Today’s blog post is going to be a bit different in that I will be sharing something very meaningful and personal to me: my journey with the church. While I don’t intend to use this platform to share my religious, political, personal, etc. beliefs moving forward, I do intend to share my journey with the church with YOU in hopes of inspiring and making an impact on someone else. I will pre-phase that the church has become a meaningful part of my life over the course of my lifetime, as it’s a beautiful outlet for community, and, whatever somebody’s beliefs are, I fully support and respect them, as I do the same for myself.
Growing up, I always went to church. I remember sitting in the pews with my parents and brother on a Sunday morning as a young kid and going to Sunday school with my peers as well in the trailers of my local church. I remember performing in church plays surrounding the birth of baby Jesus around Christmas time. I remember the many many many weekdays spent in a jam-packed church worship center getting all hyped up for Vacation Bible School. I remember the countless Wednesday Night Dinners at my local church with my church community and then attending Bible Studies and small groups with my peers afterwards. Many of my best childhood memories happened in the church. Growing up, church was a HUGE part of my childhood.
I was *even* a church kid in high school! I began to get extremely involved in the church throughout my high school years. I went to church services every Sunday, attended 3 summer mission trips in North Carolina and Maryland, and attended Wednesday Night Dinners and small groups at church every Wednesday. I also attended Fall church retreats with my church’s Youth group and made TONS of friends through attending church. I truly loved the community that the church offered to me during my high school years.
However, as I approached adulthood, I began to think differently about the church. When my grandmother whom I was super close to throughout my entire life passed away during my Senior year of high school, I began to lose faith in the church around me. I began to feel angry at everything that was being taught to me by the church and I began to lose faith in everything around me pertaining to the church. Needless to say, I lost my faith during this time. Instead, I grew angry at the church and the community that I learned to love and it continued into my postgraduate years. At the same time, the community around me in college and my mandatory religious studies classes made me question a lot of what the church world was teaching me and whether or not having a church community was something that I wanted moving forward in my life. I also tried several different church groups within college, but not many of them stood out to me as good fits for me (I did have some GREAT connections through church communities in college, though, and I’m grateful to them!) Through those times though, my anger towards the church continued and manifested into my postgraduate years.
When my grandmother passed, my Papa (her husband whom y’all have probably seen on my blog and across my social media channels) started attending our church as I was pulling away from it. Papa began to get plugged into the church, volunteering his time at Sunday services and during the week working on landscaping and painting curbs out in the parking lot. As the church became less of a home for me while I was away at college, the church became more of a home for my Papa.
When I moved back to the Washington, DC area, Papa started attending Wednesday Night Dinners and joined into small groups at our local church which I grew up going to throughout my childhood. Papa’s investment into our church led me to join him on occasions to services and Wednesday Night Dinners. Initially, I was still pretty angry at the church. I was angry at sermons and much more. Yet, over time, that anger diminished. That anger was replaced with gratitude for the people and the community that Papa has created for himself through our church. That same community of his has always welcomed me into their arms as their own. And, I am excited to continue to grow in my Christian faith and get to know the beautiful and welcoming church community that is surrounding me at this very moment. Truly, church has become such a beautiful gift!
While the church community that I knew in high school looks very different almost 10 years later (with many familiar faces still present though!), the one thing that rings true is how welcoming everyone around me is. It means the world to me to see how much people care to come together to serve a greater purpose and most importantly have faith in a greater purpose and in our God.
I would like to thank my Mom, Papa, and best friends Hannah, Alanna, Holly, Lindsay, Haley, and Shivani for helping me to grow in my faith and take this leap in my journey with the church. I love you all!
XOXO – Katie <3
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