Filling in the Blank

If you’ve been young before, you know that a huge part of getting older is learning all kinds of lessons about how the world, your body, and your relationships work. You’re figuring out why things are the way they are and what you have to do with any of it.

And, if I’m being honest, learning a lesson isn’t just something young people do. It just so happens to feel like that’s all that I’m doing right now. In the past year, I’ve learned (the hard way) that: parsley and cilantro look similar but taste different, stretching prevents muscle injury, Sour Patch Kids has wheat in it, four cups of rice is too much rice for one person to make, and just because someone is in your life doesn’t mean they’re looking out for you.

Oh, and it’s not illegal to be a jerk (crazy!).

But in spite of all the things I’m learning, and how it feels like drinking from a firehose, there’s one thing that really stands out. As I moved out of my parents house and started establishing my own life, I had to figure out what God and the church means, outside of my family structure. I have always believed in God and grew up going to church, but once I started trying to get my own two feet under me as an adult, it was up to me to start working on my own relationship with God and the church without my family dynamics.

So, in a widely common but still unhelpful move, I stopped going to church.

It didn’t happen all at once. But I’d moved, and trying to find a new church on top of figuring out college was harder than I thought it would be, and it was a whole lot easier to let each Sunday pass me by, making excuses about homework. This went on for a while (and to be clear, my parents were encouraging me to keep trying, but I didn’t want to hear it) and I had periods where I’d go try a new church for a while, and then just stop going. I didn’t want to try to make new friends. I didn’t want to volunteer, or “get plugged in.” I had an excellent time being vaguely judgemental and then skipping another Sunday.

Until I wasn’t having such a great time anymore. I felt weirdly disconnected from God, I had few Christian friends, and I was finding myself getting more lonely and more tired. I thought to myself, “maybe there was a reason Mom and Dad took me to church when I was a kid.”

(Spoiler alert: there was).

Now, I want to take a moment to say that I don’t have significant church hurt or church wounds. When I talk to my friends who do have those wounds, I’m reminded of how that’s not my background and that’s not my story. However, I do know what it is to be hurt deeply, and to hold grudges that are justifiably held, and to close myself off to wide areas of life because it hurts too much. Church hurt is real. Those wounds should never have been made. And in the middle of the pain, a different choice can be made, and a different path can be chosen. Though leaving the church is a widely common move, it’s an unhelpful one. I chose a different path in my loneliness, and even though it wasn’t church hurt that pushed me from the church, it was Jesus who called me back.

To be clear, I was having a hard time staying on the faithful path and following Jesus because I was totally shut off from church.

I didn’t have a church community, and I didn’t try to form relationships with people who could model what it was like to be on the faithful path. Down in San Diego, where I did my undergraduate degree, I got all the way to my junior year before I realized that maybe there’s a lot more to church than just going because my parents said so. I wasn’t all the way convinced yet, but it was a lesson I had to learn for myself. Fortunately, I had a professor who took me along to her church and kept insisting I come back when I wanted to drift away.

For me, the next step on the faithful path was joining a church and joining a small group,

because I needed to be in relationship with people who love Jesus. And my professor was able to take that step with me when I wasn’t able to do it myself. If I had tried to just “buckle down,” in a widely common but still unhelpful move, I doubt I would have gotten anywhere. But my professor gave me encouragement and insistence that knocked down my resistance, so we could take that next step together.

The point is this: the faithful path is still hard, but it’s worth it in ways I wouldn’t know how to predict.

Despite the fact that making new friends is hard, I’ve still loved pouring into my church community in San Diego and receiving the love they pour back into me. It’s taken about two years of showing up, listening, speaking, and participating, but I know that my friends and small group have my back, and just last week they showed up in a big way.

Remember how I said one of my young-person lessons is that it’s not illegal to be a jerk? Well, my old apartment complex said I’d be able to renew my lease, and then they didn’t, so I had three weeks to move out (another lesson: get things in writing!). I had a lot of furniture to move, a pulled knee, and very little notice. But on move-in day I had thirteen friends show up with trucks and cars to help me move stuff, and most of them were from church. It was the kind of gift that was hard to receive, but before the day was over I had all of my stuff in my new apartment and after everyone left, I cried. Junior year Emma wouldn’t believe her eyes at the community Grad school Emma has found herself in.

No, not found herself. That’s too passive. More accurately, I’ve met people along the faithful path who have loved me and walked with me.

Who have take the steps with me and others, and with whom I’ve learned how to walk. Whether it’s moving, job loss, new babies, marriage, weddings, addiction, or mental health crisis, on this faithful path we don’t have to do it alone. And I wouldn’t have been able to dream up all the goodness I’ve found with the hard stuff along the way.

The example I've given is a story in which coming back to church and plugging in worked out well. It doesn’t always go that way. But either way, Jesus calls us onto the faithful path, where we become more like Him, more fully ourselves, and closer to the people God wants us to be.

Join us this Sunday for our Common Table Gathering as we work on filling in this gap together. We know that it isn’t always easy to walk the faithful path, but it’s worth it. Not only because of the love and support, but also because we aren’t meant to walk this walk alone.

Corresponding Videos & Photos

When we experience both challenging individual problems (relational, health concerns, financial instability, etc) and community challenges (crime, polarization, healthcare concerns, lack of housing, food insecurity, people out in the cold, and on and on...) what do we do with these challenges? This coming Sunday we'll learn about how Jesus shows his love for us in the midst of difficult challenges. "He won’t call attention to what he does with loud speeches or gaudy parades. He won’t brush aside the bruised and the hurt and he won’t disregard the small and insignificant, but he’ll steadily and firmly set things right. He won’t tire out and quit. He won’t be stopped until he’s finished his work—to set things right on earth. Far-flung ocean islands wait expectantly for his teaching.” Isaiah 42 2-4