Summer Stretch

I have so many thoughts and feelings around my summer stretch that it is hard to put everything into words. It's also a long story so I apologize about the long post.

I grew up in a Godless family. We never spoke about God or about religion or church it just wasn't something that my family did. I, as a learner, question everything and have always been curious about church and God but my social anxiety has really kept me out of that world. As someone who struggles with social anxiety walking into a place where I don't know anyone or know the norms and expectations causes me a lot of stress so even though I was curious I could never get myself to walk into a church. Fast forward to this year April, the social studies teacher on my team, Paul Johnson, walked into my classroom and invited me to the Easter service at his church. His two children, Dakota and Preston, where doing a cardboard testimonial and he looked me right in the face and said "I'd really like if you could be there". Now I was caught in the middle of being so nervous about entering a church for the first time and not wanting to be rude. He invited me and it would be rude not to show up, especially because I didn't have anything going that day. I drove to the church that day and I was thinking "okay I will just drive there and if I don't want to go in I can just leave". As I pulled in the parking lot there were people everywhere and I went to full on panic mode. I texted Erin as I was having this panic attack about not being able to get out of my car and she calmed me down, as she always does, and I got out of the car and walked into church for the first time. Had it not been for the parking lot attendants (I didn't want to leave, because they would judge me) and had it not been for Erin talking me through my panic attack... I would have never walked in the door. When I arrived to said door, Paul and his family were greeting and I could tell that it meant a lot to him that I was there. I selected a chair, in the back row near the door (incase I needed to run out of there) and sat down. The service started and there was a band and everyone started singing and worshipping with the band. I stood and observed and watched everyone singing. The message was heavy about Sin and forgiveness and how Jesus died for all of us. Then the cardboard testimonials happened where several members of the church got up and had their stories written on pieces of cardboard. There was no talking and many of these stories were heavy and I cried with these people. At the end of the service, the Pastor asked us all to bow our heads and in this prayer it was when I said my own personal yes to accept Jesus Christ as my savior. At the end of the service I went to the Pastor and shyly asked if he could lend me a Bible. He gave me a Bible and reading plan and as I walked out of the church that day I have never felt so free. All of the weight of my guilt, sin, and shame that I had unknowingly been carrying around left my shoulders as I walked out of the door that day.

My summer stretch is going to Church every Sunday, being involved with my small group, volunteering, and reading my Bible. Church is really hard for an introvert like me. There is a lot of touching and hugging and socializing with strangers which are all things I personally don't like. But each week as I continue to go to church and travel farther on my walk with Jesus I can feel my walls coming down... I can feel my anxiety getting smaller and it is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to me.