“april fool” day five
This piece is a part of my “april fool” series I’m posting throughout the month of April. if you’re confused, you can check out the preface here.
shoutout to rafa for giving me the word “bittersweet” today on my instagram story. it led me to writing a little about my experience leaving the church recently. obviously, this piece is a small reflection on a portion of a much larger conversation about my personal faith & the evangelical church as an institution. I plan to discuss this topic more after I spend more time processing it, but if you have any (respectful) questions or thoughts after reading, I’m always around to chat, but I don’t need your prayers that I would “come home” or whatever. thanks for reading!
bitter / sweet
by emma lai
Yesterday was the first Easter in over a decade where I didn’t say something along the lines of “He is risen indeed!” I didn’t pray. I didn’t go to church. It was just a spring Sunday that I spent with my family.
Religious holidays have been weird over the last year.
I left the church as an institution & I’m still figuring out my own fundamental beliefs regarding faith & God & how I see myself in all of that.
When I first started stepping out of the church, the experience felt extremely bitter. The sting was painful as I recalled a decade’s worth of church language repeated in my mind, shaming my departure. I was trying to shake out the fundamental ideals that had been pounded into my brain since I was a kid, & as I did, I remembered the person I was when I heard those things for the first time.
Involvement in the modern American evangelical church was my entire youth. I drank up the teachings & decided that I would build my entire life on those beliefs. During those years, I watched people come & go constantly. Anyone leaving was typically followed by “what a shame”, “they had so much potential”, “they took the easy way out”, or something similar. I was always scared that I too would “fall away” one day if I wasn’t careful.
So as I made my way out last year, I wondered if it was just that I wasn’t careful enough. Was I taking the easy way out? Did I just not pray enough? Is it because I never read enough of the bible? Should I have fought harder to make myself stay despite clearly seeing abuse & manipulation go unchecked?
I was doing the thing that my younger self always vowed to never do, & I couldn’t shake the feeling that she would be so disappointed in me. As I stood in a church service on Christmas Eve, feeling so uncomfortable & out of place & anxious, I remembered all the Christmases I spent as a teenager wanting to be at every single service that was being hosted. The tides had really changed, & so had I.
But maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Maybe past versions of myself shouldn’t get to dictate how I live now. I know things that she doesn’t. I’ve lived more. Maybe she’d actually still be proud of me, but more disappointed in the institution that continues to cause harm to so many people.
I took a deep breath as I drove home yesterday & realized that I’m actually really proud of me. This hasn’t been an easy year for numerous reasons, but I’m moving forward & finding my way despite it all. Moments like that are when I realize that although sometimes it still hurts, maybe this is sweet too.
