Some months ago now, a little boy ran to the church right before service was to start and announced to his parents, “I’ve found a secret passage!” He was almost shaking, he was so excited, and I couldn’t help but smile because I knew the secret passage he was referring to.
He was talking about the wardrobe, the one I still hope will one day lead to Narnia, but right now leads to a very awesome library instead.
What I loved was the joy this boy showed, the pure enthusiasm for something new, something special, something that had been hidden to him before but was now visible. And most importantly, he didn’t want to keep that discovery a secret. He wanted to share it with everyone.
Over the past few months I’ve experienced a similar enthusiasm over church and God. I’m not bursting through any doors into or out of the sanctuary—I might get a few funny looks if I did that—but I do sometimes have this urge to shout to the world, “You will never guess what I have found!”
It’s not that I didn’t know God before. I’ve always known Him. My dad has an audio tape of me when I was around three-years-old where, with a little prompting, I say, “I love Jesus.” After that, I go on to sing from the soundtrack of Grease and discuss my boyfriend from church, Andy. Three-year-olds have very short attention spans.
God's attention to me, though, never waned. When I was older and staying with my grandparents and sleeping in my mom’s old room, the mountain of blankets I piled around my head was not enough to keep the monsters under the bed at bay. But the stories I read to myself at night, the stories of Daniel and David and Moses, were more than enough to convince me that God protects all His children.
As a teenager and young adult, I knew that God was with me. I knew He stuck by me through my saddest days, but also rejoiced with me during the best of days. But during those days, I was mostly churchless and I learned to hold my relationship with God close to my heart. I didn’t want to share Him with anyone. That behavior wound up making me a very lonely Christian.
And then I found Hope Episcopal and I got to talking to people and I realized that this God who had been with me all my life wasn’t just my God. He didn’t belong to me. He was everyone’s God and everyone had a different relationship with Him than I did. Amazingly, every time I talk to someone about God, who He is and what I know about Him grow exponentially.
Remember how it is when you go back to your hometown after being gone for many years? Remember how small everything seems?
That’s how it is with me. When I look back to my childhood and what I understood God to be, my understanding was so small. I thought I knew God. But what I knew was hardly anything.
And now what I know of God grows every day.
Each day brings more joy as I get to know God better.
And like the little boy who wanted to share his discovery of the secret passage with everyone, I want to share my joy with you.
