My first memory of church is a pattern. At three or four or five years old, I would stare at the checkered sea-green cushioning on the pews until each my eyes crossed and each square blurred together. It was a good distraction, and, after all, I needed all the distractions I could get. I had about a 50% success rate when it came to earning the privilege of attending coffee and donut hour after service, where my best friend and I could run through the halls and release our pent-up energy. The other half of the time, my parents would drag me out of the sanctuary as quickly as they could after the final blessing, trying to avoid an even bigger scene following what had inevitably been a rough mass.
Both of my parents grew up in Catholic households, and they were eager to keep up the tradition when I, and eventually my sister, was born. This was the mid-2000s, and back then, it seemed like everyone in town went to St. Bartholomew’s church on Sundays. Nearly my entire 2nd grade class shuttled over to Faith Formation class after school on Tuesdays and dressed up as sheep to sing in the Christmas pageant. I have good memories of those years–singing in the grown-ups choir on Christmas Eve in front of my whole family, winning a little clay nativity scene in the annual holiday raffle, stifling a laugh when the priest dunked my baby sister’s big bald head in the baptismal font. I even found ways to entertain myself during those boring masses, singing hymns as loud as I could or reciting the priest’s long prayers under my breath or making up elaborate stories in my head about how the old ladies in the choir all secretly hated each other. Church was like school, non negotiable, sometimes fun, but mostly a snooze.
I never doubted my belief in God and the story of Jesus, but they always felt so far away, unreachable for a young, energetic girl who could barely sit through service. I rarely paid attention to the readings or sermon, only catching a word or phrase here and there. One day, during the “Lord hear our prayer” part of mass (which I loved because it meant church was almost over), the priest asked us to pray for those who had lost their lives on September 11th, 2001. That made my ears perk up. I was born on October 11th, 2002. In the car, I asked my parents what happened a year and a month before my birthday. That was the most memorable lesson I recall ever learning from church.
I don’t remember exactly when we stopped going. My sister Claire was baptized and I made my first communion, but after that, it seemed like we started attending church less and less. There’s about a two year gap between third and fifth grade where I don’t know if we went to church more than a few times a year. My parents always believed in God, and so did I, but suddenly, there were other priorities.
In fifth grade, at my prodding, we started attending St. Alban’s, the Episcopal Church in town, where my best friend went. There was a children’s program during service where my classmates and I would sit in uncomfortable chairs and watch even more uncomfortable animated videos about the Wrath of God. “God got mad,” I remember the teacher, a mom of one of the kids, saying again and again. This church also had probably the worst choir you’d ever heard. They were so off key that my family and I would laugh about it all the way home. St. Alban’s was also the first place I recall dieting. There was always an amazing spread of refreshments after service, and usually I took full advantage. Until the winter of sixth grade, when suddenly, I didn’t anymore. We didn’t go to St. Alban’s much longer. I too soon had other priorities.
The summer before my 8th grade year, my aunt Jane told my parents about a family camp she had started attending with my uncle and cousins. It was a week in July on Lake Spofford in Chesterfield, New Hampshire. It was a church camp. At that point, I was in a stage where the Gods of my life included weight, fitting in, and eventually, running. Gods of self, really. If someone had asked me, I would’ve said sure, I believed in Jesus. Sure, He died on a cross for the sins of the world. But I just didn’t care all that much.
My parents decided that Camp Spofford—church camp—would be a fun family vacation. I was 13, entering my final year of middle school, and not thrilled. Most teenagers probably would feel similarly, I guess. Regular teenagers, who worried about being away from their friends or getting bored. My worries included not being able to skip the snacks my mom usually couldn’t watch me eat, going to bed too late, and having my running schedule altered. Plus, yeah, it would probably be pretty boring. When I tried to convince my parents otherwise, they were surprisingly unbudging. “Fine, we won’t go,” they would tell me, “but you’ll be the one to tell Aunt Jane why not.” We booked the trip.
We arrived at camp on a Saturday, and I remember my parents dropping me off down the road from the entrance because I was complaining and whining so much in the car. However, my next memory is of the following day, Sunday, standing in the chapel and listening to everyone around me sing. I had never seen people so genuinely excited about faith and devoted to Jesus. They radiated joy and hope in the gospel throughout the week, a hope that surpassed any fears or worries they faced in their current lives. Even the teenagers seemed different. These were not the kids I went to school with, I remember thinking. My desire to grow closer to Jesus was primarily influenced by these joy-filled people. I wanted to be more like them, to fit into this community unlike any other I had encountered. God used the people around me–not so much one individual person, but instead the community as a whole–to reveal what His church and people can look like. And as a quiet, often anxious teenager, I began, slowly, to turn to Him and immediately found a comfort, peace, and joy that I had never known. Jesus revealed to me that, through Him, God was not “far away” or “unreachable” as I had always believed. Though I had done nothing to deserve this gift, He showed me that His love and salvation are free and available to all who choose to follow Him. Jesus asks us to give Him our broken, sinful lives, and in return, He invites us to experience the greatest gift imaginable: Eternal life with Him.
After Spofford that first summer, my family went back home determined to find a church. My parents loved the first one we tried, but the youth group, which was composed of three homeschooled brothers and their dad who kind of creeped me out (nothing against homeschoolers!) wasn’t a good fit. So we began attending the local megachurch–yes, they do exist in Maine. I enjoyed the teen program, and even met some friends from neighboring high schools who were also runners, but the services themselves felt too impersonal and loud. “It’s like going to a rock concert,” my mom would complain. Eventually, God led us to Stroudwater Christian Church in Portland, where we found an amazing community of believers. Throughout high school, my relationship with God had its ups and downs. I fell into the trap of elevating other areas of my life-especially running-above Him, and would go for long stretches of time without praying, opening my Bible, or even thinking about God. It wasn’t until about my senior year of high school that my faith began to truly grow. I ultimately realized that I couldn’t control every detail of my life, nor did I want to. For the first time, I was able to pull back the reins a bit on running and lean into God’s call for my life.
The summer before college, I moved away from home for the first time, working on a farm in rural New Hampshire and living in a vintage teardrop trailer. Without parents to take me to church every week, I suddenly became in control of my own faith. I found a lovely church near the farm and joined a women’s Bible study, where the leader would invite me to her house for dinner and I would bring freshly harvested cherry tomatoes. That fall, during my one semester at UMass Amherst, I found a thriving Christian community on campus (UMass is far from a Christian school, but there was still a large presence of believers, albeit small compared to the student population as a whole!) and was baptized at a local church. I struggled a bit with the pressure to attend every event and gathering and service at the expense of my own connection to God, but He taught me that the call to build a relationship with Him must come before our call to outwardly express our faith in community. In other words, I didn’t have to have perfect attendance at every game night or worship service or Bible study–though these were still important–but instead focus on cultivating the foundation of my faith through prayer and personal Bible study.
If I sound like a perfectly devoted Christian, think again. I have been sporadic at best with my faith over the last few years, attending church when I feel like it and rarely making an effort to pray or crack open my Bible. We’re coming up on seven or eight summers at Camp Spofford, and our annual week there is always so revitalizing. But ultimately, I feel back at that stage where I know what God has done for me and how much He loves us, I just don’t feel all that connected to Him. I’ve realized, as every Christian does, that knowing Christ doesn’t mean that our lives here on earth are easy or that our faith will always grow in a linear direction. However, God calls us to cast our anxieties on Him and to find comfort in His promises. He pursues us again and again when we stray away. And I know he’ll continue to run after me when I turn away from Him or unconsciously decide that other priorities in my life are more important. I wear many hats in my life – ultrarunner, nursing student, employee, volunteer, to name a few – but my identity in Christ is the cornerstone of my life, the reason behind why I serve and strive to do good and work hard, but ultimately find rest in His promise that with Him, our lives are sufficient and beautiful.
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A few books and podcasts were integral in my faith development, and I’m sharing them below.
- She Proves Faithful (podcast)
- Radical with David Platt (podcast)
- BEMA Discipleship Podcast
- The Case for Christ (Lee Strobel)
- Any books by Nancy or Douglas Wilson
- In the Presence of my Enemies (Gracia Burnham)
- The Hiding Place (Corrie Ten Book)
