From: A Small Church in Maine

A few summers ago, when working in Maine for a summer, I found myself going to a small methodist church down island. I’d grown up in a large non-denominational church in a southern city where the worship leader played with lights behind them and the pastor would always tie in an application with their sermon. So needless to say, the hymnal singing, pastor rotating church I found myself in wasn’t the norm for me.

Every Sunday I’d get up and drive down the road for the ten o'clock service. I tried not to arrive too early to avoid chitter chatter with the people around me but not too late so everyone would see me walking in. While I was afraid of the questions, I so badly wanted community and my own people on the island. Something in me didn’t quite feel like I belonged at this church. Most of the people who attended lived on the island year round and knew the ins and outs of one another’s lives like they knew their own. I was the outsider, the foreigner.

But as I made my way to the pew every week, I found solace in the slow organist, the standing, the sitting, the proper response to the pastor’s words, ‘and also with you.’ I found comfort in the little pamphlet I picked up from the front table every week outlining the verses we’d be reading from and the hymns we’d be singing.

The summer flew by and as it did, I got to know more and more people at this church. One of the pastors, a woman named Candace, had moved to the island the year before from North Carolina, where I lived! Her and her husband had moved up there so he could learn how to be a boat carpenter and she became one of the pastors for the church.

Her mention of North Carolina made me feel a pang of belonging. She had found belonging here, maybe I could too.

Every morning in Maine, I took a long morning walk to the town beach before anyone else in our house woke up. I’d slip out the front door, careful not to let the screen one slam into the frame as I left. A car or two would occasionally pass with locals returning from the town store with their newspaper and coffee, but for the most part, it was silent.

One morning as I walked back to the house from the beach a small Subaru pulled up beside me, Candace smiling from inside.

‘Hey! Need a ride?’ she asked.

I was content walking but a sense of friendship compelled me to take her up on it. As we drove the short stint from the road to the house, I told Candace about all the guests coming into town the next week. I told her about the girl I nannied for and this family who’d become my own through all the summers spent with them. I told her about growing up coming here and about my life back home in Charlotte.

Before I knew it we pulled into the driveway, the sun barely coming up over the water. I thanked her for the ride and slid my mug back into my hand from the cupholder where I’d placed it. She wished me luck in the week ahead and promised to see me at church the next Sunday. As I walked up to the front porch and slid my tennis shoes off, I smiled to myself. I felt free. I felt like I was taking up space as myself, not as an accessory to the world around me. My friend Candace had given me a small moment of belonging just by offering me a ride.

I think Jesus is like that. He doesn’t always say things that make us comfortable. Usually, he’s asking us to do things that make us more uncomfortable like giving away money or giving up our time for other people. But he’s never asking us to do it alone. More than that, he often sends people in small Subaru’s on fog covered roads to see if we need a ride, a place to rest for a minute.

Many summers have past, and a few months ago I found myself once again, a live in nanny, but this time for a family in Nashville. While I love them dearly, it was hard to find rest there. The phrase ‘work from home’ took on a whole new meaning in this pandemic age as we all shuffled around each other all day long, 7 days a week. But I had friends I saw every week who felt profoundly restful.

One particular evening in December it was below freezing and my friend Anna came over for a walk. She got out of her car with her big puffy coat and mask and we set off for a walk in the pitch black covering of night. Unlike Charlotte, the sun would always set at 4:30 once the time changed and it was always dark by the time I got off work. We laughed at the apocalyptic nature of our walk and even at the nature of our world in general at the time. I felt my soul let out a deep sigh of relief as I rested in this friendship. Another friend of mine, Lydia regularly brought coffee over at the end of a hard day from my favorite place down the street. Shelly brought over groceries when I was stuck in a COVID induced isolation for ten days in an empty house. My other friend Lydia brought me flowers when I decided to go back home for a bit.

I can’t even remember all the conversations these friends and I had, but I can still feel the relief I felt at their presence. I don’t think the disciples were considered friends of Jesus as a cute way of describing them to the world. I think they breathed deep sighs of relief when they sat down to eat with him, walk with him, fish with him. They may not have always understood him, but they knew him. The rest they so craved felt tangible beside him.

The feeling of relief I felt as I slid into the middle pew of the small church and saw Candace and her family sitting one row over is the same feeling I get when I take the time to talk to Jesus. I feel relief as I ask him to enter the chaos of my mind and give me a breather. t’s not always in the things he says, but it’s all in his presence.