Clarksville, TN - Grace Community Church

            My husband and I both grew up Catholic. Neither of us were happy with our experience, and on our wedding day we crossed our fingers behind our backs as we vowed to raise our kids catholic.  I still can’t decide if we were hoping that God didn’t realize we were getting married under the guise of a lie, or if we hoped He saw that as our promise that when He blessed us with children we’d get it all figured out.  But, until then we justwanted to live our lives and have some fun.

            Growing up catholic I don’t think I really learned exactly what it meant to be a Christian.  I do consider Catholicism to be a form of Christianity and I do think if I went back into a catholic church it would all make much more sense, however at the time I think I got the real message mixed up with a lot of ritual, practice, and “church” faces.  I read the Left Behind series in college and realized how wrong my “pick and choose” view of Christianity was; how I won’t just by default go to Heaven for being a good person; that in fact none of us are good enough.  However, I was still not ready to take that step to decide I wanted more.  I just stored that knowledge away in the back of my mind. I figured if the end of times came maybe I could be on the Tribulation Force!

            Well, as time passed I quickly became pregnant and it was also becoming clear that Ryan would eventually have to deploy to fight in this war that was going on.  Talk about a time in my life when I knew my faith had to be reconciled!  Even more than the deployment, I think the anticipation of our first daughter really made Ryan and me step back and examine our faith and us.  We knew it was one thing if we screwed it all up and did not get to spend eternity with God, but if we taught our children the wrong “truth” that was just unacceptable!  So, we started searching for what exactly the truth is! 

My husband and I are the type of people that need proof,  evidence, so we delved into books and found a small free will Baptist church to go to with an amazing pastor who helped us start our journey.  We were both baptized in the spring of 2004, shortly before our first daughter, Abigail was born.  He deployed one more time and put both of our newfound faith to the test.  When he returned neither of us were happy with our current church or our current faith; we were ready to quit and go back to status quo – it just wasn’t all it was cracked up to be, bible belt or not!

Then we found Grace.  Ryan was uncomfortable with GCC at first.  He likes to know people and felt like the environment was just too big and he didn’t feel like we could get personally involved.  I disagreed, I thought Grace was different, and so I persuaded him to go on and off for awhile.  Eventually I got involvedwith the mom’s playgroup and began working in Grace Acres.  Through both I met many moms I already considered friends; real friends, not just church friends!  Friends I felt like I could be myself with, I didn’t have to put on a front with.  I kept trying to push my husband to get more involved and we slowly did. 

Then, God did some work.  In the first few months of our regular attendance, Chad Rowland invited us to be in his community group.  Through that, my husband found  some good Christian men to be friends with, and he discovered Men’s Fraternity.  I can safely say that if Chad had not invited us into that group, we may not still be attending Grace.  Where does that happen?  In a church with hundreds (at the time) of people, the pastor notices some new faces and invites them to be part of their community group.  At Grace!  This is the type of place where you can truly call your pastors and other church faculty your friends.

I oftentimes refer to myself as a reformed Catholic.  I thought I believed in a God, but I didn’t believe in church.  What I realized was that not only did I not believe in church, but also because I was in an environment that was so full of ritual and putting on the face, that I really didn’t even know who God, or for that matter, Jesus was!  Grace changed that for me.  Grace is a place where it is ok to be yourself, to be messed up, to not have it all together.  It is a place where I feel like I know and love so many people, and I know that they need the grace of Jesus just as much as I do; it’s a place where we can all grow together!  It is a place where I finally feel like God loves me no matter what.  Not only that, but Grace has helped me learn that God loves everyone else no matter what, too.  Not just people who are catholic, or people who go to confession regularly, or people who to go church every Sunday and say the rosary, or people who vow to raise their kids catholic and were baptized as infants, or those who sing the loudest or bow their heads the longest or go up for the invitation every week, or those who don’t sin. 

Grace has taught me that we’re all sinners and that God overlooks thousands of our own sins, so why shouldn’t we overlook hundreds of our fellow citizens? Grace has taught me that it is ok, even cool and fun to love and serve Jesus, and finally I am in a place where I can say I am proud of that relationship that I am slowly but surely starting to grow, and more confident sharing it with others.

Between my husband and I we nowlead/help organize a few different groups through Grace, which we are absolutely unqualified for – but we now realize all of us are unqualified when compared to Him, and we’ve grown so much we know it is all in God’s plan.  We serve every week, and we actually do it with a “happy” heart (most of the time), unbelievable!  I truly love getting to know the little ones in Grace Acres and watching them grow in their own faith.  Also, watching my kids have a church experience and more important a relationship with God that I never had brings me to tears, even if Adam is teaching them through Pirate McPoopy Pants yet again.  The get it, they love it, and they always want to go back for more.

We as a family, church, and community, are seeking out God and His word in so many new and exciting ways, and we can only attribute this to God working through Grace Community Church and into our hearts.  Grace continues to challenge my family and me, and I can’t wait to see what happens tomorrow, next week, and next year or in 20 year!  In good times and in bad, I know my church family loves me unconditionally and non judgmentally, and will always be there to do whatever they can for my community, my family, and me.  What an amazing feeling and what an amazing work of our Lord and Savior.