It’s time for the latest installment in the “Her Story Matters” series. (If you missed the first one, you can check it out here: http://daniellefarina.theworldrace.org/post/her-story-matters)
When we were in Europe, I met many women with many incredible stories, but I want to share just one with you today. For security purposes, I have changed her name to Em.
Em is from a small farming village. She grew up here with her father, mother, and two brothers. As she got older, she moved to the nearest big city to attend college. She didn’t tell me much about her childhood except for the fact that her brothers taught her how to fight, and her father wouldn’t let her move to the city until she could prove that she could defend herself.
When I met Em, she was in her second year of college and working as a barista/bartender. She was an incredibly busy individual and understandably stressed about all the things she had to get done in a day. We bonded over this aspect of life, as I told her I totally understood; when I was in my second and third years of college, I worked two jobs as well. She warmed up to me after this and I was able to give her a few tips for what helped me survive that time of life.
Em then proceeded to tell me that school and work were not the only reasons she was stressed out. She said, “I’ve let my family down.” When I asked her what she meant, she said “My father’s one requirement for me to move to the city to go to school was that I be able to defend myself, and I failed. Now he knows and he is trying to force me to move back home. It’s my fault. I froze.” She wanted to cry, but she blinked back the tears. She never told me the details of what happened and I didn’t want to push it. We both sat in silence as I gathered my thoughts and she collected herself again.
After a few minutes, I asked her how long she had been trying to prevent moving home and she said it had been a few months. We then discussed her possible options for the future. She then revealed that her family was mad at her, her parents wouldn’t look her in the eye, the police didn’t believe her, the church she grew up in had disowned her, and she had so much fear inside about it all that she “sometimes could barely function and most of the time wanted didn’t want to even live.” She proceeded to reveal that one of the main reasons she didn’t want to move back wasn’t because she didn’t want to quit school and her job to move back in with her parents, but was because the only place/people who believed her was the church she had in the city. The tears disappeared and her anxiety noticeably calmed when she began telling me all about this place she found solace, the people in which she found hope, and the one true God in which she found healing and refuge. The more she talked about church the more she smiled and the lighter the environment got. She told me they were the only people who believed her, the only people who knew what happened to her and didn’t look at her any differently. She said she was seeking healing from the Lord and that she had some hope and believed he had the power to help her through it all.
This, my friends, is the power of the church. This is the beauty of community. This is a living example of Christ on earth. Church is the community of God coming together to defeat darkness and build one another up in the love of the Father. The power of God shown through the church body is what saved Em’s life, and countless others like her. Church is not just what we do on Sunday mornings, it is way more powerful than that.
