The Beginnings of My Faith Journey (and the beginning of my pain).

I grew up in what I thought was a pretty average, middle-class neighborhood. My parents cared for me, we had the resources we needed, I went to school in a great school district, and had a positive upbringing. I was under the false impression that most people grew up this way. It wouldn’t be until later that I realized how much privilege my family and I had. Given the very average lifestyle I lived growing up, I don’t remember much from my childhood about navigating trauma. I remember watching my parents cry very few times in my life. I had no idea that people navigated such significant challenges in their life. In 8th grade, I was making the decision about where I would go to high school. Again, my parents gave me a number of options to go to a private school or a public school - it was up to me. I made the decision to go to a high school where a number of my family members went - an all-girls, Catholic high school that was well-known in the area for rigorous academics and athletics. I was excited - it was certainly an accomplishment to be accepted to a school like that. Over the summer before I started my first year, I decided to pick up tennis. My best friend’s mom happened to be a tennis pro and she taught me tennis in about 8 weeks. I was good enough to make the team and the tennis team became my safe space in high school. 

Within a few weeks of starting my first year, other than being with my tennis teammates, I didn’t feel like this school was a place for me. It is hard to describe what it was - it just didn’t feel like those were “my people.” There were lovely teachers, great resources and kind girls, but it didn’t feel like a space I belonged. Have you ever been somewhere and felt this feeling? Like this space wasn’t for you. I’m still not sure exactly why, but within about 6 months, I had feelings that I needed to find a different place for me. 

Over the summer after my first year, I had the chance to go on a retreat with a local Catholic ministry. I met amazing people and friends over the course of that week who ultimately would confirm my decision to find a new high school. That fall, I began at a new school that had some similarities to the last one, but offered what I was looking for - a place where I could meet people who were different from me. That school up on the hill was small, a close-knit community, and was predominantly a place where Black and Latina women attended. I was one of fairly few white girls and that was never something I had experienced before. Looking back now, going there for the next three years was the wake up call I needed. I was forced to look at my own life, understand the different ways that people grow up, and began to take steps towards recognizing my own privilege. It would be years until I would truly understand that and be able to wrestle with it, but that was the beginning of understanding that not everybody grew up like I did. This was the beginning of my heart opening to justice. During this time, my faith was incredibly important to me. Ask anyone who I went to high school with: I was that weird girl who spent most of her time in the campus ministry office, passionate about Jesus, and trying to bring others to God’s love. I’m grateful for that time too - high school was a place where my faith began to become my own, more than the required church appearances from my family every Sunday. Faith was something that became mine and was a pillar of my high school journey. I can see all the ways now that I used my faith as a weapon, as a defense, etc. My 15 year old brain didn’t understand all the ways that Christianity has been damaging to people. I didn’t know then what I know now. Isn’t that the beauty of growing up?

During high school, I was an active part of the Pro-Life and True Love Waits club. If you know me now, that probably makes you laugh. My political and ideological views have swung hard in both directions. What I’ve learned about myself over time is when I am in defense mode, I cling to an extreme - it makes me feel better. For me, the real work has been in the messy middle. We’ll get back to that later.

I built some amazing friendships in high school as I was discovering more about who I was. I also built some friendships that were probably not the healthiest - but again, I was learning. That’s what being a teenager is all about. That was most likely the beginning of what I describe now as codependence. If you talk to any of my close friends, I was described as the “mom” of the group, the one who seemingly had it all together, the one people could depend on. I loved that role. I thrived in it. I loved being looked at as the competent and put-together one. As they say, your strong friend sometimes needs some love and care too. There was so much going on in my heart and mind at the time that I couldn’t express or was too scared to. I was wrestling with who I was, what was important to me, what my values were, but I felt like I had to keep that all inside. I’d learn down the road that bottling up thoughts and feelings will eventually explode. Part of my strong faith lead me to decide I needed to go to a Catholic college. I ended up attending Siena College, after applying to only two schools (I make decisions easily and always know what I want - nobody can tell me otherwise).

College was amazing for me. I started to get the answers that I was looking for. I got involved in a program called the Bonner Service Leaders program which opened my heart to justice, systems of oppression and my own privilege. I finally had the language to describe what I began to recognize about myself and others in high school. That program gave me the tools I needed, and I am eternally grateful. I joke now that I went to a Catholic school and basically lost my Catholic faith as a result. What I see now is that my faith never totally disappeared but I began to question the doctrine and dogma of the Catholic faith. I began to look at things through a different lens - through the ways that the Catholic church has perhaps failed to really welcome all people to Jesus. I began to realize the faith that worked for me didn’t have the same impact on others.

I immersed myself in social justice work, working with local non-profits, reading and learning about racism, sexism, misogyny, and all of the other isms that exist. I’ve always loved learning. I grew up in a family of educators and knew I would end up in education too. Although sometimes difficult, opening my eyes to new ways of thinking, being and doing always excites me. The Bonner program has impacted my life in so many important ways. I also began to learn how to lead during those years in College. I got immersed in all kinds of leadership and threw myself fully into that experience (remember how I said I go to extremes?). My entire college experience became shaped by this experience. 

In 2013, I experienced the loss of two important people in my life - first, a friend from high school who lost her battle to cancer. She passed in March 2013, and I drove home from school to attend the services and spend time with my friends from high school. This rocked my world. I had experienced some loss in my life - but never a young person, and not someone I was close to. This shook my sense of faith. I wrestled with trying to understand how a God who loved me, and loved us, could take someone away from us so young. I had many questions and not many answers. I spent the rest of the semester trying to cope and find solace in my friendships and community. I was trying my best to stay afloat - to keep it moving and not let it impact me.

Then, in the summer of 2013, I experienced the most tragic loss of my life. On a family vacation, my aunt got into a jet ski accident and died. We were all on Lake Tahoe for a family wedding. It was quite possibly the most beautiful experience of my life up until that point. My aunt was the most beautiful, live life to the fullest type of person you will ever meet. She spent her life cutting hair in her basement. The moments I spent in her chair, whether cutting my hair or waxing my eyebrows, were some of my favorite. She was real, she was genuine, she was authentic, and she was loving. The loss of my aunt hurt so bad and I didn’t know what to do with that pain.

I love my family, but we grew up practicing what many families practice - if we don’t talk about it, it will be easier to deal with. Moments of talking about and recognizing the pain we were all experiencing were few and far between. Nobody was really modeling what it means to authentically work through your pain. I don’t blame anyone for that - this is the society we live in. This is the part a lot of people just don’t know how to do. Part of it was so hard to talk about because I couldn’t imagine the pain that my aunt’s children and close family were going through - my pain or hurt seemed like nothing in comparison. 

For good or bad, these experiences deeply impacted me and shaped the last ten years of my life. For better or worse, my faith didn’t feel like it worked for me anymore. It felt like God had abandoned me in these moments. I began to lose any sense of faith over time and felt like I was getting further and further from God. I didn’t want to admit that for a while, especially because of the persona I built up in high school. I couldn’t admit that a part of my life that had been so solid was now shaken. It was too embarrassing, too vulnerable, to admit. I kept that inside for many, many years and kept immersing myself in other spaces that felt more real, more true and more life-giving at the moment. About 10 days after the loss of my aunt, I went on a trip with my classmates in the Bonner program. We spent 10 days in Maine together which became a refuge for me. Those 10 days were challenging and humbling, full of learning and community building. I didn’t think I had the energy or stability to be able to do that - but I did. 

The fall after the loss of my aunt, I began therapy for the first time in my life. I felt all sorts of shame and embarrassment for even having to pursue therapy. I remember after my first two sessions, the therapist I had diagnosed me with PTSD. This was sort of shocking to me. She described some of the symptoms of PTSD - flashbacks, irritability, memory loss, emotional detachment, etc. I was feeling most of those things. I didn’t share this diagnosis with many people. I kept it to myself, kept seeing my therapist every week and began working on some coping techniques to manage the pain and the symptoms. 

This was the beginning of a crisis of faith for me. I didn’t know how a loving God could put me through so much pain. The love and friendship of God felt so far away from me. The one thing I thought I knew was suddenly very unfamiliar.