with where her life was headed and decided to take control. She decided to stop trusting her future to God and doing what was expected of her by people at church. She was going to do what she wanted to do so that she could be happy.

Soon after this, she stopped working with the church youth group because she wanted to focus on herself and on getting married.

“You figure at that point I was 25 and every girl feels they are going to be alone forever at that point (which is totally irrational but now looking back that’s what I thought). I decided to focus on myself and so I met this guy who had two kids and was not a [Christian] and I was ready to throw everything away. I was going to date this man and just ‘Ha, ha!’ to everything else.”

Everything changed one day while she was brushing her teeth. She remembered

shouting out to God.

“I remember at that point God told me, ‘You’re doing something dumb. This is not the plan for your life. This is not what you’re supposed to be doing.’ And I remember shouting out to God and saying, ‘Oh yeah, what have You done for me?’ Because, by 25, I didn’t have a good relationship with my family. I had been moved a thousand times. I didn’t have a typical story. I didn’t have boyfriends. I didn’t have proms. I didn’t have these things that other people have.”

Lauren’s entire life was playing out before her. She could feel all of the injustice. She had sacrificed so much to be a Christian. All the normal things, the fun things that kids get to do, she had given up to serve him. She had done so much for Him and was so angry and challenged God, “What have You done for me?”

She was “just so angry and that’s what I said to God. And, you know those moments where God just talks to you? God said, ‘I sent my son to die for you on the cross’ and it was the most—I don’t want to even say like the most humbling—It was the most loving point, like I totally—It wasn’t a moment of like that God punished me and made me feel guilty and made me feel—cause that’s a horrible thing to say, you know that’s awful to say to God but it was like this moment of absolute purity and love and simplicity and I was like, ‘You’re right.’”

She struggled to find just the right words to express the inexpressible presence of God. The presence of God overwhelmed her with love and she no longer felt that he had abandoned her.

Her sacrifice seemed reasonable when pictured alongside Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. God loved her and had not forgotten her desire to get married and be loved.

Soon after she broke off the relationship with this man, she started dating the man who would become her husband.

God’s grace did not culminate in Lauren finding a husband. God wanted her to know that he loved and accepted her for who she was and not just because she had sacrificed so much for him.

Lauren found herself in a very difficult and confusing situation when she “got pregnant before I was married, all of a sudden I [understood] that Ragamuffin Gospel. And now I get it because it’s not about—it’s not about perfect people and what he said in that book, the Gospel is not for perfect people.”

The culmination for Lauren was realizing that there was a lie that she had believed and accepted from her family. “I had adopted exactly what my parents did to me, which was “Reject everybody.” … If somebody has an issue, you reject that person, and just that perfection and that lack of love.”

This started her on a yearlong journey of trying to understand what love is. Her perspective on everything had begun to change, for Lauren, “it was an absolute break in the way that I have viewed the world for, up to that point, 30 years. It was a massive change of a worldview and absolutely I had adopted that [lie], probably unknowingly, because what’s the worst mask, [thinking that] you’re doing what’s right. So why would I ever doubt what I was doing was wrong because I was doing what was right.”

She recognized the lies of perfectionism and judgmentalism that had become her perspective. By God’s grace, she was able to begin the process of learning to love unconditionally.

She is still following that path, attending church and feeling very connected with her church family.

Belonging:

Lauren felt like everything was perfect in her world as a young child when she belonged, when she was surrounded by people that loved her and knew her.

When she lost that sense of belonging, she felt like she lost her identity.

Finding a new church, people that loved her and accepted her brought her a new sense of identity. And, typical of adolescence, that new identity formed apart from her parents.

She didn’t realize until years later that she had adopted some of the same judgmentalism and perfectionism that isolated her from her parents. As they had pushed her away, she had pushed so many others away.

When she had a moral crisis, she was forced to face her own imperfection and her own need for God’s grace.

In this place of humility and a desperate need for grace, she found her true identity in Christ. Finally, she truly belonged. She belonged in her own skin. She could accept her own imperfections and therefore accept the imperfections in others. Her understanding of what it means to belong was transformed and became a strong foundation upon which to build her life.

4 Chances to Win the Struggle with Sin

Proverbs 7 (This is the New Living Translation adapted by Dave Zirilli to make it read more like a story.)

⁷ I saw some naive young men,
    and one in particular who lacked common sense.
⁸ He was crossing the street near the house of a sinful woman,
    strolling down the path by her house.
⁹ It was at twilight, in the evening,
    as deep darkness fell.
¹⁰ The sinful woman approached him,
    seductively dressed, she had evil plans in her heart.
¹¹ (She was the brash, rebellious type,
    never content to stay at home and do what is right.
¹² She is there often, in the streets and markets,
    selling evil at every corner.)
¹³ She came up to the man, threw her arms around him and kissed him,
    and with a brazen look she said,
¹⁴ “I’ve just gone to church, given my offerings
    and fulfilled my vows to God.
¹⁵ You’re the one I was looking for!
    I came out to find you, and here you are!
¹⁶ Come see my bed! It is spread with beautiful blankets,
    with colored sheets of Egyptian linen.
¹⁷ I’ve perfumed my bed
    with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon.
¹⁸ Come, let’s drink our fill of love until morning.
    Let’s enjoy each other’s caresses,
¹⁹ for my husband is not home.
    He’s away on a loooooooong trip.
²⁰ He has taken a wallet full of money with him
    and won’t return until later this month.”

²¹ So she seduced him with her pretty speech
    and tricked him with her flattery.
²² He followed her at once,
    like an ox going to the slaughter.
He was like an animal caught in a trap,
²³     awaiting the hunter that would come to kill him.
He was like unaware of the danger, like a bird flying into a snare,
    little knowing it would cost him his life.

²⁴ So listen to me, my sons,
    and pay attention to my words.
²⁵ Don’t let your hearts stray away toward her.
    Don’t wander down her wayward path.
²⁶ For she has been the ruin of many;
    many men have been her victims.
²⁷ Her house is the road to the grave.
    Her bedroom is the den of death.

Think about the progression.

1 -  First, this naive young man with no common sense is wandering around at night.

Remember HALT! Halt means STOP! It is also an acronym for Hungry, Angry, Lonely, and Tired. I will add Bored. When we feel these ways, we are most vulnerable to giving in to temptation.

Our FIRST chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: When we feel HALT, we should HALT! STOP! Go home and get refreshed. If we are hungry, eat; angry, process our anger; lonely, call or meet with someone who is an encouraging friend, family member or mentor; tired, rest; or bored, find something constructive and positive to do like helping someone in need.

2 - Then, he sees her and the way she is dressed and he lusts. Lust means to want something that you don’t have, and usually something that is bad for you. You don’t lust after a meal, you hunger for it. You may lust after dessert or after a person that you are not married to or after a fancy car or new video game. You can lust after someone’s power or fame. Usually, lust is selfish. It is wanting what I want and not caring about other people.

We do that, don’t we. We think about what we want, what we wish we had. We play it over and over in our minds and hearts. And our desire grows and grows. Then, we begin to think we need it, deserve it, can’t live without it.

Our SECOND chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: What happens in our minds and hearts is so important. That is why reading the Bible and praying is so helpful. When we read the Bible and talk to God in prayer, our desires get reoriented. God says that He will give us the desires of our hearts.

Proverbs 37:4 - Take delight in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart.

Not only will God give us what we desire when you delight in the Lord, but He will also give us new desires, desires that are in line with what the Lord wants for us.

3 - Then, she speaks and invites him to take hold of what he was lusting after. This is key. The temptation comes from the outside, we can’t always control what temptations we face.

(Though many times we can! Avoid Las Vegas, avoid the internet, avoid commercials, avoid bars or nightclubs, avoid certain “friends”, etc. When we know where temptation will be, we can often avoid it.)

But, when we do have to face a temptation that is totally out of context from our thoughts, it is easier to stand strong in the face of that temptation. It stands out as an obvious temptation. It looks and feels like temptation.

If you never worry about money or think about getting rich, seeing someone's wallet on the ground or being given a chance to rob a bank are not really all that tempting. Stealing is wrong and we know it is wrong. So, we can more easily resist.

But, if we have been thinking about it, longing for it, wishing for it, then it presents itself…. "WOW! It really is possible." "I didn’t think I would ever get this chance. What luck!"

We might even think, “God must want me to have this! He gave me this opportunity!"

I have heard this from several Christian married people who were having affairs. They seem so convinced in their mind that God has brought this other person into their lives to rescue them from an unhappy marriage. From the outside it seems obvious that they are deceived or deceiving themselves, but to them nothing could change their minds. They cannot fathom turning away from God, so they bring God into their sin.

Notice in the Proverb, verse 14, the temptress even includes God in her seduction. She has presented her offerings at the temple and fulfilled her vows to God. 

We may think, "So she is right with God. She believes in God, too. She is faithful like me. God must have brought her into my life to help me."

Our THIRD chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: Reject this lie that we all have to face in one way or another: Sin will NOT satisfy our desires or bring us fulfillment.

God will never ask us to sin in order to follow Him.

4 – Then, he sins. We all sin. It happens. We feel guilty. We feel ashamed. We feel sneaky. We hope we can get away with it. And, maybe we begin to feel like we are defined by our sin. Like we are our sin. That we will always be sinful. We can’t control it. It controls us.

That is the battle.

That is the battle that Paul describes in Romans 7:13-25.

It is sin living in me, my sinful nature.

battling against my will, my desire to obey the Spirit of God.

We are fundamentally flawed. Foundationally, we are sinful. We cannot escape our sinfulness. Everything we touch is tainted with it.

It is like when we are soaking wet. Everything we touch gets wet; wherever we sit, we leave a mark; everyone we hug, gets wet.

Our FOURTH chance to Win the Struggle with Sin: Don't get stuck in the cycle of sin. (Sin - Guilt - Shame - Identify with Sin - REPEAT) Break the cycle with confession, repentance, and discipline.

We are not defined by our sins. We are defined by our relationship to Christ. The Holy Spirit is the sign given to remind us that we are God's children. He is the promise that one day we will be fully His.

We also have the Holy Spirit in us. Everything we touch, as Christians, is also touched by the Holy Spirit in us. Just like sin, the Holy Spirit infiltrates every conversation, every relationship, every thought and feeling. We cannot escape the influence of the Holy Spirit in and through our lives. We can try to ignore it. We can pretend it doesn't exist. But, there He is. Always with us. (Psalm 139:7-12)

The Battle of the Christian is Different:

The battle we face is much different than the battle of someone who doesn’t know Christ.

Romans 5:10 describes us as being enemies of God before we received salvation. The struggle we were in then, pitted our own will against God Himself. God desired what was best for us and yet we resisted Him at every turn.

But, as Christians, with the Holy Spirit living in us, the struggle has not stopped. We still struggle. Everyday, we make choices and form habits which guide and shape our lives. But, now our will is to do the will of God. Our deepest desire is to please God, to serve and obey Him.

But, there is a new enemy. Our enemy is sin. Sin through the law tries to bind us, to kill us, and to make us powerless.

That is the message of Romans 5-7.

We are dead to sin, so why would live in it any longer. Don't sin. Don't give any victory to sin. We have already been declared victorious over sin. Death is sin's greatest weapon and death has lost its sting. Christ has victory over death. So in Christ, we have victory over death and sin.

The tools that Proverbs offers to us in our battle with sin are the Bible (Proverbs 7:1-3), discipline (Proverbs 5:23) and wisdom (Proverbs 8).

We have the promise of ultimate victory in death. And, we have the tools to have daily victory through faithfully reading the Bible, developing healthy habits, and seeking after wisdom.

Use these 4 Chances to Win the Struggle with Sin.

1 - Know yourself and when you are vulnerable. HALT! before you are even tempted.

2 - Read the Bible and pray in order to allow God to change the desires of your heart.

3 - When faced with a temptation, reject the lie that sin will satisfy our desires and bring us fulfillment.

4 - After we sin, don't get caught in the cycle of sin. Repent and receive forgiveness.

1 - Christina: A Search for Identity, Love and Acceptance

(This is the first part in a series of blog posts based on interviews I did with 7 adults ages 26-32 about their experience growing up in an American evangelical Christian church setting. All names have been changed to protect their identities.)

Christina was 30 years old. She walked into my office full of smiles. This young woman is one that I had known for over two decades. I first met her when she was a little girl and I was in high school. But, since we hadn't really talked since she was in high school, I wasn’t sure what twists or turns the interview might take.

She seemed happy and confident, more confident, more comfortable than I remembered her ever being.

Christina wanted to know about the interview process, my paper, and the research that I had done already.

She seemed so happy. It took me back a bit.

I knew enough of her story to know that she had had a rough time of it in the years since I had had her in youth group.

Why was she so happy?

I explained to her that honesty was of utmost importance, much more than telling me what she thought I wanted to hear. And then I asked her to just tell me her faith story. Whatever she wanted to tell.

She began the interview by saying, “I was born into this, a world, a Christian setting, a Christian family, a religious background.” It was not something she had chosen for herself. She was raised in a family who always attended church. She also attended a Christian school in her younger years.

When she went to her parents for help, “it was always, 'Oh, did you pray about it?' But, it didn’t really work for me, I guess. When I grew up and got older … I was still going through routines trying to make people happy, just doing the things that I felt like I was supposed to do to try to make everybody feel like I was a good person, just doing things so that people didn’t have anything bad to say about me.”

She was confident that people said bad things about her at church anyway. So, she learned to fake faith, fake the routines, do church, and follow the rules when she was there.

During her high school years, she became less and less comfortable being honest about who she really was. She describes this time as living these “two worlds”.

On one hand, she would act like the “good Christian” people wanted her to be. And on the other hand, she found herself doing things that would have made her parents very unhappy. “When I was twelve years old, I got drunk.”

So, she chose to hide that part of her life from her parents and everyone at church. But, she didn’t feel like this rebellious child was her true self either. She was going between these “two worlds” without being honest with anyone. Hiding one part of her from her parents and another part from her friends.

She never could just be herself.

After graduating from a Christian college, she only attended church occasionally. Sometimes she would come to church just to see a smile on her parents’ faces.

After something bad would happen in her life, “my mom was like, ‘You should come to church’ and ‘You should hang out with these people’ and ‘You should do this’ and [her voice trailed off]. It was right away! Any time something bad happened in my life, it almost seemed like everybody was like, ‘Well, now is the time for you to go to church’ and ‘Now is the time for you to (do this and do this).’ It always had to do with religion and so, me being more a rebellious type of person, my whole life, was like, ‘You’re out of your mind.’ I’ve done that; I’ve tried that. I think the more it was—not forced—somewhat forced, but more of a persuasion, the more I wanted to say, ‘No.’”

The religious people in Christina's life, including her parents, kept thinking that if she just gave Christianity and church another chance, it would provide her the stability and security that it provided for them.

At the end of an unhealthy relationship, she came to realize, “I will never again care what people think or say about me. Because that’s all it ever was. I had to [please him]. I always felt like I had to impress everybody in his life for everybody in his life to like me.”

This was a pivotal time in her search for her identity, her search for herself. She decided not to change herself, contort herself to try to please a man or to please those in the church anymore. She would figure out who she was and just be herself.

The confident young woman I saw walk into my office that morning was the result of that journey.

Christina's mom told her not to waste time crying over losing a man who didn't love and accept her for who she was.

She said, "[Mom told] me that I was better than all of that. It helped our relationship because she learned that trying to force God on me wasn’t going to work. But her having a relationship with me was going to work. That made me learn some lessons in life that I hadn’t already learned. It made me realize who I was and what I wanted.”

Christina had begun to enjoy her relationship with her mom, and her mom really seemed to be trying to understand her and listen to her. Her mom had stopped trying to manipulate her and persuade her to be religious. This shift made all the difference.

Life was no longer about what everyone else expected her to do and to be. Her life had become about who she wanted to be.

This gave Christina the room she needed to be herself and she began attending church when she wanted to and not just to make her parents happy. This changed the way she thought about herself.

“That’s when it started to be me doing things because I wanted to do them not because I felt like I had to do them. It’s a difference, you know. Sad thing about it is it took a lot of pain to get to that point, but when you get to that point, you feel like you are a whole different person.”

She felt like she was finally able to have a relationship with God that fit into her worldview and allowed her to be herself and not try to conform to the image that others wanted her to fit.

Her relationship with her Mom started to flourish.

“It was me being able to talk to her about [Christianity] and for her to better understand who I was. And know where I was, and where my head was, where my heart was. It got to be where I would go to church on my own. Where I would do something because I wanted to do it. I would go to a small group thing. I was doing those things because I wanted to. Because I was able to have those conversations with her. Because I was able to talk to her about stuff.”

Her mother's acceptance of her as she was, for who she was, made all the difference to her. She was finally able to explore her parents' faith, Christianity, from a place of love and acceptance. She felt free to be herself, with all of her doubts and fears and questions and all of her faith and beliefs and hopes.

Tragically, her mother died unexpectedly and everything changed again.

Christina felt so much pain.

She had developed a close friendship with her mother after years of strained relationships, "and then to have that taken away after where I was and where I was headed and the direction I was going. And then, for the simple fact that everybody in the Christian bubble says God does everything for a reason. For Him to do that! Do I blame Him? No, because I can’t. I can’t sit there and say 'Hey, God, guess what? This is all your fault.' When I don’t necess— [interrupting herself]. I’m not saying I don’t believe in God. I do. But, I am not to a point where I can say, 'Oh this is all God’s fault.' I did say that. If he really wanted me to believe in him. Well, then, what is wrong with him because he just kind of really destroyed all of that."

She struggled to describe what she was feeling toward God. She didn't know if she could feel anything toward God.

She thought that she either had to believe that God was close and personally involved in her life and was cruel or that he is distant and uninvolved. She chose the latter.

“Do I believe in God? Yes. Do I believe that God created the world? Yes.” 

But, her belief about what happens after death has changed. “I believe that when you die you die, I guess that’s supposed to mean I am not a Christian, you know. Some people will say that.” 

Previously she said that part of her wanted to believe in heaven and hell that her childhood life is still in her. She asked herself this question, “Do I have the belief that I had growing up? Yes.” 

This may be a case where she has some deep confusion about what she believes. The nostalgic feelings from her childhood, connected to the memory of her mother, may compel her to try to reclaim some part of her childhood faith.

The pain of her mother’s death and the accompanying confusion probably reminded her of all of the reasons she struggled to have faith in the past. There is something real and true there, but people keep spouting these ridiculous cliche's that are devoid of compassion and seem hollow.

So, she went to bars to drink and numb the pain.

In one bar, she built friendships. She reconnected with some people from her past and her current boyfriend. They accepted her, even with her pain. They let her talk about her mom, talk about something inconsequential or not talk at all. They walked through a very painful time with her.

They showed her love and acceptance. The same thing her mother had been able to give her.

She avoided church because she kept hearing things like, “She’s in a better place.” “She’s where she wanted to be.”

But Christina knew differently, “No, she wanted to be here with her family, watching her grandchildren grow up. Sorry! Don’t agree with you! I am glad that you guys have this peace of mind. … It brought a lot of anger back in me.”

The anger and pain have subsided over time, but it was still easy to sense it in her voice as she spoke.

Through all of this pain, Christina believes that she is happier, more confident, and more self-aware than ever. She was reluctant to say it because she didn’t want to hurt my feelings when she said, “I guess it’s hard for me to say, especially to you, cause I grew up knowing you. It is a bad thing to say because it’s not the right thing to say in a Christian world, but I’ve never been happier in my life than I am now. Is that because I stopped going to church? I don’t know.”

For Christina, church was a dangerous place to be herself. She couldn’t be honest about her feelings, her heart, her beliefs, or anything real with those in church. She felt judged whenever she opened her mouth, and often, before she even opened her mouth.

“I know that now that I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel like I have to go to church just to make people happy. Where I don’t care if somebody says [to her parents], ‘Wow your daughter is not a very good person because she doesn’t go to church anymore.’ I don’t care. I am who I am.”

Christina was on a search for acceptance and love, a search for her identity and did not find support in church.

So, I asked her, “What can we do different in church? What could the church do to help the next generation better than we helped you?”

Her response cuts to the core of our responsibility as a church, as the Church:

“I think it is important for kid’s not to feel like by making a mistake, the world is gonna end. I think it’s really important, really, really important to have open communication where, I can sit here and tell you, ‘Dave, listen, when I was twelve years old, I got drunk.’ I would want kids who grow up in a Christian bubble but who are also surrounded by the rest of the world to feel like it’s ok for them to be friends with these people and when they’re faced with these situations and they are like, ‘Wow, that looks like a lot of fun, but I don’t know.’ They need to have somebody that they can actually talk to that is going to [care more about the kid than about what the church expects from them]. That isn’t going to respond with [cliche's like], ‘Well pray about it’, ‘Well, ask God what you think you should do.’ I think a lot of choices in my life could have been made if I just sat down and rationalized it out. But, I didn’t have the thought power to rationalize them out at the time.”

She said that she realizes now that she probably could have talked to her parents, but she wanted someone else, another adult who would listen and love and accept her and give her good advice, someone to help her think through her choices and reason it all out.

That’s the mission of the church, isn’t it: to make disciples. To walk along side our children in deep and mutually loving relationships and guide them to become disciples of Christ.

Christina had to go to a bar to feel loved and accepted after her mom died.

Christian cliché’s, Christian "answers", Christian superficiality was killing her from the inside out. She needed real people to really love her.

Church: a place where real people can experience real love and acceptance from other real people because of Christ’s work in their lives.

Real people: people who have experienced grief and comfort, sinfulness and grace, humility and acceptance, love and hope.

This blog post is the first of seven blog posts based on interviews I did for my dissertation. I hope that Christina's story encourages you in some way to draw near to God and receive the love and acceptance and grace that He has to offer. And, then to extend that to those around you.

Everyone wants to be loved and accepted for who they are.