To the girl I sat next to in church this morning,
I see you. I see you pleading with your dad to let you trade places with him so that you don't have to sit next to the weird older girl that's sitting by herself. I see you looking around, trying to spot your friends and plotting the best way to see them after the service is over. I see your eyes glazing over during the homily, either too bored or too uninterested to pay attention to what the pastor is saying. I see you.
It's okay. It's okay that you don't want to sit next to me today. I understand completely, because one day not too long ago, I was you. I know I'm certainly guilty of trying to covertly whisper to my dad to change seats with me so I wouldn't have to sit next to people I didn't know. (Now I know that maybe I wasn't so stealthy after all...) I definitely spent more time plotting who I wanted to see the most after the service than I did singing along to hymns or reading along with the lectors. And the times I dozed off during a church service? Innumerable.
It's okay right now that you don't really get (or care about) why we gather in this overly air-conditioned stone building every Sunday, because one day you will.
One day, you might even be me. On a Sunday morning in July during the summer after your freshman year of college, maybe you'll go to the same service that you've gone to since you were a baby, but only this time it will be different. You won't see the same faces in the crowd anymore: some will have moved; others will have passed away. Maybe, when the words of the hymns leave your lips, they won't feel the same anymore. Maybe, just maybe, you'll feel something other than feigned interest this time, a sense of obligation in your heart as you sit in the same creaky pew that's been there ever since you can remember.
Maybe, as you kneel before the crucifix looming above the altar, you'll feel a sense of belonging, a burst of hope or a blooming sense of love. Maybe, as you look out over the crowd and see the people you grew up with, you'll actually plot ways to avoid them instead of accidentally bumping into them on your way out. Maybe you'll realize that church was never the social game you'd thought it to be — the hollow building where you had to go or else you'd be grounded. And maybe, if you're lucky, you'll sit next to a little girl who'll beg her dad to trade places with her so that she doesn't have to sit next to a stranger, and that's when you'll remember today.
You're probably only nine or ten now, but mark my words, you'll remember today in your mind's eye. You'll feel a creeping sense of déja vu as you watch the reluctant father stand up, shoot an apologetic smile at you and take his daughter's place. You'll remember me, maybe just as a vague face, but you will. Maybe you'll even want to apologize, but I'm telling you now that I don't expect it. The truest apology you could give is the moment you realize and accept that spiritual maturity isn't something that you get immediately, despite what you might've thought; it is something gained from the experiences you're handed in life.
Because we are all dealt different cards in life, each person will develop differently — especially in a spiritual sense. Sometimes, it clicks for us when we're younger, whether it's because we've had to grow up too soon or because we just get it. But for the rest of us, who never really understood why we had to go to church every Sunday, it's going to take us some time. Who knows, it might even take sitting next to a nearly identical version of ourselves at nine years old in order to realize all of this, but we'll get there. And when we do, we'll humbly realize that we have an awesome, loving God who will, undeservedly on our part, shower us with the mercy and grace that comes with the greatest example of unconditional love that this world (or the next) could offer us. You'll have to accept that there was a reason you couldn't have known at nine or ten years old that a person you never met sacrificed His own life so that each and every one of us could live forever with Him. And, most of all, you'll have to accept that it's all a part of His perfect timing and His amazing plan for you.
Sincerely, the girl you sat next to in church today
