I Left My Best Friend Behind When I Left the Church
If I could talk to her now, here is what I’d say:
This is an open letter for my best friend who stayed in the church when I left. I want to tell her the church was wrong to make us fear such a beautiful world outside of church.
Dear Sister,
We met in Sunday school many years ago and bonded over our shared otherness. We were the same kind of different; we found solace in each other while being the church family’s black sheep. Together, we struggled to find our place in a world that didn’t understand our desire to be the badass strong women our children needed us to be.
We wanted to dance, sing loudly with the radio, and laugh at jokes that would give the elderly ladies the vapors. Instead, we read and reread Psalm 51 when we felt that we had enjoyed the world a bit too much, worked in more ministries than our schedules allowed, and prayed for each other to find peace in a world we knew really didn’t want us in.
Dear friend, I believe you prayed for me as well as you could have, and I thank you for your love and friendship. Along the way, I confess, I stopped praying for you to be able to find your greatest joy at the feet of Jesus like I said I would. Instead, I wished, and prayed, and watched for opportunities to get out.
You were raised in the church, and I knew it’d be hard for you to leave. The year before I left the church, I couldn’t pray for my relationship with Jesus anymore; I was done pretending. I prayed for strength to tell you that I had to leave you behind for the sake of my soul. I wanted so badly for us to walk hand in hand together into a bigger world outside of fundamentalism and legalism. I didn’t want a new church. I didn’t want a more liberal church. I needed freedom.
When I left the church, you interpreted my grievances as a personal message that you were not strong enough, wise enough, or feminist enough if you did not leave with me. I don’t blame you. I do apologize for not making it clearer sooner.
I want to take an opportunity now, a couple of years later, to let you know that I went to the dark side, and it’s great. You have to buy your own cookies, but the blessings are abundant and the peace is sweet. Here are a couple of things I learned about the “lost” world that we never learned in church.
Debauchery is not as rampant as we thought
Remember those 90s commercials threatening us with every vice imaginable if we hung out with the wrong crowd? Unfortunately, the commercials and the church broke their promise that everyone would be after us with sex, drugs, and rock and roll. There are many people who don’t drink, do drugs, or have promiscuous sex, and it turns out religion isn’t really one of the main reasons I’ve heard. Some people feel that throwing caution to the wind every now and then is good for the soul. But at the end of the day, we all have bills to pay, so we wind down with a drink and buddy, and get ready for the next day.
People don’t care about what you do
We were told that Jesus is always watching, but probably even worse, the people of the world are always watching. I remember telling a Sunday School teacher once that I felt bad that I smoked weed once with some college marching band buddies. Her response: “I bet they felt like they had a victory over tripping up the Christian girl, huh?” I was convinced she was right. But you know what? Looking back now, that was not even close to what they were thinking. It turned out that they actually really liked me and were excited that I had agreed to hang out instead of turning down another invitation.
1 Peter 5:8 says, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.” In getting to know people, I’ve learned that if you are kind and open-minded to people’s lifestyles, they tend to return the favor.
They don’t care about your faith, financial status, sexuality, or upbringing. They care about how you will treat them because of, or in spite of those things. As Christians believing the world is against us, we failed to recognize that people can feel that and return the sentiment by claiming us as the enemy. We fulfill the prophecy of being outsiders by treating others as the kinds of people Jesus would have to make an exception to love.
Relationships are deeper and more genuine outside of church
It’s so much easier to get to know people when you are free from having to find ways to tell them about Jesus. Most people are good, and really do want to be vulnerable and find safe places in friendship. It turns out that loving others for who they are makes it way easier to get to know them than looking for opportunities to ask, “If you were to die today, do you know where you’d go?”
We’d invade stranger’s privacy by knocking on doors unannounced, asking unsolicited philosophical questions about the eternity of their souls, and leave them with a card to call us if they were uncomfortable enough to do something about our visit. Of course, we called that heeding God’s call to spread the Gospel and praised the Lord when someone was polite enough to listen to us for more than 5 minutes.
When I took a step back, met people where they were, and talked to them with the sole intent of relating to them on a human level, I was never able to lead a single soul to Jesus. Even better, though, I’ve been able to have deep conversations about others’ faith, beliefs, and morals in general, and come out with true friendships based on mutual respect.
The best man for you may not be a Christian man
This one was difficult. Since I was a teenager my biggest “must-have” was that he needed to be Christian. We were essentially taught that if we could find a Christian man who prayed often, was a strong leader, and wanted the same number of children as you, everything else would fall in place. It didn’t matter if your interests didn’t line up. God would soften our lady hearts to like the things that made our mate happiest. We’d become happy homemakers playing with the other wives until we had the opportunity to serve our husband when he came home.
Well, let me tell you, this formula failed consistently while I tried dating outside the church. I finally allowed myself to seek relationships with men who valued family, kindness, generosity, and laughter. Today, I am married to a man who has a different relationship with his faith than mine. But it’s a non-issue when I think of how similar we are in family values, child-rearing, finances, work ethic, humor, and goals for our future.
I know that today, you are still in church seeking your truth and peace. I don’t write this letter to change you or convince you to follow me. I only hope that this will get rid of any fears you may have of embracing the world we live in. It’s full of people who are ready to love on you for who you are.
When you are ready, I’ll be a call away. We can grab some froyo, and I’ll offer you some cookies and a free drink.
