Andy’s side of the church story

We met. I am not going to get into all of the mushy details, but we started talking at a perfect time. A month earlier, or a month later, and I think things would have probably been completely different.

When we met, she was my light. In a life of darkness, that, to sum it up contained an abusive upbringing, drug use, homelessness, heart stopping (3 times), guns in my face, and ended with a stab wound in my stomach, eviction, and sleeping in a gas station bathroom, she was my light. 

As we began to talk, I had questions about God, because, how could someone so intelligent believe in something (or someone) so ridiculous? So I asked questions. Do you know when someone is telling you a story about their friend, and you never doubt whether or not that person is a friend or not, even though you’ve never met them?  That is how Andrea answered each and everyone of my questions. I don’t remember all of her answers. What I do remember is thinking to myself, “She knows Him.”. Those conversations changed my heart, which changed my mind, which changed my life.  I accepted Christ, and had this thought in my heart, “I am gong to be a minister”. However I had no clue what that meant, or what it looked like. I think I thought it meant motivational speaker, if I’m being honest. 

Getting to know Andrea was special for me. I think her draw to me was that I didn’t see her as broken, but I could tell she viewed herself that way. (That and my incredibly good looks and witty charm.) Though there were things in her life that she was dealing with, she didn’t have to be embarrassed to tell me. In exchange, I got to spend time with someone way smarter than me, but would never admit it. She would listen to my stories and would not react. And in some strange way, the way she responded to me made me feel like maybe God could love me like everyone kept saying. 

I began attending church with her regularly and connected into the tech team because… I think in Acts chapter 46 it says, “All recovering addicts will serve in tech.”.  I digress… I started attending church with her, regularly. So that I could learn about this Jesus. 

As a dad now, I can only imagine what must have been going through her dad’s mind when she shows up with this skinny, 2 week sober man-child who owned one pair of jeans with blood stains all over them from bar fights and… an unfortunate stabbing. However, he and her mom were super nice and welcoming to me. It was healing to be seen as a human again, so my journey continued. 

I should pause the story to say this.  I have really bad recollective memory. It’s from years of drug abuse, I’m certain, but it’s hard for me to put a timeline together of something that happened more than 2 years ago. So as I tell this story, I might jump around a little, but that doesn’t change the process I went through. 

So, I’m attending church, and as the months go on, I begin to see that, from my perspective, the church isn’t that much different than the world. The biggest difference I could tell is someone at church wouldn’t stab you in your stomach. They’d stab you in your back. 

As disfunction began to happen around me, and I started to notice people mumbling about the pastor (Who… was my girlfriend’s dad), I couldn’t deny what had happened in my life. I couldn’t deny that He was real… I realized.. much like Andrea when we met, I knew him. What was hard for me to reconcile was… did any of these people?  I know that sounds super judge-y, but I like to imagine I’m writing what other people may have felt at some point. Because let’s be real, if you’ve spent time in church, you probably at one point realized that church is filled with…. PEOPLE! 

Instead of realizing that people make people mistakes, and can fall into the traps of offense, guilt, shame and sin, I decided that church was broken. 

Back then, (Who am I and how am I old enough to say that) blogs were kind of the vehicle of the gospel. The best part?  I could always find something that fit my opinion to a T! Here starts my journey of so quickly tearing down what I had learned. 

I read blogs, dreaming of a different gospel. We still attended church, it was kind of a non-negotiable, and we still loved it. But these blogs and these dreams fueled us for something different. We slowly began to dream of a different way. It would be super encouraging for everyone reading to hear me say that we had a plan beyond the dream. But we didn’t. We were in love. Disenfranchised. Frustrated. Confused… and I was supremely uneducated. So, instead a plan, I had a complaint. If you’re where I just described, I’d recommend stopping. A complaint will take you no where fun. As I’m sure you’ll read in the coming months of Andrea’s story. (Which will probably involve me) 

2008 turned into one of the biggest years of my life. I proposed. (Poorly, on top of a MARTA station) She said Yes, (A decision that sometimes she probably questions). Andrea’s grand-daddy passed away. We got married. Her parents finalized their divorce and I got to see the dirty dirty side of church. Before now, I was disenfranchised by simple rumblings, gossip and petty complaints. What happened after the divorce was way darker. Our church, as we knew it, was over. I wish it had happened as simply as I just typed it, but alas, it did not. People who were pouring into my life had given me an ultimatum. “Me or Pastor”. (Who, now was my father-in-law) People who I went to for advice would no longer speak to me.  People who, two weeks ago, I considered my closest sober friends were, for all intents and purposes, gone. People who I viewed as spiritual authorities, turned their backs on me, because of my new family. 

And just like that, all of my previous suspicions were confirmed. They won’t stab you in the stomach. But, man… my back hurt.