I’ve never really had to deal with this before. I had always known that parts of my sophomore year were going to be hard, but this shouldn’t have been one of them. The empty pews. The worn carpet. A congregation teary-eyed and dwindled.
When the doors of Connexion Church in little ole’ Covington, Georgia closed for the last time, it was a bitter moment.
When I first came into contact with Connexion it had been at a decisively low point in my life. I was still adjusting to being away from home, I had just gone through a pretty messy breakup, and to top it all off, a lifelong friend of mine had just opened up about his incredibly deep depression and thoughts of self-harm.
When I first came into contact with Connexion I was without a church family. I was without a strong sense of being or identity as a result of picking up my life and moving it 800 miles south. I felt lost and confused and desperate and all other sorts of things.
And Connexion changed that. The atmosphere was so warm and inviting. The congregation welcomed me and the other students I went with openly. They asked about our semesters, our days. They cared.
And the other students welcomed me too. It turns out I wasn’t so alone after all. Plenty of other folks were feeling a lot of the same things I was. Plenty of others were looking for the same sort of saving grace I was when we all walked into Connexion.
The service was fun and upbeat. They played contemporary music. The pastor preached in jeans and a button-down shirt. And most of all, it meant something. It meant safety, security, and hope. Above all hope that I would overcome my homesickness, my breakup, and my friend’s woes.
Fast forward 365 days and I’m standing in the same spot, only feeling a little less hopeful. How can you have hope when something you’ve experienced and cherished as so integral to you, you as a person, is taken away? How can you believe that anything will get better?
I’ve asked myself those questions as I’ve wrestled with the closing of Connexion Church, the search for a new church, and a number of other personal issues that have plagued me over the last few months. There have been many sleepless nights and fraught moments spent pulling out hair as I struggle with the direction of my life on personal, financial, spiritual, and all other sorts of levels.
I also won’t mislead you. I haven’t found a new home to replace Connexion. Not yet, anyways. I haven’t figured it all out yet. That’s not the purpose of this article. What I am trying to do, however, is provide a sort of reassurance to anyone out there who might be feeling much the same. Heck, to provide a sort of reassurance to myself too.
No matter how incredibly unique or insurmountable we might think our challenges to be, they’re not. They never are. If there’s anything that humans have discovered about themselves in two million years of evolution, it’s that we’re a resilient bunch. And an empathetic one too.
So, though I might not be possessed with the same sort of resounding, triumphant hope I was the first time I attended church at Connexion, I am filled with a sort of pervasive hope. A hope that I’m still young and still sorting out my life. A hope that there’s still time to live, learn, and most of all love.