It has been since last October that I have been a regular church attendee. I have went a handful of times and each time I leave feeling drained and sad. Sadness overwhelms me and it takes a few days to recover. I think to myself 'that this is not how church should be, I should be encouraged and uplifted!' But I am not. I struggle with guilt and shame for not going, I struggle with depression when I do.
I label myself as a Christian and an ex-minister, and yet there are still times where every part of me has to struggle to get ready on Sunday morning, walk into the church building, sit down, actively engage in corporate worship, listen to the sermon, and socialize with others afterwards.
I know I'm not alone in this struggle. I think that church feels like a hostile environment for many people.
There have been multiple times in my life where church has become a hostile environment for me to be in.
The first time I felt like this I was pregnant with my twins. I was nineteen years old and had just come back from Bible college shamed. I had once donned a pretty diamond ring on my finger, but that had been taken away. Now I was a knocked up girl who had been caught in her sinful ways. I attended church with my parents, until I started to show too much and then I wasn't allowed to go anymore. We were keeping a secret and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. The only one who 'knew' was the senior pastor. I remember one of the last Sundays I went; I was finally showing and I knew it would be one of my last Sundays at church. I had my mother's long coat on to hide my bulging stomach. I was standing in the middle of the worship service and I felt so lonely. I wanted to cry, I wanted to have someone hold me, I wanted someone to tell me that it was okay, and that I would be okay. But it didn't happen, and not too long after that I found myself home by myself while my parents went to church. It was almost a relief not to go, not to have to dodge the truth.
There have been other times where I felt like church was a horrible place to go, times where sitting in service put me on the verge of a panic attack. As a minister I was relived that I was able to teach the children because I could embrace the sweetness of youth, love them, be present without worries about judgement.
It's is almost amusing to me that almost every time I felt that church was hostile environment it had nothing to do with God, but everything to do with the people in it. Sometimes people hurt others in a church environment intentionally, I have been on the receiving end of that multiple times. Other times it was because I didn't let others in. And sometimes it is just the situation that is overwhelming.
I love my current church. The first time we went there it felt like home. It's not perfect, but it is a wonderful place for us. So why have I been dodging it? It seems so ridiculous when I type it out, when I say it out loud, but it is something that hurts to the deepest part of who I am. In a choice that really wasn't a choice, I was denied my motherhood seventeen years ago in the shape giving up my twins for adoption. After that my dream was to be a mother again, not to replace the boys that I had given up - that would never happen, but to fill my heart and home with children that I so desperately wanted. I longed for motherhood. It was a huge blow when we discovered that we couldn't have children. In our first five years of marriage I struggled greatly and dodged questions of when we were going to have a family. Looking back now I realize that I very likely had many early miscarriages. Then I had two miracle babies, and yes I believe they were miracles. Then the miscarriages started again.
I was told that pregnancy was very dangerous for me, possibly life threatening, and yet we still tried and lost more babies. One of those babies took, but she didn't make it and I held her tiny frame my hand.
Last March I had to choose between my health and the possibility of more children. I was so sick that there was no question what I should do. I had the surgery that destroyed every last bit of fragile fertility I had left in my body. And so in a choice that wasn't really a choice I lost my ability to be a new mother once more, this time for good.
We go to a young church. The preponderance of the people there are under thirty. They are beautiful young people doing what young people do: date, get married, and start families. When I go my church everywhere I look there are pregnant women glowing with radiance of early motherhood. The church had to move the nursery because there were too many babies being born and they needed more space.
I go to church and look at healthy glowing women and beautiful little newborns. I was sick for all my pregnancies - either throwing up so much that I needed IV lines and hospitals or fighting preterm labor. The last baby that came out of my body that I got to hold was a dead one. I look at these lovely women and their babies and am truly happy for them. But I am reminded at the same time of how my body betrayed me, how my motherhood was taken away at the beginning and at the end. I am angry at my body, at myself, at my choices, at my life. A woman's motherhood is not something to be taken lightly, is not something that is easily forgotten. Even though I have two children that are (for the most part) healthy - I am still hurt and angry. Having two children eases, but does not take away the pain and longing I feel. It does not take away the betrayal I feel by my own body. Being in that church only amplifies those feelings.
I have gone back to church hoping that I could overcome these emotions, ignore them, compartmentalize them - but it never works.
I feel stuck. And so I stay away.
I'm sure there are many others out there that can relate to me, whether it is because you just got divorced, are infertile, your sexual orientation does not match with traditional beliefs, or you have been betrayed... there are so many reasons to feel like church is a hostile environment and they are too many to list.
So what do you do when your community, your support system feels hostile? I'm still pondering that. I hope that with time and counseling I'll feel like I can go back to my church and it can feel like home once again.
