Church

How I escaped the self-sufficiency trap and began experiencing God’s love through His people.

Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Image source: Pinterest

In the past few months, I have reconnected with one of my best friends from seven years ago. We got to know each other as teenagers when we roomed together at a boarding school in the Netherlands. After graduating, she grew deeper into her relationship with Jesus, and that intimidated me at the time. Christine BC (Christine Before Christ) didn’t feel deserving of God’s love, and my friend was such an embodiment of it, so I ran away from the relationship. That being said, ever since my walk with Jesus began, God has rejoined that friendship thread and fortified it. Our relationship now feels like a thick, shiny red braid, like the braids my dolls had when I was a kid. He is also restoring the same quality of childlikeness in this friendship and in me. I love God.

One of our new rituals is sending 17-minute-long audio recordings to talk about our lives, what God is teaching us, and everything in between. Our catch-ups cover topics like K-dramas, Syrian dramas, graduation ceremonies, family updates, Galentine’s Day, memes, TikTok, and $4,000 vampire family rings that smart people in the Dominican Republic buy to prove they are now trustworthy professionals. Something very endearing, my friend asks me about every weekend is “How was service? What was the sermon about?” Every time without fail, church and the verses we discuss are exactly what I needed that week. It is amazing how God speaks through everything in our lives when we open up space to hear Him.

Crazy-expensive vampire family rings used to demonstrate your professionalism as a new graduate in the Dominican Republic.

This week, I sent her one of my many quarter-hour podcasts, sharing how I was wrecked before the Lord, as I am every week. Trying to cover all the points she touched on in her mini-episode, I jumped from one unrelated subject to another. After talking about my favorite Syrian actor’s fake mustache, I told her, “Church was amazing, worship was great. I really needed it, as always. RESET, INSPIRATION REGAINED, FAITH RESTORED.” I said that to her in minute 6, apparently in a rapper’s voice. She responded that I should make this the title of one of my Substacks and turn it into a T-shirt. One thing about me is that I take my friend’s opinions seriously, so I went for it.

That’s why today’s Substack is about my local Church, and how essential it has been for me to feel God’s love in my life.

Okay, I want to be real. I really didn’t want to go to a German-speaking church, and to be even more honest, I didn’t want to be in Germany at all until one week ago. All these past months have been characterized by my plotting one failed escape plan after another. Until I gave up, and was like, okay, Lord, I get it, You want me to stay here. It doesn’t make sense to me, but I am staying. No more job applications overseas, for now.

This town is tiny, and it is not even my town; it’s my mom’s town. I never lived here for more than three months, so I don’t even have high school friends or anyone my age. I am living at home and jobless, and the biggest event of my day is going on my 3-hour walks. It is really still in a way that broke my old work-based identity, but also caused me so much anxiety despite its apparent lack of eventfulness.

I have been wrestling with God for the past half year and isolating myself as a result. I knew I desired a home church, but I was convinced that this city was temporary, so there was no point in finding one here. I made up a set of imaginary standards, telling myself that my home church needed to be international, full of young people, with an amazing band, in an English-speaking country. I told myself that I hated German and couldn’t connect with God over such an ugly language. Obviously, I was missing the point, and my belief was just wrong. The Holy Spirit doesn’t need a language. He speaks directly to my heart, and the point of church is to worship God, not to meet a human-made list of aesthetic conditions.

Nothing compares to experiencing God’s presence in space with other believers. I was treating the Bible as a self-help book before I started going to church. No amount of online sermons or YouTube videos can compare. Just like God calls us to have a personal relationship with Him and to read the Word for ourselves, He calls us to be in fellowship. Church just showed me how indiscriminate God’s love for all of us is, and it also exposed my own prejudices.

I cry my heart out every Sunday, and I start my week, not even fresh, but almost in remembrance and awe. My mom doesn’t understand why I keep coming back crying. Not all weeks after Church have been good. Church isn’t magic; it is even better. Unlike the New Age doctrine, which teaches that you can love and light everything and embrace and integrate the darkness, Jesus invites us to yoke ourselves to Him so that He can bear the burden. Instead of trying to merge with darkness in a false attempt to “heal,” Jesus tells you to surrender it to Him so He can deliver you from it. “I am the light of the world,” He says in John 8:12.

God doesn’t promise the absence of hardship, but He promises His presence. Ever since I started getting closer to God, I have been experiencing spiritual warfare in my life more perceptibly. After I filmed a TikTok about something He taught me through Scripture and a job interview I had that day, I had a panic attack before I even posted it—in my sleep! The last time I got a panic attack was when I was 13 years old, after I almost choked on chocolate, and my mom flipped me over and miraculously kicked the nuts out of my airway. I almost choked three times in my life. How come all these accidents are about my throat? My voice? I don’t think that is a coincidence. The enemy tries to attack your calling, but God redeems it.

At church last Sunday, I mustered up the courage to go to the prayer team after service. They laid hands on me and declared freedom over me in Jesus name. It just hits different when someone speaks your true identity over you. If you think about it, if you haven’t accepted Christ, your entire life is a series of spiritual warfare, but without a saviour. That certainly was my life. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a generational curse that Jesus’ sacrifice wipes clean. I just thought that it was family trauma, that it was my identity, something to be ashamed of forever.

The cult of self deceives us into thinking that we can save ourselves on our own, but it is a lie. I tried it. You are never enough if you try to become god. Perfectionism just gnaws at your edges until it eats you all up, because it isn’t attainable. God, on the other hand, sees us as without flaw, not because we are perfect, but because we are reconciled to Him through Jesus. He talks to us, the church, in the Song of Solomon 4:1, saying, “You are altogether beautiful, my darling; there is no flaw in you.”

I used to think the Song of Solomon was just a romantic song (and it is! God is romantic), but it is more than that. I read it in an ancient literature course in my undergrad, and my favorite part was 7:4, where the author (who I didn’t know was God), describes the nose of His beloved as a tower, not just any tower, but overlooking Damascus, my birthplace:

“Your neck is like an ivory tower.

Your eyes are the pools of Heshbon

by the gate of Bath Rabbim.

Your nose is like the tower of Lebanon

looking toward Damascus.”

In my naivety, I just loved the verse’s countercultural beauty standards and thought it was celebrating having an Arab nose, my nose. In Syria, we are taught to hate our noses and cut them off in plastic surgery. To love something that, in my eyes at the time, was so unlovable felt redemptive.

A year later, I lived in Rio de Janeiro, and the statue of Christ the Redeemer overlooked the city at all times. That city felt safe; it felt like home, but I didn’t even know what the word “redemption” meant in English. I sang with Jorge Ben Jor:

“Moro

Num país tropical

Abençoado por Deus

E bonito por natureza

(Mas que beleza!)”

(I live in a tropical country, blessed by God, and beautiful in its nature, oh what beauty)

I thought I loved Rio because of the “bonito por natureza,” but not the “abençoado por Deus,” part. Even though, in hindsight, God’s blessing was over that place, and I felt it. He pursued me there like nowhere else. It wasn’t just the majestic nature of Rio that made it special, but the craftsmanship of the one who created it, Jesus Christ the Redeemer. Jesus sees all of us like the bridegroom sees His gorgeous bride in the Song of Songs. He sees all members of the church body with the same loving eyes, no preference for German, Arabic, or Brazilian Portuguese. He wants to redeem every hurting and inadequate part of ourselves.

I used to think that the church was a physical building with colorful mosaics and a sophisticated architecture, but no, what makes a church is God’s presence. My church doesn’t even have an altar; it is a music hall in the center of the city, used for concerts as well as for Sunday services. That doesn’t matter, because the church is the body of Christ, His bride whom He loves so much, through which He makes His love known to us.

I am so grateful for my church, for being part of the church body, Jesus’ bride. I am grateful for the beautiful voices that pierce my heart during worship, but also for the shaky cries of people who sing “shief,” off-key in German, when the Holy Spirit touches them. I am grateful for the prayer team, and for my best friend, with whom God reunited me, and for Jesus and His finished work on the cross.

If you’ve ever watched dating content on the internet (which I know you have), you’ve probably heard this message: you can tell if a woman is dating a good man if she is resting in her feminine energy. She’s usually glowing and really happy. Now think about being the bride of Jesus Christ?? That is the definition of eternal glow and everlasting love. I don’t know about you, but I want that. Feel free to pray with me:

Dear heavenly Father,

I thank you for your finished work on the cross. I thank you for the life of the person on the other end of this screen. We come before you as feeble, broken people in need of your forgiveness and your love. We repent for our sins, and we accept you as Lord and Saviour in our lives, and invite you to reveal yourself to us. I give you my life, Jesus. I love you. You are awesome.

In Jesus mighty name,

Amen

With love,

Your internet friend, Christine