WEBVTT 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:19.420 [Applause] 00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:25.900 I felt like really composed and ready. Now I'm like teary and shaky. 00:00:25.900 --> 00:00:31.860 The shakiness might also have to be due to this coffee, which is my breakfast. 00:00:31.860 --> 00:00:39.340 This is it. I was really prepared to make myself a healthy breakfast and get up early and then my kids ate it. 00:00:39.340 --> 00:00:43.660 They literally just ate it right out of my bowl. 00:00:43.660 --> 00:00:51.340 My name is Taryn. Taryn chipped in. I'm so glad you're here. Every week I sit there as Chad and today Brittany, 00:00:51.340 --> 00:00:56.020 they talk about treating people as the thou and not the it. 00:00:56.020 --> 00:01:03.820 Chad has made remarks about people with the great hair and like that's not me and the cool young couple and that's not really us anymore. 00:01:03.820 --> 00:01:12.340 The mom with two crazy kids running around, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, is that me? I'm the one with the crazy kids." 00:01:12.340 --> 00:01:21.140 That's an identity I haven't fully internalized, but my husband, Daniel, and I, we've been coming to the arsenal for a little over two years now. 00:01:21.140 --> 00:01:29.460 We've visited before, gone to a couple of other small churches, but before our daughter was born, we knew we really wanted to find a place 00:01:29.460 --> 00:01:36.500 where we could call it home and go deep in community and sink our roots. I'm so, so glad we landed here. 00:01:36.500 --> 00:01:41.220 There's a picture I wanted to share of the very first time that we visited together. 00:01:41.220 --> 00:01:47.300 That's me. I'm so happy, but mostly I think I'm delirious and that's three days before my due date. 00:01:47.300 --> 00:01:54.100 We have a really impeccable timing. We really want to get to know people and then we were out for a long time. 00:01:54.100 --> 00:01:59.140 Daniel was also losing his mind at this point, waiting for Grace to show up. 00:01:59.140 --> 00:02:05.460 She did eventually show up. Grace is too now and then we also have a foster son, Alistair, who you've seen. 00:02:05.460 --> 00:02:13.940 He's, he's also too, so we are like in the weeds with our instant twins. It's, it's fun though. 00:02:13.940 --> 00:02:22.420 And so really every week, something that I'm struck by is how I'm so glad that, that Grace, especially, she's going to grow up in a church. 00:02:22.420 --> 00:02:31.860 We're like, all she's going to know is love and acceptance and we pray every night for our kids that they'll know that that God loves them for exactly who they are 00:02:31.860 --> 00:02:39.460 and that they'll be held by a community where they know they belong and this church is a literal answer to that prayer. 00:02:39.460 --> 00:02:45.620 I was really excited when Chad invited me to tell my story. Like I've preached before at past churches. 00:02:45.620 --> 00:02:52.740 I've done like Worth Repeating, which is a storytelling event, and in 2013 I even had a blog for a little bit. 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:58.260 So, you know, like I've told my story. Like that's such, that's such a 2013 thing to do, have a blog. 00:02:58.260 --> 00:03:08.340 It was embarrassing. Please don't go find it. But I've never shared like my whole faith journey and certainly like never my story to this point. 00:03:08.340 --> 00:03:14.420 And to be honest, like it's, it's a little vulnerable because it's like it's not polished. 00:03:14.420 --> 00:03:20.100 So when, when he texted and asked like if I would share today, there were a couple of things like he kind of gave us to prompt us. 00:03:20.100 --> 00:03:26.500 Like we were invited to share our faith journey, like what we had to deconstruct and reconstruct, how we ended up at the arsenal, 00:03:26.500 --> 00:03:32.020 or we could talk about a characteristic of God, like in our understanding of that has changed over time. 00:03:32.020 --> 00:03:38.740 So as I, as I thought about that invitation, like I realized those things are completely inextricable for me. 00:03:38.740 --> 00:03:46.820 Like as my story has unfolded, my understanding of God has changed and like, and that has changed how I understand myself and my place of the world. 00:03:46.820 --> 00:03:51.860 So like you're just gonna get all of it today. 00:03:51.860 --> 00:03:59.300 So I wanted to tell, tell you a little bit about like how I was raised, like give you the context, the setting for the story. 00:03:59.300 --> 00:04:06.260 I was raised in Flatonia. It's a real place. It's a tiny town between here and Houston. Have you driven down I-10? 00:04:06.260 --> 00:04:10.580 Yes. Okay. So you saw it, like you saw all of it. There's one exit. 00:04:10.580 --> 00:04:14.340 You might have stopped at the McDonald's. That was it. 00:04:14.340 --> 00:04:22.100 And growing up there, like we checked every box for like the conservative Christian rural family, like weirdly large number of kids. 00:04:22.100 --> 00:04:29.540 Yes. Like I think, let's show the picture of my family. This is me, like look at my butterfly clips. 00:04:29.540 --> 00:04:37.700 And I'm, yeah, and I'm just, I'm just holding the baby like a little single 12-year-old mom, you know. 00:04:37.700 --> 00:04:44.580 Super parenzified, super parenzified. We were homeschooled, so check, there's another one. 00:04:44.580 --> 00:04:48.820 Thankfully you can see at least like we were marked safe from the like weirdly long denim skirts. 00:04:48.820 --> 00:04:52.900 Like we weren't that version of Christian homeschooling. 00:04:52.900 --> 00:04:56.820 And we also, like we went to the Southern Baptist Church. 00:04:56.820 --> 00:05:00.660 And thank you to Nate, like you gave us a little primer on that last week. 00:05:00.660 --> 00:05:07.060 And that's my context too. So if you were here last week, like you know a little bit about where this might be going. 00:05:07.060 --> 00:05:11.860 So I had been baptized in the Catholic Church when I was a baby. 00:05:11.860 --> 00:05:19.380 But I was baptized again when I was eight. So I'm like extra saved just in case. 00:05:19.380 --> 00:05:27.620 I was, and I was like deeply embedded in the youth group, like saturated in Christian music and the Bible study and the culture wars. 00:05:27.620 --> 00:05:30.900 And I'll tell you like some of the things that we would do throughout the year. 00:05:30.900 --> 00:05:35.460 And if you grew up in church, like this might just like trigger a little like trauma brain for you. 00:05:35.460 --> 00:05:43.540 Hot hearts, disciple now, youth evangelism conference, world changers, vacation Bible school, Bible drills, lock-in Sunday school, see you at the pole, true love waits. 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:47.940 Like we were in it, like this was our life. 00:05:47.940 --> 00:05:53.700 Like our town and our school, like they were so small that like my church friends were my school friends. 00:05:53.700 --> 00:05:57.540 And our parents were youth group leaders and our pastor was the president of the school board. 00:05:57.540 --> 00:06:03.140 And like every part of my life was just like connected and colored by church. 00:06:03.140 --> 00:06:08.980 And mostly it was good. But here's the thing that like I've had to sit with as an adult. 00:06:08.980 --> 00:06:18.900 That the same people like who taught me about Jesus also taught me that a woman has to submit to her husband and can't be on stage preaching. 00:06:18.900 --> 00:06:24.660 The same people who introduced me to a loving God also told me that being gay is a sin. 00:06:24.660 --> 00:06:30.980 And the same community that taught me to care for the poor and the sick, they excluded people who I love deeply. 00:06:30.980 --> 00:06:37.780 So it was all wrapped together, like the beautiful and the harmful and the life giving and the damaging. 00:06:37.780 --> 00:06:42.980 But at the time, like this was this was all new and I just I bought in completely. 00:06:42.980 --> 00:06:48.660 But deep down underneath all of it, like I was scared all the time. 00:06:48.660 --> 00:06:53.860 I was scared that I was doing something wrong. I was scared that I wasn't really saved. 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:57.540 I felt like I had no way of knowing if I had like gotten salvation right. 00:06:57.540 --> 00:07:04.340 You know, like if I prayed the magic prayer with every headbab with every eye closed, like how did I know that it actually took? 00:07:04.340 --> 00:07:10.020 And then every year, like don't know the power team, the big muscly guys with the yeah, yeah. 00:07:10.020 --> 00:07:17.220 It's like every year the power team, they would come to a local church and they would like rip a phone book in half for the Lord. 00:07:17.220 --> 00:07:24.420 And then I can only imagine would swell in the background and I would like be there like, oh my gosh, do I need to get baptized again? 00:07:24.420 --> 00:07:31.140 Again, again, like just to be safe, just to be safe. 00:07:31.140 --> 00:07:38.180 So I want to tell you a story about the thing that like I was really, really like most nervous about. 00:07:38.180 --> 00:07:47.780 Like I was scared about the rapture and a very, some of you were too, it sounds like, like in this very specific and visceral way. 00:07:47.780 --> 00:07:54.020 Once when I was a freshman in high school, like I came home after softball practice and I fell asleep on the couch. 00:07:54.020 --> 00:07:59.540 And when I woke up, the house was silent. Like you saw how many people are in my family, like where were they? 00:07:59.540 --> 00:08:09.940 Well, obviously they had been raptured. So I like wandered through the house like, mom, mom, so nervous, dad. 00:08:09.940 --> 00:08:16.340 Like nothing, nobody was there. So like my genuine first thought was like, obviously it had happened, like I was left behind. 00:08:16.340 --> 00:08:26.180 So like I ran outside in a panic and I was like fully prepared for the tribulation and the horsemen and like the blood. 00:08:26.180 --> 00:08:30.180 But my family was on a walk. 00:08:30.180 --> 00:08:41.220 But for like five minutes, I was just like sure that I had, like I wasn't Christian enough to make the cut. 00:08:41.220 --> 00:08:49.220 And so I didn't realize this was that funny. I'm like, this was serious for me, y'all. I was so scared. 00:08:49.220 --> 00:08:59.780 But I was really jealous of like friends or camp speakers, like who had a real conversion story, like this dramatic before and after. 00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:06.340 You know, like I was an addict. I was a mess until I met Jesus. Like that was a testimony because I felt like I had nothing. 00:09:06.340 --> 00:09:11.700 You know, I said a prayer when I was eight, got dunked in the baptismal. I couldn't really remember any of it. 00:09:11.700 --> 00:09:18.340 Like my life was pretty much exactly the same afterward, except now I was scared all the time that I was going to hell. 00:09:18.340 --> 00:09:26.500 And I was scared to talk to people about Jesus. But I was also anxious because like, what if they died today and they went to hell because I didn't say anything? 00:09:26.500 --> 00:09:35.620 You know, like totally normal things for a kid to worry about. Like totally, totally normal for a 12 year old to just be like, what about that person? What about that one? 00:09:35.620 --> 00:09:47.460 And so not only did I did I envy people who really knew like that they were Christians, like I envy people who had like this emotional, passionate reaction to Jesus. 00:09:47.460 --> 00:09:53.300 And, you know, like people who had the tears streaming down their eyes at the altar call, like who raised their hands in worship. 00:09:53.300 --> 00:10:01.380 And like I would just stand there dry eyed hands at my side, like I was just waiting to feel something. 00:10:01.380 --> 00:10:15.780 And so my my nickname was the Ice Queen. So for a teenager at church camp, like that's just a just a real special thing to be called that, like to have that reputation as the Ice Queen. 00:10:15.780 --> 00:10:20.820 But listen, like I do. I loved my youth group and my community so much. 00:10:20.820 --> 00:10:26.620 And I put one of my favorite pictures of camp at me with my best friends who are still friends with me to this day. 00:10:26.620 --> 00:10:33.180 You know, we always have like the messy day on the last day of camp. And like, that's me on the last on the right. 00:10:33.180 --> 00:10:44.180 Like I've spam in my neck for the Lord. Like, what does this have to do with like, this is just what my life was like and what I looked forward to every summer being coated in shaving cream and like mustard. 00:10:44.180 --> 00:10:56.500 So gross. So like even in the middle of like all of this, it's like joy and the sphere and this mess, part of part of it was complicated for me. 00:10:56.500 --> 00:11:01.620 Is I felt like I was relating to all of the wrong people in the Bible. 00:11:01.620 --> 00:11:10.500 Like I wasn't Mary. I was Martha, like worried and resentful and feeling like I was doing all the work and like wondering why nobody was helping. 00:11:10.500 --> 00:11:16.140 I wasn't the prodigal son. Like I was the older brother. I was responsible and obedient. 00:11:16.140 --> 00:11:21.060 I was doubting Thomas. I was the person who had like the heart of stone. 00:11:21.060 --> 00:11:28.580 I was the lukewarm church being spewed out of God's mouth. Like cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. That's me. 00:11:28.580 --> 00:11:35.900 And yes, like I recognize now that I was taking all of the scriptures completely out of context and applying them literally to my little life. 00:11:35.900 --> 00:11:40.780 I know that now that nobody was telling me that then. 00:11:40.780 --> 00:11:51.060 And on top of like all of that, the things that I was being taught, like it felt so intangible. You know, just give it to God. Ask Jesus into your heart. 00:11:51.060 --> 00:11:58.740 Listen for the Holy Spirit. Like what? Like I can give you my coffee, but I can't like give this problem. It just didn't make sense to me. 00:11:58.740 --> 00:12:05.660 Like I didn't know how to do those things. But you know what wasn't intangible? 00:12:05.660 --> 00:12:12.980 Following the rules, you know, I might not have been able to feel what I wanted to feel, but I knew like I could do the right thing. 00:12:12.980 --> 00:12:20.020 So I clung to that instead. If you're familiar with the Enneagram, I was like little Enneagram one in the making. 00:12:20.020 --> 00:12:27.100 So there's no partying, no dating, make good grades, volunteer, go to church, go to college, find a nice Christian guy, marry up. 00:12:27.100 --> 00:12:35.260 Like I knew exactly who was in and who was out. And I knew what I had to do and what I had to say to stay in. 00:12:35.260 --> 00:12:42.700 And I was safe. I was safe inside like this little bubble of legalism and this wholesome image that I had. 00:12:42.700 --> 00:12:51.100 But at night, like those fears and the questions and the doubts, like they were always there and praying felt kind of empty. 00:12:51.100 --> 00:12:54.940 And it's like I was it's like I was wearing a t-shirt with an itchy tag. 00:12:54.940 --> 00:13:05.060 Like even when I was thinking about something else, like this ill-fitting faith was like always there, like just scratching at the back of my mind, like reminding me that I wasn't enough. 00:13:05.060 --> 00:13:15.340 And so that's that's how I grew up. But then after college, I got married and I moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, which I was not excited about. 00:13:15.340 --> 00:13:22.180 Like no one graduates from college and is like Shreveport. That's that's where I'm headed. 00:13:22.180 --> 00:13:28.620 But I followed my husband there for medical school and, you know, like found solace in the fact that it was only going to be four years. 00:13:28.620 --> 00:13:36.300 But what I didn't plan for was like actually really liking the city. And more than that, falling in love with the church that we found there. 00:13:36.300 --> 00:13:41.980 So it was different than what I had grown up with. Like the community just felt really fun and authentic. 00:13:41.980 --> 00:13:50.620 And I understood like this is truly a church family. And my questions and doubts were welcome instead of being swept under the rug. 00:13:50.620 --> 00:13:58.980 And it was like, you know what churchy people say? Like, these are my people. Like we do life together. Like, oh, it was actually true. I was really grateful for that. 00:13:58.980 --> 00:14:05.260 And I started to find a version of faith that actually fit that made sense to me. 00:14:05.260 --> 00:14:14.780 I wasn't like I wasn't quite sure what I had been looking for, but I found it and it was a faith that was bigger than being right. 00:14:14.780 --> 00:14:21.420 It was faith that was bigger than a personal salvation just for me and like some nebulous afterlife. 00:14:21.420 --> 00:14:29.100 Faith that was bigger than just keeping myself out of hell. And for the first time, I was introduced to this idea of shalom. 00:14:29.100 --> 00:14:36.140 Like the world as God intended it made right, made whole. Like the idea that I could actually be part of that healing. 00:14:36.140 --> 00:14:44.140 And that was a version of faith that felt actually compelling. Like bringing God's kingdom come and making things on earth as they are in heaven. 00:14:44.140 --> 00:14:52.780 So I started like reading and listening and having conversations that actually like made me excited to be a Christian again for the first time. 00:14:52.780 --> 00:14:59.420 And eventually, like I stopped feeling like scared and anxious all the time about faith. 00:14:59.420 --> 00:15:09.300 And I was encouraged to step into leadership roles. And I did eagerly. The first woman I ever heard preach was me in that community when I was in my 20s. 00:15:09.300 --> 00:15:20.020 And deconstruction, I think it's been a trendy word for the last decade or so. And I know for for so many people in this room, like that was a wrecking ball for you. 00:15:20.020 --> 00:15:30.500 It's something that upended everything at once. But for me, it was gentle and it was gradual and it happened within the safety of a community that helped me. 00:15:30.500 --> 00:15:39.940 And it was more like like this replacing, you know, like picking things up and deciding, do I keep it or do I let it go? And here's what I decided to keep. 00:15:39.940 --> 00:15:49.140 God is good and faith communities are critical to creating more just and beautiful world. And that love is always the point I could hold on to that. 00:15:49.140 --> 00:15:57.940 And around that time, I got a tiny little like white girl tattoo, a mustard seed. 00:15:57.940 --> 00:16:06.980 I think so. I know it's a dot. It's a dot. The tattoo artist was like, are you kidding me? I'll do it for free. 00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:18.580 And Matthew, like it comes from a verse, Matthew 1720. Jesus says, truly, I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move. 00:16:18.580 --> 00:16:24.580 Nothing will be impossible for you. And my whole life, like I felt like I didn't have enough faith. 00:16:24.580 --> 00:16:30.740 But maybe like I could I could have a tiny little mustard seed amount. Like maybe that was enough. 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:36.580 And for a while, like that was it. That was the story like could have been a nice ending right there. 00:16:36.580 --> 00:16:44.580 You know, like small town girl finds her way, opens her heart, gets a tattoo scene. 00:16:44.580 --> 00:16:53.660 But, you know, like life doesn't really work like that. And I know like a lot of the girls here, they've they've heard this part of my story. 00:16:53.660 --> 00:17:01.420 But my husband and I, we moved to San Antonio for his medical residency. And then I was invited to become the first female minister at that church. 00:17:01.420 --> 00:17:07.580 I left back in Shreveport. And at that time, like this was my dream job. How could I say no? 00:17:07.580 --> 00:17:13.940 And so I quit my stable job in San Antonio. I moved back and I started my new job as a minister. 00:17:13.940 --> 00:17:24.700 And in that role, like I got to be the kind of woman that I needed to see growing up like a woman with work that mattered and something to say about faith and hope and community. 00:17:24.700 --> 00:17:34.980 And so for a couple of months, like I wore out the highways between Shreveport and San Antonio, navigating my new role as a minister, but still trying to be like a really present partner. 00:17:34.980 --> 00:17:49.820 But I was living like a double life full of connection and purpose when I was in Louisiana at the church. But when I was here, like I was just a wife and an increasingly unhappy marriage. 00:17:49.820 --> 00:17:58.700 Our apartment felt really lonely. And the few moments that my partner and I had between like his really long shifts at the hospital, like they were they were fraught with tension. 00:17:58.700 --> 00:18:07.580 And he told me like I was being selfish and choosing that job over us. And finally, he reached a breaking point, like he said, like he couldn't do the back and forth anymore. 00:18:07.580 --> 00:18:16.860 And he gave me an ultimatum, like leave the church or we were done. And like the good Christian girl I had always been, I quit. 00:18:16.860 --> 00:18:23.620 And so for for a summer that was like in May, maybe for for a summer, like it felt like my life was out of standstill. 00:18:23.620 --> 00:18:32.340 I was in a holding pattern, like praying for a miracle and fighting for my marriage, like waiting for him to decide like if he was going to fight too. 00:18:32.340 --> 00:18:39.260 And he did decide and he decided like that he was done. Like he wanted a divorce and I had to move out. 00:18:39.260 --> 00:18:48.740 Like so think about the context in which I was raised and like how this sat with me and the shame that I felt like how this was like never OK. 00:18:48.740 --> 00:18:52.500 It was never supposed to be part of my story. 00:18:52.500 --> 00:18:56.620 So I had to I had to move out. Like I put my job. I was unemployed. 00:18:56.620 --> 00:19:09.140 So I found myself churchless and jobless and spouseless and homeless, which is a sentence like I never imagined myself staying into a microphone or really like anywhere. 00:19:09.140 --> 00:19:12.620 It's just it was terrible. And it didn't stop there. 00:19:12.620 --> 00:19:22.900 So in that same season, my parents divorced and my mom moved away and my dad, who'd been like a well-respected elected official in our small town, 00:19:22.900 --> 00:19:32.180 he had a really public scandal and spent time in prison and everything that like my tiny little life had been built on just shattered all at once. 00:19:32.180 --> 00:19:38.260 And I felt like I had nothing left. And I was going through some old journals as I was thinking about my story. 00:19:38.260 --> 00:19:46.460 And from that time, I had a journal entry. That's just one line. And it says God is invisible and doesn't feel real. 00:19:46.460 --> 00:19:51.140 And so what like what do I do with that? 00:19:51.140 --> 00:19:58.660 Well, what I did with it was I booked a one way flight to Spain. 00:19:58.660 --> 00:20:05.500 There are healthier ways probably to navigate that. 00:20:05.500 --> 00:20:11.700 But I was like, I've got to get out of here. So I told my family, like, maybe I would be gone for three weeks or for three months. 00:20:11.700 --> 00:20:14.140 Like, I wasn't really sure. And I didn't I didn't have a plan. 00:20:14.140 --> 00:20:24.780 But I was just like, if I was going to be sad and apply for jobs, like I could do that while I drink sangria, like in a really pretty place. 00:20:24.780 --> 00:20:31.500 Yeah. Well, and like I'm not on a serious note, like I just I desperately needed it's like something to shake me out of this. 00:20:31.500 --> 00:20:38.060 This grief and the shame spiral and remind me like there is still beauty in the world. 00:20:38.060 --> 00:20:47.260 And after I'd been there for, I don't know, maybe a week or so, like something started to shift and it felt like I could finally take a breath. 00:20:47.260 --> 00:20:52.340 And I was sunburned and like my feet hurt from like walking miles and miles like on cobblestone streets. 00:20:52.340 --> 00:20:58.340 Like I wasn't I had no plans. I wasn't doing anything just like walking around in the sun and like feeling a little sad. 00:20:58.340 --> 00:21:04.700 But like, oh, that's pretty. But like my mind was starting to feel clear. 00:21:04.700 --> 00:21:10.700 And there was one weekend that that I took a bus to the coast and like without even stopping to to check into my household. 00:21:10.700 --> 00:21:15.220 Like I went straight to the beach and just dropped my suitcase on on the sand. 00:21:15.220 --> 00:21:19.620 And there like I was by myself. I was swimming in the Mediterranean, like looking up at the sky. 00:21:19.620 --> 00:21:27.420 I was very, like very pre love. I admit that I made myself like I just made myself be still, 00:21:27.420 --> 00:21:32.740 like feel all my feelings and see, like, what did I what did I feel about God? 00:21:32.740 --> 00:21:38.100 This new version of my faith that I had embraced, like, could it hold this? 00:21:38.100 --> 00:21:43.260 Like, could it carry me through this shattering? And I found that it could. 00:21:43.260 --> 00:21:49.660 Like, I believed that God could heal and redeem and he was still in the business of fixing broken things. 00:21:49.660 --> 00:21:55.580 And if I believed in Shalom for the world, I had to believe it for myself, too. 00:21:55.580 --> 00:22:00.180 About a year later, I came back to San Antonio. Obviously, I'm not in Spain like I came back. 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:07.100 I started putting things back together. I wish I was in Spain. No offense. 00:22:07.100 --> 00:22:10.500 Yeah. A year later, I took another trip. 00:22:10.500 --> 00:22:15.220 This one was to the Grand Canyon. And this is what I wrote in my journal then. 00:22:15.220 --> 00:22:21.340 It said a lot can change in a year. And it feels fitting that exactly one year later, I'm on another solo trip. 00:22:21.340 --> 00:22:24.980 This, however, is not a trip of desperation, but of celebration. 00:22:24.980 --> 00:22:33.380 I'm celebrating the rich community I have finally found in San Antonio, a job I love and evolving faith and the possibility of restoration. 00:22:33.380 --> 00:22:39.020 And I did. I found so much healing and restoration and joy on the other side of that pain. 00:22:39.020 --> 00:22:48.620 But here's the irony. Like, I have to stand up here and admit, like, that expressive faith in this big interior experience of the divine, 00:22:48.620 --> 00:22:52.220 that's still out of reach for me, just like it always has been. 00:22:52.220 --> 00:23:00.540 I'm not crying at the altar. Like, I still feel like I can't hear God so clearly, but I'm not worried about it anymore. 00:23:00.540 --> 00:23:08.380 I've decided that I'm not going to waste one more second of my life worrying about whether I'm performing my faith correctly, 00:23:08.380 --> 00:23:15.740 or whether hell is real, or whether the rapture is literal and imminent, or whether I'm really saved. I'm done. 00:23:15.740 --> 00:23:26.380 I let go of the idea that faith has to feel a certain way, or look a certain way, or be performed at, like, the certain emotional pitch to be real. 00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:37.340 And when I stopped waiting for God to show up in, like, these big dramatic ways, I started seeing God everywhere in, like, these little moments, 00:23:37.340 --> 00:23:45.260 and how friends carried me through that season of brokenness. I saw God in, like, late-night conversations on the couch. 00:23:45.260 --> 00:23:53.260 I saw God in nature, like, that day on the beach in Spain, and on hikes to waterfalls that took my breath away. 00:23:53.260 --> 00:24:01.580 I saw God in holy places that were outside of my own faith tradition, like a smoky temple in Bali, and in a Catholic mass. 00:24:01.580 --> 00:24:08.940 And I've seen God in the heaviest moments, in the NICU after my daughter was born, and crying with my foster son's mom. 00:24:08.940 --> 00:24:20.780 I still have questions and doubts that my experience of faith now feels more like peace, and freedom, and gratitude for all of those moments when the presence of God feels close. 00:24:20.780 --> 00:24:28.300 And I spent so many years thinking, like, I was doing faith wrong because I identified with the anxious, and the doubting, and the rule-following, 00:24:28.300 --> 00:24:35.500 and the emotionally unavailable characters of the Bible, like, all of the Bible villains that felt like, "Why am I like this?" 00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:41.100 But as I was going back, like, it turned out Jesus had a lot of things to say to those people. 00:24:41.100 --> 00:24:49.180 To Martha, anxious and overwhelmed, who says her name twice, like, "Martha, Martha, not a rebuke, like, it's tenderness." 00:24:49.180 --> 00:24:58.780 And to the prodigal son who did everything right, and, like, he felt unseen, the father said to him, like, "You're always mine, and everything I have is yours." 00:24:58.780 --> 00:25:07.580 And to Thomas, who needed proof before he could believe, Jesus meets him with an invitation to touch his hands, not shame. 00:25:07.580 --> 00:25:10.780 And to the heart of stone, he says, "I will give you a new heart." 00:25:10.780 --> 00:25:16.940 To the lukewarm church, he says, "Here I am. I'm standing at the door knocking. If anyone opens it, I'll come in." 00:25:16.940 --> 00:25:23.900 The message is always the same, like, "I see you, and I love you, and I'm not done with you." 00:25:23.900 --> 00:25:28.940 And I want to be clear. Like, this isn't the end of my story. He's not done with me either. 00:25:28.940 --> 00:25:33.420 And everything isn't perfect. Like, all the loosens aren't tied up neatly. 00:25:33.420 --> 00:25:39.020 There's still a lot of things that are painful and messy, and I know my faith is going to keep shifting. 00:25:39.020 --> 00:25:44.700 Good, like, good, because that means it's alive and it's growing. I'll keep picking things up and putting things down. 00:25:44.700 --> 00:25:50.700 And I still don't have, like, this sweeping before and after testimony I wanted when I was in youth group. 00:25:50.700 --> 00:25:55.740 Like, I don't want that anymore. That sounds exhausting. But what I do have 00:25:55.740 --> 00:26:01.180 is a story about how God is faithful and loving, and he shows up in the mundane. 00:26:01.180 --> 00:26:09.420 And for me, that's enough. And this is what spiritual practice and growing more Christ-like has looked like for me these days. 00:26:09.420 --> 00:26:15.020 Now, how can I be faithful and loving and show up in the mundane? 00:26:15.020 --> 00:26:22.220 I have loved this part of a verse, Ephesians 4.1, my whole life. It says, "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." 00:26:22.220 --> 00:26:28.940 For graduation, like, a friend painted it in a very Hobby Lobby style, like, sign that I hung over my bed for years. 00:26:28.940 --> 00:26:32.620 "Live a life worthy of the calling you have received." 00:26:32.620 --> 00:26:38.060 And when I was younger, like, I thought that that meant ambition, lofty goals. 00:26:38.060 --> 00:26:48.380 Like, changing the world in these, like, big, unmistakable, like, visible ways. Like, I was gonna be a senator or a missionary or a CEO, you know, something like that. 00:26:48.380 --> 00:26:58.220 But what if the calling that we have received is simply this, like, to experience God's love and to love others well in return. 00:26:58.220 --> 00:27:07.100 Like, to faithfully show up in these unglamorous and un-Instagrammable ways. We just love the real-life people in front of us. 00:27:07.100 --> 00:27:15.900 And I think that living, like, that kind of calling, that's the kind of tangible expression my little mustard seed faith was looking for all along. 00:27:15.900 --> 00:27:20.940 Like, maybe this is how I bring Shalom into the world. 00:27:20.940 --> 00:27:27.580 And as I was thinking about what I wanted to share today, I kept coming back to the question of, like, why do we tell stories at all? 00:27:27.580 --> 00:27:33.580 You know, we tell them for entertainment, to learn something about the world and the human experience. 00:27:33.580 --> 00:27:44.220 And as believers, our stories tell us something about the character of God. And, like, Brittany, you said this so beautifully, but each of our stories reveals, like, the unique expression of God in that person. 00:27:44.220 --> 00:27:56.220 And we tell stories for ourselves, too. Like, there's something healing about sharing the hard parts out loud, instead of keeping them hidden and telling our stories that helps us to make sense of what's happened to us. 00:27:56.220 --> 00:28:07.260 And I recognize that mine is not the only story set in this place. Each of us has one, and all around us, like, our neighbors are living a narrative that is as rich and as complex as ours is. 00:28:07.260 --> 00:28:17.980 And all of our stories are tied together. So, I wish all of you were able to tell your story as part of the series, because each of you is a unique image bearer of God. 00:28:17.980 --> 00:28:27.180 And the more we listen to each other, the more we can understand who God is. So, even if it's not on stage, I'd love to hear your story one day, and I hope I get to. 00:28:27.180 --> 00:28:29.180 So, thank you. I love you guys so much. 00:28:29.180 --> 00:28:31.800 [applause]