Faking Salvation in a Poorly Lit Sanctuary
On peer pressure and just wanting to fit in
Memory is fallible. We think we remember something clearly- that blue dress with white buttons and navy lace trim in my mind that was worn for a family wedding- for example- that doesn’t match the photograph of the child version of me wearing a similar dress, sans the lace and white buttons- pale polka dots punctuating the dark fabric. In this case, there is proof of my incorrect memory, insignificant as it is.
There was a time, a chilly fall evening during my young teen years, sitting in a darkened church, the hard bench beneath me, hymnals and Bibles stored in the rack in front of me, that I was knocked to my knees by the sudden surge of emotions too powerful for my young mind to comprehend.
I had no words for faith, for god, for a belief system that I had not been raised in. My family was not religious, and I had been exposed to very little in terms of Christianity or other beliefs. My parents believed in something, but they did not name it, or talk about it except for in general platitudes or the occasional reference to “god” or “fate.”
Against all odds, I found myself embedded in an evangelical youth group and on a retreat to a lonely church in the San Juan mountains. The San Juans are imposing and wondrous. They are capped with snow, peak well above the tree line, and are pure magic. The two-lane highway curves and climbs, then dips back down, and weaves through majestic canyons leading travelers to the little town of Ouray, Colorado, know also as the Switzerland of America.
Truly God’s country if there were ever such a place. The few days were spent cross-country skiing, soaking in the natural hot springs, wandering downtown with the boy I had a crush on, and buying the cheapest candy or coffee I could find in this tiny little resort town.
It was fun, for the most part. My best friend had invited me along. She saw me as a peer, an equal. She was one of the first people in our town to not judge me for where I came from. She did not care about the quickly deteriorating trailer I grew up in, or that I constantly wreaked of secondhand cigarette smoke. My clothes were often a bit dingy, a mixture of the almost undrinkable well water filled with minerals, and the plethora of stray animals my parents didn’t always notice my sister and me bringing in to care for.
Getting away from home for a few nights, with a bunch of kids who didn’t yet know any of this was a gift. All I craved at that time was to blend in, to be seen as normal, and to be able to add to conversations about banal things like family dinners and required church services.
I wanted to complain about family game night, brag about my younger sister, and tell the world how much my parents loved each other- even if their marriage was dying as rapidly as the washing machine clinking and banging away, caught in the spin cycle until manually forced to finish its job. I wanted stability and security.
Because I couldn’t tell my friends about what life was actually like. This was a combination of both ignorance and pride. At that age, I knew things weren’t quite right. That most kids shouldn’t be working to babysit or deliver newspapers or do yardwork just to hand over those hard-earned dollars in order to keep the electricity on.
Life wasn’t fair, and I had no way to express that in a small, rural town, where pulling oneself up by the bootstraps was the only ingredient believed to be needed in order to be successful. If a person was mired in poverty, it was their own fault.
Of course, I craved a place of my own, a chance to fit in. Most everyone does at some point.
Finding myself in a religious youth group was the answer to some of my problems. I cherished the friendships and bonds of that group- I usually shook off the religious teachings pretty quickly though.
It wasn’t until this retreat that my life actually changed.
A few months prior, in the heat of a southwestern Coloradan summer, my sister and I had been dropped off at the movie theater across town. It was air-conditioned, and the matinees were only $5. I don’t recall what movie we watched that day- but it was likely some sort of disaster or monster flick of the sort that was popular during the mid-to-late-90s.
Afterward, we looked for our mother in the parking lot. She was late. We waited anxiously, even though punctuality has never been her strong suit. After a few minutes, we saw her approaching.
Not in the poorly maintained Buick that had once been the pride and joy of the family. No. She was on foot. Her lips were pursed tightly and her denim pocketbook (or was it pleather? Or a fanny pack? Curse you, oh fickle memory!) dangled over her shoulder. She was huffing and puffing toward us, chain-smoking a cigarette.
She informed us the car had broken down on Main Street and she couldn’t get it to start. Our father was MIA, so we had to walk. We groaned.
It took over an hour to get back home. We talked about everything on the way back. I had been in the youth group for a while at this point, and I was starting to question everything. I admitted to my mother that I was not sure I even believed in god at all. I felt like a hypocrite and was thinking about quitting.
My mother encouraged me to stay though. I think she recognized that surrounding myself with kids who were all expected to do well in life was beneficial to me. She said it was ok to doubt, and that I’d figure it all out.
She was right, in many ways.
A few months later at that retreat, in the cold sanctuary with the beautiful stained-glass windows and the ornate altar, I found that my doubts had not gone away. Earlier in the evening, we had been asked to pray and decide if we wanted to accept Jesus into our hearts. Our reward would be acceptance into Heaven, and presumably peace.
Snippets of past conversations echoed in my mind. The earnest discussion about women’s place in the church and family, the preaching about the importance of homeschooling, the validations that HIV was a punishment from God for homosexuality, and that perhaps we shouldn’t try to cure it. The casual references to the prosperity gospel and convoluted justifications that being well off was just God’s reward.
I was disgusted by these things. And heartbroken that if I accepted this, it would most likely mean that my family was going to hell and I would be alone without them. Despite all of our problems, I loved (and still love) my family.
On top of all these things, I just didn’t have faith. I could not imagine how God could exist, or how anyone could believe in a being with no tangible proof. Especially when the cost of entrance is high- in terms of time, money, and cognitive dissonance- in my case anyway.
This was what I was thinking as I sank to my knees that fateful night. But my peers, and my friends, were also flooded with similar emotions, albeit on the opposite side of the belief spectrum. They were embracing their faith, the faith of their fathers and mothers, and crying tears of joy.
After some time, we all reconvened and recounted our spiritual journey that night. Listening to friend after friend joyfully proclaiming their salvation, I froze when it came to my time to share.
Instead of voicing my truth, I swallowed hard, tears in my eyes. I choked up and pushed all those doubts deep into the pit of my very being.
“I accepted Jesus tonight,” I managed to say.
And with that one bold and beautiful lie, I bought myself another few years of social acceptance and friendships, a few more years to hide in a group of “normal” kids, and to give myself a chance to get away from the reputation that poverty often brings.
My lie became the truth for many years until I was able to set it free after I moved away for college. Even now, I have two distinct and separate memories of that night. The one I laid out above, and the other one repeated to my pastor and youth group for years to come, more details added each time, coloring the narrative with a supernatural flare and relishing in an interesting and powerful salvation story.
I’m sure the truth lies somewhere in between.
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