When I was 18, one of my friends tragically died overnight.
She was my friend who sang Meredith Brooks at the top of her lungs in my car while we waved at other drivers. My friend, who talked about how she was unsure how to tackle this weird thing called adulthood, and how together we had decided to have a blast on the road towards it.
And then she was gone.
How do you get over that? How do you get over the fact that someone you love won’t ever be there again, that you will never again cry together about a boy or school or life?
And how can everything be so normal when the world has imploded? How do people in the supermarket still manage to smile? How can people at church raise their hands in worship, praising God for creating a world that has suddenly turned into something so painful?
My faith was not only shaken, but I found church to be somewhat counterproductive in the process of grieving.
And so, I responded to my friend’s death by spending a week on various dance floors in an intoxicated haze, with the music turned up so loud so that no serious thought could ever see the daylight. I turned quiet and swallowed my questions.
I didn’t bring this gnarl of teenaged despair to my friends on a Sunday. I didn’t voice my doubts about faith. I didn’t allow others to give me bear hugs or send them heartbroken texts. I didn’t even cry.
I didn’t bring my grief to church, because it seems as though one of its top priorities is to be an oasis of joy, making Christianity feel like one happy party. But because of this mentality, it’s not a safe place to openly admit that things really suck. Does grieving, questioning, or being frustrated with faith brand you a “bad Christian”? Frankly, I think the questions and doubts show your authenticity; you’re taking faith seriously enough to not settle for easy answers.
I’m tired of pretending I’m fine at church.
If someone on a Sunday, clearly out for smalltalk, drops the “How has your week been?” question, I will say exactly how it has been: hard. I will make his chin drop, I will be real and vulnerable.
That won’t make it easier to work out why tragedy happens, but accepting it and putting a name on it seems like a pretty decent place to start.
A few months ago I received a similar call to the one I got at 18. The experience again not only tested my faith, but I started questioning my whole attitude and priorities in life. Instead of harassing bartenders, I had a Hollywood-esque breakdown in my friend’s arms. It took about three hours until I could form one coherent sentence. It was an incredible day: I had never before allowed myself to experience so much pain. Rather than turning silent, I let it all out. I didn’t put make-up on the circles under my eyes until they were gone; I waited until it hurt less.
I want church to be a place where pain can exist. Where you can cry for three hours while someone doesn’t try to give you an easy answer. Not only should it be a place you can come to when the love of your life has just proposed to you, or when you got a promotion, or when you’ve just booked three months off work to explore the world. But it should be a place where people can embrace grief and hardship together, where people can raise their hands with tears in their eyes, where people can share extended embraces rather than hurried fake smiles.
I want church to become a place where we can celebrate life and celebrate God, despite — and because of — everything else.
Photo (Flickr CC) by dz roman.
