I don’t know about you all, but this has been such a long, crazy week! Work has had just a little extra spice added to it, and on top of that, I’m currently housesitting. I honestly love when I get to stay here and help these people with their wonderful puppies, but something about not going home to sleep in your own bed can somehow make long weeks even more exhausting. I took a nap when I got back to the house after work today because I was honestly just so tired. When I woke up, I decided I wanted to get Starbucks. This is nothing unusual, and there is one not even five minutes from the house. But for some reason I felt like I wanted to take a bit longer of a trip so I decided to go to the one that is on the outskirts of town and about ten minutes away.

The drive over there was relaxing but nothing out of the ordinary. I ordered my standard grande double-shot on ice, no classic, one pump white mocha, and two pumps toffee nut. (If you’ve never tried this, you definitely should. You’re welcome!) As I was pulling out of the drive and onto the main road, I felt a strong pull in my spirit. Very near to the coffee shop I had chosen to go to was a place that I had spent quite a bit of time in my formative years and has had deep impacts on me as a person, and I knew I had to go there. I knew it wasn’t open and I wouldn’t be able to get inside, but somehow, I didn’t want to go inside anyway.

This is a place that, while what being there offered to me as a child and young adult into my early 20’s was life-giving and beautiful, has become a deep source of pain and frustration in recent years. The place that I once saw God do mighty things through has turned into a place where political correctness and compliance are most important. It’s gone from a place that once could feed the desperately hungry to being nothing more than a novelty candy shop. I didn’t know why God wanted me to go there, but I knew I had to follow this irresistible pull to go and sit outside my car in the parking lot and wait. So, I did and what happened, while not entirely surprising, was the most healing I’ve experienced in years.

As I pulled into the nearly empty parking lot, I drove around a bit to find a place that I wanted to sit. I found a spot of light that had not yet been shadowed by the setting sun behind the building. I parked my car, took my phone with my music playing, and sat in the sun on the blacktop facing the building. Across from where I sat, between myself and the building, was a box truck decked out with marketing for what must be the next delivery of “candy.”

The moment I sat down, I was overwhelmed – flooded with two decades worth of memories. I saw my teenage self pacing the outskirts of the parking lot with her best friend discussing boys and Jesus. I saw my shy, child self, head hung low, walking into the building for the first time with her family only to be greeted by the most energetic, welcoming woman I’d ever encountered at that point in my life. I saw my young adult self struggling with a newly discovered brokenness in her family and the community and love that surrounded me in that season.

But not all the memories were good. Simultaneously I saw the more recent events. I saw the side-eye I got from suspicious leaders. I saw myself sitting alone while everyone around me was engaged in lively conversation – not bothering to include me. I saw the girl who sat across from someone she respected, desperately reaching out for community and love, who was subsequently told that the answer to her pain was to read her Bible more.

I wept.

As these memories, and many, many more poured over me, I quickly realized that Jesus had brought me here to grieve. He was allowing me a moment to grieve the closing of a book in the series of my life. He was allowing me to grieve the death of something that once was good but has become little more than a white-washed sepulcher. A place where some may still find good things but has lost the true potency of life that once resided in it.

I grieved.

I acknowledged.

I forgave.

And once I was done, I stood up and paused a bit longer. This was the last time I would come to this place. I knew that and to just walk away from a place where my soul has permeated every crack in the pavement – every fiber of the carpet, so casually seemed insurmountable. But as I stood, preparing myself to walk away one last time, I heard words coming from the song on my phone, “Yesterday’s a closing door, you don’t live there anymore. Say goodbye to where you’ve been, and tell your heart to beat again.” At that moment, I knew that I wasn’t walking away alone. And even though I don’t know what the formal, outward expression of my faith will look like moving forward, I know that I don’t walk into it alone.