finding god in the in-between: a recovering evangelical’s reflection for lent

During the season of Lent, the church we go to hosts dinner church on Thursday nights - allowing for additional reflection and community. I call it Soup Church because we have soup. And church. A few weeks ago, I signed up to share the reflection for a night. The theme was “Finding ourselves and God in the in-between, a reflection on Lent and the Good Samaritan” (the reading for the week). Here is what I shared, updated a bit for this space.

As United Parish celebrates Lent, we are finding ourselves – and God – in the in-between.

In between birth and death, death and resurrection, in between a shared meal and a betrayal, love and loss, and like in the Good Samaritan story — we hear about the stranger and the neighbor, the good and the bad.

It very quickly turns into do this, don’t do that.

Early in my own faith, I was drawn to this structure. Tell me what to do. Give me a list. I followed all the rules. I traveled the world for Jesus with a team of young missionaries. I went to bible college. I was all in for the laying on of hands, the speaking in tongues, the full experience.

When I came to terms with my queer identity, my church identity wasn’t compatible. They kicked me out.

At 21, with my formative years invested in the church and this community, I was devastated, but now, as I look back, I see how fragile this identity had been - even before coming out. Long before we came to a crossroads.

I didn’t have a relationship with God, I had a relationship with the church. I had a relationship with the law, the rules, the structure. A relationship that could be broken. I’ve since learned that a relationship with God is a lot more flexible.

In the in-between, the star of the Good Samaritan story isn’t the characters or the behavior, it's the road itself. The path that carries all of us, all mixed up, however we are.

We are priests. We are robbers. We are the broken. We are the healers.

My path has included Big Church - the church of my youth, and has also carried me on some kind of lenten desert quest. I’ve thrown myself into atheism and dabbled in Buddhism.

I’ve learned that the path isn’t some kind of straight line with opposites at each end. The path is where we find a way to keep going. We have an opportunity to let things happen as they happen and see things as they are. The darkness shows up, and we’re challenged to meet it with curiosity, not run only for the light. The light will come soon, too, I promise. I’m pretty good about this in my regular life, trusting that something will happen, that we will be okay, but in my faith? That has been a lot more challenging.

Along my path, after the dabbles and deep dives, the only thing left was to experience God — not through striving, not through a set of rules, or right theology whatever that is – but in surrender. Like something for lent, I gave up.

I gave up and no longer experience faith as a productivity contest - something to game and win in some way. I don’t have to question everything. I don’t have to know everything. In fact, I don’t have to know anything.

We come to God as we are. That’s how this works.

I gave up and learned how to pray, settling into a stabilizing prayer practice I’ve kept up with for years now. And in that, I also gave up trying to figure out the right way to do it - as my practice is deeply rooted in praying the catholic rosary daily, the rosary I learned how to pray in Catholic school in 5th grade. I’m not Catholic. Don’t ask me about Mary. I truly don’t know. But I do know that millions of folks around the world pray this way every day. I love to connect with humanity in shared ritual. That feels so good to me.

I’ve given up begging God to fix *all of this* –

When there was a lockdown at my teenager’s high school. When our baby was born a month early. When my mom got sick. When protections for trans folks were removed by the current administration. In war. In genocide.

Instead, I thank God for doing *all of this* with us. I don’t want to do this alone anymore.

I give up. I surrender.

I no longer experience God only in times of great joy or great desperation, but instead have come to know God in the in-between, in this experience of being human. This path is long and winding. I accept my past, my faults, my mistakes, the darkness, and the light. Here, we are in-between life and death, death and resurrection, community and betrayal, despair and hope, love and loss. We hold all of it in the in-between.

Life happens in the in-between. God is with us right here in all of it.