I couldn’t sleep last night until I finished this. I hope someone needs it, I’m sleepy.

When I Felt Alone

On September 11, 2001, I was less than one month from my 17th Birthday. I was living alone in a small trailer in a trailer park. I had been on my own since I was 15. My life already felt like a war zone inside my own mind filled with fear, anxiety, and questions I didn’t know how to answer. That morning was different than every other morning because every radio station in my old 80’s model Buick LeSabre (the boat) had someone talking about planes and the World Trade Center, they seemed sad and in shock but I didn’t understand why. When I walked into my English class that morning and saw the towers falling on the TV screen, I remember feeling a heaviness I couldn’t name. I knew the world as I knew it was changing. The world looked as broken as I felt inside. One of my friends said their uncle worked in those buildings and they were crying so of course we all began to cry.

In the days that followed, I watched people grieve, pray, and cling to one another. I listened as our president tried to steady the nation with words of comfort like “Today, our nation saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of America with the daring of our rescue workers, with the caring for strangers and neighbors who came to give blood and help in any way they could. All of America was touched on the evening of the tragedy to see Republicans and Democrats joined together on the steps of this Capitol, singing ‘God Bless America.’” The most unexpected gift for me came from a precious church down the road and its people.

It wasn’t a perfect church. It was messy, full of people with their own flaws and struggles (this was actually refreshing for me because I feared not being “good enough”. Over the next year and a half this place became my refuge. They opened their arms to me. They welcomed me when I was just a scared teenager trying to figure out how to survive on my own. They didn’t have all the answers, but they had love and sometimes love shows up as a meal, a hug, or simply sitting beside you when words fall short.

That church became a place where I could breathe. A place where my loneliness was met with kindness. A place where God reminded me that I wasn’t forgotten.

What I Carry With Me

All these years later, I still believe what I learned in those days: Jesus doesn’t need politics to prove who He is. He doesn’t call everyone to power; He calls us to love. His love is simple but radical, love your neighbor, this includes your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

That’s what that little church taught me. They showed me that the gospel isn’t about winning arguments, although I do love conversations and even debates that cause reflective thought that leads to actions. The gospel is about being present with the hurting. It’s about kindness in the face of chaos. It’s about love that doesn’t need to be earned.

Why Am I Sharing This?

I share this because our nation is grieving again. In moments like these, we don’t need louder politics, we need louder compassion. We need our churches who will step in, not with conditions, but with comfort, compassion and truth as people wrestle with their own convictions, doubts, and stories that do not make sense. We need neighbors who will open their doors, even if their lives are messy too.

Because when the world shakes, what steadies us is not power, but love and forgiveness. I’ll never forget the way God used the kindness of a messy little church to steady a broken, lonely girl from the trailer park when the world seemed to be ending.

Go love.