This is a prayer for those whose bodies and hearts feel unsafe at the prospect of stepping foot in a place (or with a people) called church. It’s a lament based on Psalm 41, which has been a companion for me (along with Psalm 42-43) when my stomach churns, my foot taps, and my breath shortens with the Saturday Scaries.
I had it titled “When Sundays Scare Me More Than Any Other Day” in my journal a while ago, and maybe that’s a better title. For now, though, I think “For the Saturday Scaries” can work.
Set me in Your presence when the sanctuary's unsafe when enemies are hard to distinguish from friends. Uphold me in integrity as I am limping, stumbling, scared as it seems my lamp is hidden under covering. Sustain me as mind and body react with sickness at what disturbs You first— the way my humanity has been cursed by poison wrapped in sweet words. Help me consider, stop in my tracks, for the poor, the weak, the ones like me: needy. Don't let me forsake You by forsaking them. Set me in Your presence when Your house is unsafe. Raise me up to a higher place. Please, show me You won't ever leave. I have lost hope in such a thing as a church where I belong and am not beat down by the swords of tongues. Where hope has deadened, please, resurrect me. Place my hand in Your wounded side, where I belong.
If this poem resonated with you, I’m so sorry. I don’t have all the answers for all the complex ways we’ve fallen short as the Body of Christ, but I hope this poem can help you communicate something of your broken heart to its Maker and Redeemer.
One of the ways God has reconnected me to my humanity when (some of) His people have harmed me is through the power of story. The novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi met me right in my struggle to reckon with addiction and faith and the pains of each. Shūsaku Endō’s novel, Silence, helped me face the apparent silence of God in the worst of betrayals, including my own betrayal of Him. Elizabeth Acevedo’s With the Fire on High reminded me of how particular yet universal each of our stories are.
Somehow, stories like these drew me back into the grand epic of Scripture—and its many complex, layered, often-ugly novellas in between. The stories Jesus told became a safe haven from the narratives of scarcity, conceit, and selfish ambition that had trampled me. They showed me that God is outraged at the outrageous; they showed me how outrageous His patient love is, too. I try to capture that grand story of Scripture, as well as scenes from my own story, in my book Love Has a Story.
Over the last few years, I also tried my hand at writing my first novel, If Hurricanes Were Flowers. This has been a slow, slooow art of forming, undoing, re-forming, discovering, and re-discovering characters like Lily and Noah and Tita Carmelita—along with myself. The ugly and beautiful process of writing this novel-in-verse has been one of re-shaping, re-naming, and re-deeming parts of me I supposed useless or no-longer-existent. Maybe it will serve you in that way, too.
You can now preorder If Hurricanes Were Flowers wherever you like to buy books. From what I’ve heard, BookShop.org is a great place to purchase books in a way that supports local bookstores.
I’d love to hear from you. What has helped you with the “Saturday Scaries”?