My Journey: Part 7, The End of the Beginning

Part of why I never finished the posts about my spiritual journey was that there was never a final conclusion that I could tie a pretty bow on. I am still a work in progress. I am still on the journey. I've had moments where I feel as if I'm walking backwards and others when I see forward motion.

I've been at a new church for over a year now. And most of the time I have a friend going with me. When she can't, I still want to go even if that means sitting by myself. Huge improvement. If I were honest though, I have struggled with some of the same things at this church as I did with the last church. I think that it makes sense when you take into account that I'm not perfect and neither is any church. But this church has been a blessing, and I know and have relationships with many more people than I did at the other church...and in less time.

But as I look back I can see some of the bigger picture and how God in His omniscience orchestrated my being at both of those churches for the length of time that He did. I learned some very specific and powerful things about God and the Holy Spirit from both churches. He is painting a picture with my life. Although it looks like a mess now, it will soon be a masterpiece.

I wrote in August about learning about grace, and I still am. Add to that learning about God's goodness and learning to hear God's voice and you have enough for me to work on for the rest of my life.

You already know I just graduated and am moving, but as I look to an unknown future, I can tell you that I have peace in the midst of uncertainty. The Lord goes ahead of me. He walks beside me and behind me. He is in me and works through me. This sounds super spiritual and Christiany, but the past three years have proven that in my life. I'm growing to trust God in ways that I have previously been unable to do. Our relationship is deepening and deepening.

Psalm 42:7
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.

My Journey: Part 6

I have been on vacation for a week now, so thanks for waiting patiently on the next part. Your comments have been so sweet and encouraging. I'm thinking I'll only write one more part to this series after this. But my journey is not ending, only beginning.

I told you about the 31 Days of Grace blog I have been reading. Well, I’m halfway through and boy is it hitting me in all the wrong places…or the right ones, I suppose. The next part of my story is when I began to start seeing glimpses of grace everywhere. And yet apparently I am still on the journey of grace. I felt Emily explained it perfectly on her 13th day of grace. She said she felt like all she had to share was a pocket full of vanilla jelly beans instead of a single colorful everlasting gobstopper. So my story is just that. A single vanilla jellybean. There are plenty more moments when I have been overtaken by grace, but I can’t give you one beautiful story to blow you away and make you comprehend God’s grace.

And I think that’s just how God works. We can’t have it all at once. Or even handle it all at once. It isn’t something to be achieved. We can’t control it or earn it. He gives it. Moment by moment. One single jelly bean at a time.

It was April when I actually went to my favorite Christian bookstore. The same chain store I had memorized as a teenager I hadn’t stepped foot in for months. It was my love of savings and all things frugal that brought me there. I had a coupon, a really good special birthday coupon. J

I went thinking I would pick up some new music or one of the books I had been eyeing the fall before. Even if I wasn’t ready to read it yet, I could have at least gotten it for when things were back to normal again. (That hasn’t happened yet.) So I looked. I wasn’t really looking for anything new. There is absolutely no rhyme or reason for me picking up that book that day. It can only be the working of the Holy Spirit. I say that with certainty.

The name of the book was Craving Grace by Lisa Velthouse. The last thing I want to do is start a theological debate, and I don’t consider myself a Calvinist; but there was something irresistible about that book. I bought it. And although I didn’t really have time for it, being around final exam time, I couldn’t seem to put the book down. I haven’t been able to say that about a book in a long time.

I don’t think I can explain it to you, except that it was like the book was written about me, to me. It was a memoir and the girl was learning lessons I was either beginning to learn or was yet to learn. I was completely captured by this thing called grace.

Reading this book marked the beginning of my being able to see light at the end of the tunnel…

My Journey: Part 5

Some time on a Sunday in January I had a phone conversation with my mom that went something like this...

Mom: So where did you go to church today?
Me: I decided just to stay home and get some rest today.
Mom: You couldn't find a friend to go to church with this morning? Jamie? Andrea? Kelly?
Me. I just decided to stay home and get some rest today
Mom: Well maybe next week....

Some time on a Sunday in February I had a phone conversation with my mom that went something like this...

Mom: So have you gone to any new churches recently?
Me: Yeah, I went to Kelly's church a couple of weeks ago.
Mom: O great! And how was it?
Me: It was good. All churches are kind of feeling the same.
Mom: Well, I know you'll find the right place soon. You just have to keep looking

Some time on a Sunday in March I had a phone conversation with my mom that went something like this...

Mom: So what did you do today?
Me: I just slept in and did some reading down by the river.
Mom: O ok well your dad and I ...

These conversations look like they would come from a girl who didn't really care what her mom thinks about what she does and who she is, but I wouldn't say that is true of me. But from November until this past May I only tried about 5 different churches, and I usually didn't go back a second time. And while my mother was concerned about my faith, I just wasn't in a place to fix that. I needed something from God that couldn't be found in aimlessly wandering from church to church. I refused to go to church by myself, something I had been doing for a year and half.

Not only was I not going to church, I was tired and frustrated with all "good" Christian things. I stopped reading my Bible. I would not pick up Christian books. I didn't really pray for others.

And here's the hardest thing I had to wrestle with....God was giving me permission to do all these things, or I guess better put would be to not do these things. Do I recommend this or think God often tells people not to read their Bible or pray? No, not necessarily.

But I had been living off of a checklist of spiritual things that had lost their meaning. God didn't want me to read my Bible everyday because I felt like I had to. He wanted me to want Him.

There were times I felt like reading my Bible during those months, because I thought it would fix everything. And God would tell me no, not yet. Not as an obligation. Or as leverage. Or to feel better. But when you are drawn to it.

It was funny, how God started showing up in other ways. Through art. And nature. And people. And in really small, insignificant events.

And my prayer life was changing too. I wasn't wrapped up in praying specific things or specific ways for specific amounts of time. It was becoming an ongoing conversation. Brutally honest conversation. Raw. Unpolished. Unapologetic.

I had always had glimpses of these things, but now I was living in a much freer relationship with Him. There wasn't anything forced about it. I was learning "the unforced rhythms of grace."

Wow. I just had a moment. I couldn't figure out where I had heard that phrase, so I did what any 21st century person would do. I googled it. And though I don't think it's where I originally heard it, it's found in the Message, a modern translation of the Bible into everyday language. And although my hermeneutics professor might die to hear me quote from it, it has been the only translation I have picked up to read on my own, outside of church since January. God will use anything to speak to His children.

Matthew 11:28-30

The Message (MSG)

 ^28-30"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."


Wow. Thank You, Jesus.


Hang in there. We are getting close to being caught up. We just have March-July to go. I have shared my whole life with you in 5 posts. You are very patient readers. I would so love your feedback.

My Journey: Part 4b

All the while I was studying Acts, I was struggling in other areas too. I still didn't know hardly a soul at my church. I started Thursday night discipleship with 5 girls in my small group, which turned into 3, which turned into 2-me and the girl I was coming with from my school. I was really desperate, so I asked if we could join forces with another group. I know they had good hearts, but they didn't want to disrupt groups that had really taken off and started opening up to each other. The first time it was a no. Eventually, my friend stopped coming on Thursdays and so they let me join with another group.

I was placed in a group with 3 freshmen and a sophomore in college. Not ideal, but I figured it was a starting place. But they really couldn't get how lonely I was and how hard I was seeking to connect. Every answer I got was super spiritual and true, but not helpful or practical. Every Sunday, I would still almost always end up sitting by myself and would often leave without making any meaningful connection with anyone.

Towards the end of the study, I was at a meeting where leaders and students were talking about what changes they would like to see in the upcoming studies. One girl voiced that she would like to have more time to get to meet other people. This was met with an immediate response. Thursday night discipleship was just for discipleship. Not for meeting people. If you wanted to meet people, you could go to one of the age appropriate house churches. I was so upset by that response, as if trying to meet other people in the church and getting to know the church body was of lesser value than learning to studying the Bible . It was as if the girl had said, "Who cares about studying the Bible? I'm just here to find a nice, Christian boy to date." But I wasn't boy crazy, I was relationship starved.

Up until that point, I had not been able to go on Wednesday nights to the young adults house church. And by the time I was, I was terrified of going by myself. It was held at a group of guys' house, and I didn't know any of them. Those were my excuses. Then I randomly met one of the guys who lived there, and he seemed welcoming enough. Then I met a girl who had been going there, and both of my excuses were shot. So I called up the girl who had been going and asked if we could go together. And we did.

It only worked out that she could come that one time, so I spent the next few months awkwardly going by myself. People did not come very consistently to house church, and apparently most people already had friends that they came with. And the main church had 3 services, so I only saw some of those people on Sundays. It was not very conducive to developing deep relationships, and I was exhausted every time I left. Still, I went to every event I was invited to for house church.

Invitation #1: Contra dancing on a Friday night. I had made friends with a girl who was only in Atlanta on a six week rotation at Emory (my luck), and I decided to go, since she would at least be there. There were only five people who went, and I really enjoyed it. But it did kinda feel like an awkward group, like we were the reject group from house church going to some uncool country hick dance. And there were 2 guys to 3 girls, which made dancing awkward.

Invitation #2: Fun at O'Somethings pub after house church. This was where everyone went after house church. I just had to wait a month to be invited. In fact, more people showed up for food and drinks there than were at house church. I went into culture shock for a bit when I realized I was the only one at the table not ordering a drink with alcohol in it. (We didn't typically go out drinking after my Southern Baptist church get togethers.) We had fun, played a few games, and I was outta there before things got crazy.

Invitation#3 The Braves game. I even went to the cookout before the game. But somehow, at the game I got stuck on the end. Behind me were obnoxious people cheering for the other team. Beside me were some girls flirting with one of the boys and bragging about all of the spiritual stuff they had been doing, saving orphans and quoting Scripture and such. Thank goodness I brought a friend with me.

There were a couple of other things I went to, but overall my experience wasn't very positive.There were some who made me feel like an outcast and others who were inviting and friendly. But all of my trying was falling flat.

House church was growing, so they decided to do a split. I was placed in a group with none of the people I knew. They also decided we would read a book together, so we would all be studying the same thing. Read a book? In what time? I have 5 million other books I am reading. My group was also meeting far away from where I was working on Wednesdays, so if I made it, I would be late. I just quit.

At the same time the main church was growing and needed to find a new place for us. We were packing 400 in a room that comfortably sat 250. The fire marshall would come lock the front doors when we reached capacity. And we had a growing overflow room. So when a place opened up for us to rent on Sundays that sat 1,000, the leadership jumped. They combined some of the services, so instead of coming to a service with 300-400 people sitting in a pew I was going to a service with 600-800 and dark, stadium seating. You couldn't see or talk to anyone there.

I had been at the church for a year and a half. I had hardly a thing to show for it.

This is what was leading up to that rainy night last November...

My Journey: Part 4a

I wanted to write this a few days ago, and it wasn't until I had written half of a story that I realized it was not the part of the story I had intended on writing. Funny how that happens. It must have been heavy on my mind.

So here's the fourth part of my journey, the part I had intended to write several days ago.

I have said for a long time, mostly to myself, but sometimes to others, that I am part crazy. Don't call me crazy, because I'm not all the way crazy...just partly. It comes out in small bursts. Sometimes in what I say. Sometimes in what I think. Sometimes in what I do.

It reminds me of this Scrubs episode where Elliot is having a hard time hiding her crazy from her new boyfriend and is afraid she is going to mess up another relationship. She turns to her best friend Karla who tells her let it out in small bursts to total strangers, until her boyfriend is committed enough not to jump ship at the first sign of crazy.  She ends up telling the chief of medicine that she used to peel off her scaly sun burnt skin, put it in a pile, and eat it. I'm not that crazy. No really, Elliot is crazy. I am not... At least not that crazy.

But sometimes I do things that make me question my sanity. Like how I moved to one of the biggest cities in the country where I did not know a soul. And how I wasn't near home. And it wasn't like college where you live in a dorm surrounded by hundreds of people your age. I moved into a one bedroom apartment, to live by myself. I started grad school. And have you heard how much I dislike school? I felt a little crazy.

And other people made me feel crazy too. Like how my first week of school, I was so desperately trying to make friends, but everyone else seemed only concerned about learning to do this whole grad school thing. Or how I went to church and Bible study at that church, and people couldn't understand why I was there to meet people. Wait, so you aren't here to learn more about Jesus??

About the grad school thing. I started in on the track on crack. My plan was to get it done in two years, and while some people can do that, I wasn't one of them. Especially, after what I mentioned earlier. I was taking 7 grad school classes and I knew no one and was by myself all the time studying, reading, writing. Not healthy by any stretch.

That was the loneliest, hardest semester of my entire life. It was also the semester that everything I knew got turned upside down. I started going to a church almost as soon as I got to Atlanta. When I walked in those doors, I could literally feel the Holy Spirit in that place. This was ironic, because I was about to find out that I didn't know didly-squat about the Holy Spirit. I felt more free to worship the Lord than I had felt in my whole life. Every once in a while, I would just cry, and I never worried who was watching. It was the most honest and passionate place of worship I have ever been.

Enter Thursday night discipleship.We were studying the book of Acts, and I was there almost every week to study chapter by chapter, verse by verse. It was the first time I had ever studied the book of Acts all the way through. And it changed me. And by changed me, I mean messed me up. How had I missed this? The God that I knew was so small compared to the God of Acts. And what did I know about the Holy Spirit? Apparently nothing. It was too much for my Southern Baptist brain to comprehend. Now, I've never been too tied to my Southern Baptist roots, because I feel like no one denomination has it all right. But this has been very difficult for me.

Now, before you started thinking the wrong thing about what was happening, this is NOT my journey from becoming a Southern Baptist to becoming a Pentecostal. In fact, sometimes I cringe to even speak in those terms, because God does not live in denominations. He lives in His followers. But my heart was growing and the ideas I held about God and the Holy Spirit were growing. And all too fast too...

My Journey: Part 3, College

Disclaimer: This is probably the hardest part of my story to write, because it involves friends and others who know me. This is written to tell my story and no other purpose. Some things are over-generalized for writing's sake. All of these things come from a single, flawed, human perspective.

In high school, I was venerated and placed on a pedestal as a good Christian example.

In college, I was knocked down. I struggled to be even good enough for the Christian crowd.

In fact the only time I felt that people recognized me as a decent Christ follower was when I was chosen to lead a mission trip to the other side of the world. I know the trip was not a failure in the eyes of God, but it did fail to make me look good as a Christian in the eyes of man. ( To make a long story extremely short, for the next couple of years the missions department at my school referred to my trip as "the mutiny" and was used to help future students lead mission trips better.Seriously, I was not a winner.)

I did everything I could possibly do to look like a better Christian, so that I would be accepted by those who were thought to be. I was aware of the tension between wanting to impress the cool Christian crowd (and even some of my friends) and the desire to be authentic. So, I didn't join groups or lead or mentor when I didn't feel God calling me to do those things. But I walked a bit inauthentically at some points, because I rarely felt like the authentic me was good enough.

I coined the term "spiritual points" during my college days, because it so often felt like a game. The more spiritual things you did, the more friends you could have, and the more people looked up to you. There were certain things that got you more spiritual points than other things it seemed. I just never seemed to do the right things to win at the game.

I even had friends that sometimes made me feel like less of a Christian. I'm sure some of you may be thinking that good friends wouldn't do that, and at times I felt that way. But my college friends put up with a lot from me, and in turn I put up with a lot from them. The truth is we were all kind of immature at the time.

I wish I could do justice to the Christian climate at my school, but words really do not explain it. And I certainly don't want to pick on any specific crowds of people. But there's this ridiculous, yet hilarious book out called Stuff Christians Like that I wish I had studied before college so I would have been more prepared. Pick it up. You might need it someday. Or don't. Your choice. Anyways...

So there I was, hundreds of miles from home, away from everyone who believed I was a good Christian, spending hours in Beth Moore Bible studies a week, taking ministry classes, serving in my church, and trying to look really, really spiritual.

It's too bad that I didn't stop and consider what Christ thought a good Christian looked like...

My Journey: Part 2, the back story

In order to really understand my story, we have to back up a good fifteen or twenty years. At least to my early years in South Carolina. Life before that was completely carefree, and not that SC changed everything. But I was beginning to grow up, to understand the world and the things of God more.

I had a Christian family.

We went to church... even when it snowed. Yes, mom, you don't get to live that one down.

I went to Christian school.

I made Christian friends, who also went to Christian school and church.

Around 2nd grade my dad sat my sister and I down and told us that as a family we were only going to listen to Christian music. This was not a big deal at the time, I liked the Al Denson, Wayne Watson, and Sandy Patty tapes my parents had. The only "secular" music I owned or listened to was an Ace of Base tape my friend Marie gave me for my birthday. To this day I'm not sure what was wrong with it, but it was handed over. For some reason the rule didn't apply to my parents and we would listen to The Drifters or The Beach Boys at times. I learned all the songs on the Christian radio station in about 2 days. There was one song I really liked, and since it came on about every five songs, I would listen and wait. 

In fourth grade, I actually decided to begin my relationship with Christ, but it feels like just a formality since we had known each other all along. At my church, you had to go up to the front and tell the pastor that we wanted to pray to accept Christ. Even though I had wanted to do that for a while there was no way I was going to get up and walk down to the front of the church in front of everyone while they were singing and staring.

Every summer I went to Christian camp.

In middle and high school I attended every youth group function.

I learned to read my Bible every day.

I led groups and did studies.

I read Christian books...I knew the Christian book store better than anyone I knew.

People looked up to me. Leaders counted on me. I was respected.

I could keep going, but the list is kind of exhausting. And by now I'm sure you're asking, "What's your point?"

Was I faking it? NO! Not in the least bit. I was so passionate about the Lord. I look back at things I wrote back then, and I am dumbfounded at the wisdom and discernment God gave to me at such a young age. In many ways, I felt, even then, that God was raising me. He was my Father. He was my friend.

My point in all of this is that in all of this a mindset was forming. A life that was filled with unintentional rules. A life that began to make God smaller by expecting my own goodness to provoke the goodness of God. A life that was learning that I would be rewarded with praise and friendship when I was a "good Christian" and how easy it was to fake it. A life that felt that the less grace I needed, the better off I would be.

I was starting to believe that I was in control.
I was starting to believe I had to have it all together.
I was starting to believe that I must earn God's love and His favor.

It was so subtle how God left all my good, Christian, spiritual things, that I never noticed Him leaving....

My Journey: Part 1

I have decided to share some of my story and the journey the Lord has been taking me on this year. I call it my journey, because I needed some sort of label to put on what God was doing in my life. It felt so contradictory and confusing at it's beginning, but I am slowly becoming able to see glimpses of the work that He is doing in my life.

Everything started to unravel one rainy night last November. In my mind, it happened like a movie. I slept through both morning services and though I didn't want to attend the evening service at the church I had been attending for a year and a half, I made up my mind to go. I was looking for answers and demanding God to speak to me that very day. I was finished with the lack of clarity, the frustration, the longing, and the discouragement.

As evening set in, the rain started coming, and my spirit was stirred more towards anger and resolution. I was going to that service, and God was going to speak to me. End of discussion.

I was late, and so I walked the 2 blocks from parking to the church in the rain by myself. As I stood across the street staring at the church waiting for the light to change, I could feel the pressure building, the creaks in the wood before the dam breaks. I think I even hated the sight of that building, and all it meant to me. All the struggles, all the trying and doing and wishing and tears.

As I stood there on the corner, the thought actually occurred to me that I shouldn't stand too close to the road, but my mind was fixated on my demands, my hopes, my hurt. Right before the light turned, a car flew by driving in the ditch between the road and the curb. Yeah. Right where all the water collects when it rains. 

Standing there drenched, I threw up my arms, and yelled to the night, "Are you kidding me?" I look across the street to see the greeters, anxiously looking away, pretending not to see. I'm not sure when my spirit broke. Was it standing on the curb rain soaked and humiliated? Was it walking past the greeters unseen and disconnected? Or was it walking into the 1000 seat dark and crowded auditorium and hearing people sing about how much Jesus loves me, when the irony of my situation made me feel very differently?

If you hear one thing from my story, hear this. I never left God, and God never left me. But if you looked at my life over the months following that night, it sure looked like I did. There were people in my life who probably were worried I was leaving God, but there were also people who could see I was finding God in unexpected places, through unexpected ways....

Stay tuned for part 2