Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong (12 page)

Seriously. I felt like I was out in the middle of a lake, trying over and over to get the whole faith thing cranked up again. But mostly it was just a lot of noise, a lot of smoke, and a lot of flailing about while I floated around in pretty much the exact same place.

So by my nineteenth birthday, I had more questions than answers. Did I believe in God? Yes. Did I believe that His Son, Jesus, died on the cross as the sacrificial atonement for my sin? Absolutely. Did I believe that part of the Apostles’ Creed that I’d faithfully recited for most of my life
 
—the part that says, “The third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead”?

Amen.

Yep. Sure did.

Did I have any idea how all that stuff was supposed to inform and impact and illuminate my day-to-day life?

Nope. Sure didn’t. And I was too prideful, too stubborn, too ashamed to admit to anyone that while, yes, I was crystal clear on the major points of my salvation, I was pretty foggy on what it meant to really walk out that thing.

So as a result, I did something we’re especially good at doing down here in the Bible Belt: I pretended.

I played church.

And I told myself that was enough.

There were all kinds of problems that led to this pattern of going through the spiritual motions, of course
 
—starting with some faulty theology and then working out from there. If I’d read a lick of
The Great Gatsby
at that point of my life, surely to goodness I would have seen bits and pieces of myself in Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan and the myriad ways they created elaborate facades that they wanted to believe were real. Because if I were honest, I’d have admitted that I was much more interested in playing the part of Sweet Christian Girl than I was in seeing the Lord transform my mind and my heart.

And the bottom line, I reckon, is that what I really wanted was for Him to make me look good. I wanted to be a good girl with a good reputation. I wanted to have good friends and get a good degree and find a good job. I looked forward to the time when I’d marry a good man and buy a good house in a good neighborhood and drive a good car and maybe have a couple of good kids who would, naturally, go to good schools.

But God’s best? Oh, that was
nowhere
on my spiritual radar.

So in the midst of all that, you might be thinking that my spiritual life was pretty bleak in the year of our Lord 1989.

And you’d be right about that.

But let me tell you what the Lord did.

He sent me a pledge trainer named Emma Kate Payne.

The night of Emma Kate’s big solo at FCA, I decided I might as well tag along. I’d tried going to a couple of different Christian organizations that met on campus at State, but I never made them a priority. Plus, since I was walking around with so many questions, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everybody at Reformed University Fellowship or Campus Crusade or wherever was fully trained in Living the Christian Life, and I was the kid sitting in the back of the room who couldn’t quite seem to catch on.

And let me be clear: I could have gone to my parents or my high school youth group leader or about a hundred other people at any point and confessed the specifics of my struggle and blurted out my questions and listened to some wise counsel. But I didn’t. My pride told me that I shouldn’t, and I didn’t see any point in arguing.

Emma Kate and I zipped over to the FCA meeting in her gray Honda Accord, and after she parked and retrieved all her audio equipment, we walked to the cafeteria in the athletic dorm. The first order of business after we arrived was to set up Emma Kate’s boom box on the podium, and while I realize that today we could set up a theater-class sound system using only an iPhone and a pair of pocket-size speakers, the late eighties were a different technological day.

I didn’t know anybody at the meeting besides Emma Kate, so I found a seat and smiled awkwardly while she visited with a few of her football player friends. I contented myself by thinking that I looked pretty cute in my red corduroy skirt and my oversize mock-turtleneck sweater with a giant bar code and “ETC.” emblazoned on the front.

After the introductory prayer and a few remarks by somebody I didn’t know, Emma Kate stood up to sing.

I was off-the-charts nervous for her. But after she finished the first verse, she looked totally at peace as she started to sing the chorus. As someone who’d practically earned a minor in the music of Amy Grant, I’d heard the song hundreds of times. But one part of that chorus jumped out at me:

     
We’re just here to learn to love him

     
We’ll be home in just a little while.

Fair enough, Amy.

But I was increasingly certain that I might need some lessons and maybe even some directions.

Emma Kate and I were supposed to move into the Chi O house after New Year’s, and over Christmas break she called me at my parents’ house
to talk about important things like matching comforters and throw pillows. We gradually shifted into a discussion about what we’d been doing over Christmas break, so I told her all about my high school friends and the fifty-three ways we’d celebrated Christmas together over the course of about eight days. Any visit to Myrtlewood during my college years tended to be an exercise in community building: we went to the movies, visited with each other’s parents, rotated from one house to the next, and traveled up, down, and over narrow rural roads while we sang R.E.M. and George Michael and Robert Palmer. Our time together was effortless, but even then, I think, we knew to treasure it, to hold it tight, to take good care of it. We were nineteen and all too aware that Real Live Adulthood was just around the corner, and golly-dog if our mamas hadn’t taught us how to treasure those friendships and love each other really well.

Emma Kate asked lots of questions about our tight-knit group of folks; since she had graduated from a much smaller high school in a much smaller town, she’d had a different experience (not necessarily worse
 
—just different). She told me about several of her close friends, including one who attended a small Christian college. EK went on to relay a story that friend had told her, and while I don’t remember all the details, I do know that there was talk of spiritual warfare, demon possession, and maybe even an exorcism.

I’m gonna tell you one subject that had never, to my knowledge, come up for discussion at the Methodist church where I grew up: ANY OF THAT.

No kidding. I didn’t even know how to respond. I just remember standing in Mama’s kitchen, twisting the phone cord, and saying variations of “Oh, no” over and over.

“Oh, no!”

“OH NO!”

“Ohhhhh. No.”

I think that the story had a happy ending
 
—or at least as happy as it could be considering someone had, in fact, battled demons
 
—and I hung up from our conversation with two primary thoughts: (1) I bet Emma Kate won’t pretend to be Charlie’s Angels like Daph did, and (2) those Baptists
are pretty hard core about that spiritual warfare business. I mean, yes, I’d watched EK sing an Amy Grant song at FCA, and I knew that her walk with the Lord was the most important aspect of her life, but part of me wondered if she was going to try to lead me in two-hour devotions every night and then cart me off to revivals on the weekends.

I just wasn’t sure how all that was going to fit into my demanding social calendar.

Plus, I’d worked long and hard to keep God at a safe distance, and quite frankly, I wasn’t too sure I was ready for a roommate who would more than likely see me as her personal mission field.

One thing that consistently annoys me about the book of Proverbs is that it just humbles the fire out of me. And in Proverbs 19:21, there’s this little nugget-o-wisdom: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the
L
ORD
that will stand.”

That verse does not necessarily cooperate with my control-freak tendencies.

But I didn’t really know that spiritual truth when I moved into the Chi O house in January of my sophomore year, and as a result, I had very clear ideas about how it would all work out. EK and I would be friends, sure, but I wasn’t going to let her or Jesus get too close. I was perfectly content to chart my own course, keep all my questions to myself, and continue to let my Bible serve as a convenient coaster
 
—albeit a dusty one
 
—on the bookshelf above my bed.

The more I watched EK, though, the more I saw that there was something different about her consistency with Jesus. It’s not that my other friends weren’t believers
 
—because for the most part, all of them were
 
—it’s just that there was a depth to EK’s walk that stood out to me. She wasn’t some goody-goody Pollyanna, and there were definitely areas where she struggled (I will let her tell you about the night a cute boy from BSU invited someone else to his fraternity’s formal dance, and EK was so angry that she slammed and even kicked our door so many times that she finally
collapsed on the floor of our room while I covered my mouth and tried to remain sympathetic and also not laugh my head off).

But here’s what set EK apart, at least in my mind. She believed in doing things with excellence so that God would be glorified. She faithfully spent time in Scripture. She honored her parents with her words and her decisions. She fled temptations. She prayed with expectancy.

And she loved her friends
 
—including me, who didn’t have much to offer her except my brokenness and my compromise and my inconsistency
 
—unconditionally.

It was a sermon that preached to me on a deeper level than most of what I’d heard in church.

I just wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to respond.

T
HE SUMMER AFTER
our sophomore year, I went back to Myrtlewood to babysit, and Emma Kate went to about three different states to work as a counselor at various FCA youth camps (as you do). It was difficult for us to stay in touch because texting and e-mail weren’t even invented yet (well, I guess someone had actually invented them, but cell phones were still the size of two bricks stacked on top of each other, and using e-mail would have required us to go to the computer lab at State, so no), and since EK was all over the place, I never really knew the best way to keep up with her. The good news was that there were lots of folks home in Myrtlewood that summer, including Marion, and thanks to a passel of recently graduated friends from State who were getting married that June and July, I knew I’d have ample opportunity to see Tracey, Elise, and Daph at weddings. The summer was full of promise, I tell you.

That summer also marked a pretty significant decision on my part. I’d
gained about forty pounds since I started college (please see that earlier chapter about Popeyes, and don’t forget to factor in late-night hamburgers, French fries, and cheese sticks), and I kept thinking that if I could get the weight off, then maybe that would temper my increasing confusion. Keep in mind that you’d have never known I felt that way unless we were superclose friends or, like EK, you lived with me. I guess I figured that since I hadn’t ironed out all of my faith issues, maybe I’d just tackle my physical ones instead.

(In the interest of transparency, I should tell you that I’m still fighting those stinkin’ physical battles even as I’m typing this.)

(Because, yes, while I’m sipping on ice water this afternoon, what I would really prefer is a Caffè Mocha with whole milk and a piece of Starbucks banana-walnut bread.)

(Perhaps I will chronicle this struggle in greater detail in a future book that I have tentatively titled
Bacon Is My BFF
 
—and Other Lies I Tell Myself
.)

(But I digress.)

Liquid diets were all the rage back then, so I signed on to be a part of a program that was offered through my doctor’s office
 
—an irony that, in retrospect, makes me a little cringe-y. Sure, I could have chosen to cut back on my portions and exercise daily and make healthier choices, but I wanted some quick results. After all, I’d seen plenty of movies and TV shows where a girl who struggled with her weight looked like a completely new person after she ran in place for six minutes, attempted a few awkward push-ups, put on some mascara, parted her hair on the opposite side, and bought some stylish new clothes.

SIGN ME UP.

And seriously, there’s really not world enough or time enough to dig deeply into this particular topic, and I feel a little weird writing about it because it’s an area of my life where I just haven’t had significant, long-term victory, but none of that changes the fact that when I was nineteen years old, I had some serious weight-loss plans, and I meant business, by diggity.

I didn’t waste any time once I got home to Myrtlewood; I started the liquid diet the first week of summer break. I had an initial physical exam and weigh-in with my doctor, and that first weigh-in really cemented my
internal sentiment that “IT’S TIME TO PUT DOWN THE FRIED CHICKEN, GLADYS.”

So I did. I put down the fried chicken and the fried okra
 
—and the fried dill pickles, too. For the next two months I faithfully mixed my “chocolate” (oh, do I ever use that term loosely) powder with water and choked down supplement shakes three times a day. By the end of the second week I could barely smell that powder without retching
 
—which, in hindsight, was probably a physiological sign that HUMANS ARE NOT MEANT TO INGEST THIS SUBSTANCE
 
—but I pushed through because of my desire to be a Liquid Diet Overachiever. I drank the shakes, I heated the broth, I ate the little cookies made of cardboard and a few underutilized grains that were supposed to qualify as a sweet treat.

Somehow
 
—and this totally confounds me because I was subsisting on a few hundred calories a day
 
—I even mustered up enough energy to exercise. Emma Kate had introduced me to Sandi Patty’s music the previous semester, so in the mornings or afternoons I’d pop the
Make His Praise Glorious
cassette in my Walkman and hoof it around Mama and Daddy’s front yard, down to the pasture, and back up to the front yard, and then I’d repeat the same route until I felt light headed or overheated, whichever came first.

(I know. It’s ridiculous.)

(That’s why I’m sitting here thinking back on that time and shaking my head at my own dadgum self.)

When the heat got to be too much, I’d take my workout inside. I really liked to play Sandi’s
Songs from the Heart
as the sound track for some light aerobics. And if you’ve ever heard “Pour on the Power,” you totally understand where I’m coming from
 
—because if there was ever a contemporary Christian song that begged for a double-quick crossover step, that one was it.

It seems like whenever someone I know embarks on a quest to lose weight, that person will usually get to the second or third week of healthier living and start saying, “You know, I’m just not hungry anymore! I don’t really have any cravings! I’m totally satisfied by eating a cup of boiled cabbage and then taking a few deep breaths! I even forget to eat sometimes!”

Well, that was not really my experience. There was rarely a time when I didn’t want gigantor helpings of asparagus casserole or creamed potatoes or, you know, the entirety of the hot bar at Quincy’s (somebody say it with me: “HOMEMADE YEAST ROLLS”). However, I was determined to have my personal made-for-TV movie experience when I went to Starkville; I wanted people to be astounded and amazed and awestruck by the progress I’d made. So I stuck to my guns and stuck to my diet and felt really good about the way the numbers on the scale kept sliding on down.

But in the back of my mind, I think I knew those results were going to be temporary. They
had
to be temporary
 
—because the only way my metabolism was going to cooperate was if I continued to starve myself. And that’s exactly what I was doing: starving myself. That realization cemented itself about a month into the summer when my body said, “NO MORE” and I almost fainted in Walmart. The steady rotation of shakes and broth and, lo, even more shakes had left me feeling as weak as a day-old kitten, and my crash diet finally caught up with me somewhere between the outdoor grills and the wicker settees. One minute Mama and I were looking at patio furniture, and the next minute I was breaking into a cold sweat, watching the ceiling fade to black, and collapsing onto a lawn chair.

I believe this is what nutritional experts might call a WARNING SIGN.

I tried to make a joke about it (imagine that), but it scared the fire out of me. I was shaking, I was hungry, and I was more than a little freaked out by how fatigued I was. Fortunately Mama was there to make sure that I was okay, and once I started to feel better and she was satisfied that she didn’t need to take me to the doctor’s office, she promptly drove me home and cooked me two steaks.

She wouldn’t let me out of her sight until I’d eaten every single bite.

Baby girl here was a smidge deficient in protein.

It was the beginning of August when I loaded my car and drove back to Starkville. I was fortyish pounds lighter than I’d been in May, and I felt a small surge of pride as I buckled my seat belt and pushed James Taylor’s
Greatest Hits
into the cassette player. I was on my way to my junior year of
college, and everything about the trip felt familiar to me
 
—except for my smaller size. I turned on Highway 45 and drove north, seemingly on autopilot, coasting through towns with names like Electric Mills and Scooba and Shuqualak. I was almost to Highway 82
 
—which runs straight into Starkville
 
—when I turned left onto Sessums Road and dodged a litany of potholes for the sake of a “shortcut” back to campus. It never occurred to me that those rural-road potholes didn’t really cut off any time from my trip; I’d convinced myself that the supposed shorter route must surely be the better way.

Come to think of it, that’s precisely the kind of thinking that will eventually cause a near-fainting spell in the Walmart Lawn and Garden Center after approximately four weeks of a crash diet.

Funny how that works.

Eventually I pulled into my favorite parking space at the Chi O house, and as I lugged my duffel bags and milk crates full of clothes and books and heated hair-curling implements to my new room on the back hall, I contemplated how much different and better my college life was going to be now that I wasn’t carrying the burden of all that extra weight. There was just so much to look forward to: I couldn’t wait to see EK and hear all about her summer, I couldn’t wait to share my personal weight-loss story just like people did on those late-night Richard Simmons commercials, and I couldn’t wait to reconnect with my friends and get back in the swing of school and maybe even wear my running tights to rush meetings in case somebody wanted to tell me how good my calves looked and I could pretend like I didn’t know what they were talking about even though I’d probably been standing on my tiptoes and flexing for the better part of fifteen minutes.

Subtlety has never really been my gift, I’m sad to say.

Emma Kate rolled into town a couple of days later, and after she put away all her clothes and I stopped drooling over her Eagle’s Eye sweater collection from which I planned to borrow early and often, we set out for lunch so she could tell me about everything the Lord had done at her FCA camps. Naturally, I was super excited to tell her about all my newfound self-discipline and how I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t going to gain back the weight, NOT EVER, YES MA’AM, BELIEVE IT.

To Emma Kate’s credit, she listened to me very patiently and did not roll her eyes even one time.

In retrospect it’s interesting to me that our summers were so opposite. Emma Kate nourished her spirit while I starved my body. She was full to the brim with the goodness of the Lord, and I was so stinkin’ hungry that all I could think about was which restaurant might serve some kind of fried-food sampler (a sure sign that my diet was on the verge of imminent destruction). In our own ways, I reckon, Emma Kate and I both had to figure out how to acclimate to Starkville after spending the summer in our respective bubbles. Emma Kate had lived on the spiritual mountaintop for the better part of two months, and while I
thought
I’d been on a wellness mountaintop of my own, I’d really just camped out in a big ole desolate valley.

A valley that was unrealistically devoid of foods that are cooked in peanut oil.

So there we were. I was trying to figure out how to deal with all the food, and Emma Kate was trying to figure out how to deal with, well, all the worldly. To her credit, she seemed determined to pray both of us through our transitions, and it was then
 
—at our first back-to-State lunch
 
—when I became aware that one of Emma Kate’s takeaways from her time at the FCA camps was a tendency to whisper pray. I was a little taken aback by it at first, but since EK is anything but a poser (she is, honest to goodness, the most sincere person I know), I decided that the whisper praying was rooted in a deep well of expectancy about what the Lord was going to do after she offered up her thanksgivings and petitions. It occurred to me that she must be whispering so she’d be able to hear the Holy Spirit at any moment, and honestly, I was borderline fascinated by her new level of intimacy with the Lord.