Do you believe?

I have faith, I believe, I work hard to trust in God and pray and just honest to God, Believe. But that’s personal. To me, if you haven’t experience faith and the net of safety, it’s hard to put that stock into it. And that is okay. I don’t normally overly share my beliefs and try to force them on anyone, but today, I am sharing what it means to me. I want to share this to encourage. I sent out a link to a bunch of my friends and shared it on my Facebook page with a quick, couple questionnaire. It asked, Do you have a house of worship that you attend regularly? What denomination? Why do you or don’t you go? What are you looking for in a house of worship? You are probably thinking, why in the world do you care? I honestly had a theory. I was in a worship committee meeting for my church a few months before covid hit and we were wondering, what draws people to church? Our church, a different church, etc. And it made me think about my own faith journey.

I was baptized as a baby into Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. I attended regular Sunday services with my parents and brothers, I joined Sunday School at just the ripe age of 4 or 5, confirmation, youth group, and in 8th Grade was confirmed. Well then what? Well that’s when everything changed. I had this faith, I knew I believed, but it just didn’t feel right. I found easy and plentiful reasons to not go to church every Sunday. I believed, I prayed, and after going to church every Sunday for 13 years, I don’t know why everyone goes back week after week. You’ve already heard the lesson, if you didn’t learn it yet then geez, are you even listening? (Ya, I was absolutely that cocky teenager) I didn’t practice for many years. I still had faith and was respectful to any time that I had entered a church because i was raised in the belief that the house of worship is a respectful place that is to be entered and while inside of them. And then the robbery happend. My faith brought me through. I had to check myself.

I was married in my old church, I have great thanks and admirations for my pastor and his family. The memories that I have of church were all good, but I couldn’t go back there. It is where I felt most comfortable, but I didn’t agree the way the Lutheran church interprets the Bible and I didn’t want my kids to ever have to question their beliefs like I did and have to determine what I followed and made it look like I encouraged or stand up for my beliefs and have to move on. Nate grew up mostly Catholic, with a pinch of Lutheran. His beliefs are his to share and so when we talked about joining a church it was more where I felt most comfortable as it was more important to me. We went to a few different sunday services throughout the city and we talked about what we wanted our values to be and what we wanted our kids to learn.

As some of you know, my dad is gay. This really was pivotal in questioning my faith. Looking back, it’s really when I started questioning everything I knew and everything I was raised to believe. And I won’t go into all of that because it’s not close enough to all of you to understand. But here is one clue i’ll give you. Find a church that treats a stranger like a best friend. When my dad said that he was made to feel this way when his husband and him went to church, I knew that was the type of people I would be with. I’m sentimental and so knowing that it is the same church my grandma grew up in gave me a sense that it was where I wanted to be.

It’s not how I grew up with church, and I like that. It’s the kind of place where you are welcomed, you are encouraged to not judge people, especially of what you don’t know. Pastor doesn’t preach to you about what you are doing wrong in life but instead, encourages you through the struggles. He uses the versus to compare the actually things going on in your life. Different political views, different ethnic backgrounds, different financial spots in life, but all there for the same thing. Faith. They believe in God and Jesus Christ and they struggle and need guidance.

Now why am I sharing this? Because we need each other. I challenge you to add church to your self care routine. We say that raising kids takes a village. Getting through a pandemic, getting through life, dealing with so many unknowns, so many decades of issues that still need to be dealt with, and so many changes that it is overwhelming, takes a village. Find somewhere where you can feel that peace, that strength. You may not find God, you may not feel the power of religion, but feel that community. Feel that power of people holding you up when you feel weak. You may never know every persons story in your church but you may be surprised at what that appreciation can do for you.

My life mantra is faith, family, friends, forward. These are important to me. Every time I am with my nieces and nephews, friends, and family, I try to remind them, you are important, you are amazing, you are heard. My church family helps me remember these things. And that is important because sometimes those words can be lost from friends and family. When half strangers take time out of their day to think of you, appreciate you, acknowledge you, it’s powerful, and you are worth it.