Book Excerpt:

Hi friends, today I am sharing a small excerpt from a project I have been working on. I hope as you read bits and pieces from my own personal story that you can relate to the challenges and emotions many of us have experienced. I hope that not only my words and experience can touch you, but that Jesus can too.

I’m sitting in a cushioned chair three rows from the back of the sanctuary. I am sitting down and my heart is pounding so rapidly that it feels like it may burst out of my chest.

A man stands on the platform yards away screaming into a microphone. Between the platform and the pew where I sit are rows of people, the people are standing, clapping, whooping and cheering. Some of the individuals between the man speaking and myself are waving their hands, some are yelling “amen”, some are even crying.

“This is the only way!” The man on the stage yells. He hoofs and haws.

“This way. This is the way. This is the only way.”

“If you walk outside of those doors and into another church you walk away from Heaven.”

‘Why am I not like them?’ The thought is running through my mind as I watch the people around me. ‘Why can I not do it too?’ The people jump and scream while waving their hands and hollering “preach it brother.” The words they all hear encourage them. The sound of a man breathing heavily into a microphone and declaring things as loudly as possible feels comfortable to them, this experience seems positive to them.

I’ve done it before, so I know it is possible. I have been just like them. I have jumped and clapped too. I’ve done it before even when I have felt the same way and had this strange “yucky” feeling in my chest. Today it seems like that “yucky” feeling is holding me in place, it is like a super glue keeping me permanently in my seat.

The feeling in my chest rises up into my throat as I take in everything around me.

In between thunderous applause and cries the speaker continues.

“Those other churches are dead churches. Those other churches do not have the anointing we have. Those other churches do not have the experiences we have. Those other churches are dead churches!”

“We are the church! We are the only church! We are the only real church!”

The air that was once in my lungs vanishes. My heart beats so loudly that I can hear it over the applause. The nasty feelings inside of me make me want to go to the nearest bathroom and throw up my Texas Roadhouse lunch.

‘What’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with me, what's wrong with me’ repeats over and over in my head.

I close my eyes as tightly as possible and whisper a prayer. “Please let me shake this feeling.”

‘It’s me. I’m the problem. I’m the flaw.’ My inner voice tells me as an answer to my prayer.

Everything inside of me feels repulsed. Everything inside of me feels yucky and wrong.

“If you are not on your feet right now, If you are not jumping and shouting.. “ The preacher starts yelling into his microphone and the response from the crowd heightens.

“I will tell you right now.” He screams at the top of his lungs.

“You better jump to your feet! You better dance! You better shout!” The microphone is set down and the preacher proceeds to jump across the stage and stomp on an imaginary demon.

The imaginary demon is flattened to the ground as the preacher begins to spin around and wave his arms. The piano music that was accompanying him ceases as the piano player leaves the platform and joins a group that has begun to run around the church sanctuary.

My first adult panic attack follows.

I am stuck in my seat but my heart is violently jumping out of my chest.

My hands are sweaty and pressed so tightly together that my knuckles are turning white.

My breathing goes from calm and steady to rapid inhalations that are begging for fresh air.

I do not know how I managed to stand on my shaky legs and walk out of the sanctuary. I do not know how I made it past the runners without being mowed over, or how I slipped out of the doors and into the parking lot without being stopped by a gung-ho prayer warrior concerned for my soul. But, I made it out.

In the parking lot I sit down on the edge of the sidewalk and slip my heels off. My bare feet meet the black-top pavement of the parking lots and my shaking nerves somehow find a new, steady yet strong beat. I can feel my heart beating from the warm soles of my feet up to my ears where blood seems to be pounding like some kind of internal drum.

“You are a problem.”

“You are a problem.”

My own blood feels like it is chanting to me. Warning me. Scolding me.

And then, as I search the inside corners of my brain I begin to ask question after dangerous question. What is wrong with me? Why do I feel this way? What has caused this?

What has changed inside of me from someone who used to enjoy the emotional services to someone who feels uncomfortable in them? What and Why.

To every question I dare to whisper a set of conflicting answers. From my brain comes a list of answers that I have heard preached, screamed and taught to me from long before I could walk, talk or think for myself. The answers I hear tell me that the “devil has got a hold on my life”,and that I have “turned my back on the light”. My head chants to me that I need to get up and go to the very front of the church and let someone scare all of these feelings and emotions out of me.

My head tries to blame the posts I have been reading on social media, the ones that declare it should all be about “relationship and not religion”, the paragraphs facebook acquaintances write about believing in Jesus and how the fruits of the Spirit are love and joy and not the way a person looks. The voice of my childhood pastor screams inside of me that those people who write those things live on the edge, they are taking the easy way and that I cannot do that. “Give the devil an inch and he’ll take a mile.”

Somewhere else in my body, deep inside of my heart I can hear different answers raging a war of their own questions. The answers that are bubbling up from deep inside of the most hidden and protected parts of my heart come out in their own questions.

“Would God really send everyone outside of this kind of church to hell?”

“Are we really the only real church?”

“How can those people who call themselves Christians and are so full with love for others not be used by God and not be going to heaven?”

“Why are we so hateful toward other churches? How can we know what they are like and judge them when we are not even allowed to interact with them?”

My head drops between my legs and I squeeze my eyes closed trying to get the arguments inside of my body to stop. Somehow I am able to quiet the voices inside of myself long enough to gain my composure and slide my pointed-toe heels back onto my feet.

I know the absolute last thing that I want at this moment is for any well-meaning saint to find me outside sitting down while the preacher goes into his second hour of scream-speaking. Before I stand up I lace my fingers together in an odd feeling hand fold and find myself closing my eyes and silently praying. The interaction feels strange and somehow humble for a girl who was raised to be boisterous and expressive before God but as I begin the words come spilling out from the confused and panicked parts of myself….

“God, I do not understand. I do not understand my feelings. I do not understand my confusion. I do not understand my hurt. I do not know why nothing feels right and I need you to show me. I need to know what feels so wrong and why it feels that way.”

I find myself pausing in the parking lot before voicing words that I had not said since I was a child. “God, I need you.” And, for the first time since I was a rotten little kid with frizzy hair and a toe-sock obsession I mean the words. “I need You.”

I know the words are true and I know that they are real as a wipe a tear off of my cheek.

I need Him. I need this to be about Him and not about me.