Spiders and Church

There was a time in my life when I stopped going to church. I could list the varied reasons why, some justifiable and some not, but it mostly stemmed from my sense of self-worth and how I viewed the church through my lenses. Essentially, I made church all about me. It wasn’t intentional either. It started slowly with discontented feelings and “what about me” thoughts and then morphed into something I couldn't recognize until long after it had taken root and sprouted in my heart - bitterness.

Bitterness is a destructive force. It clouded the judgment of the world around me and permeated to my core. I know now how much power it had over me because I thought no one saw, heard or cared about me, even God. My insides screamed for someone to notice, but no one did, not really. After a while, the unchecked bitterness led to a numbness in my heart, allowing it to rear its ugly head as hostility, cynicism, and a disquieted spirit.

On the outside, I put on a smiling face. I wanted to ignore what was ravaging me on the inside. I felt lost and abandoned in the darkness that had been making its home in my heart. My joy was gone, and when your name is Joy, people tend to expect you to radiate joy around them. While my generally joyful nature does come naturally to me, I used it as a mask to hide what was going on inside of me. Plus, as an introvert keenly aware of others' feelings, it's easy for me to build walls around my heart to keep people from knowing mine without even realizing it. I became good at pretending I was okay, all while quietly seething inside because nobody seemed to notice that I really wasn't okay.

Not talking about or acknowledging what I was struggling with created cobwebs in my heart. My faith was not being nurtured, and I didn’t want to keep praying when I felt God wasn’t listening to the deep cries of my heart. I didn’t want to fellowship with other believers at church, primarily because I was fearful of their judgment if they knew what I was battling. And at my most angry moment, I shoved my Bible in a drawer to collect dust. I didn’t want to hear from another Christian to pray more, go to church more, or read my Bible more. None of it was helping me find the light in the darkness.

And then along came a spider.

For two years, there were a handful of times I pulled myself out of my darkness and made an effort to try going to church. On one occasion, Frank and I tried a new church. I was at a low point in my faith and desperately needed some wisdom, so I prayed all morning that someone would talk to me - that someone would notice that I wasn’t okay. If someone did, that would indicate that church was more than my perception of the people in it, but no one said a word to me going into the service.

Worship fell flat on my bitter heart. I didn’t even attempt to sing. While everyone around me was praising God, I stood there stoically stewing. I desperately wanted to worship, but I couldn't. I wanted to feel something good, but I didn't. I wanted to cry out to someone and share the burdens that weighed heavily on my heart, but no one cared. No one cared that I found the courage to step foot in a church that morning. No one cared to know who I was. No one cared to notice that my heart and faith were in shambles, longing for someone to reach out and help me piece them back together.

Sitting down after worship ended, I felt emotionally spent as I tried hard to keep the tears that threatened to spill down my face at bay. It hurt in the rawest parts of me feeling like I was invisible to the people around me. And, apparently, God didn’t care either by answering a simple prayer. It wasn’t like I was praying for a miracle, just for someone to see me, to really see me. And then, if my self-pity party wasn’t enough, a spider crawled slowly through the aisle towards my feet as if he was daring me to cry out in the middle of service.

I hate spiders. The bigger they are, the scarier they are, but their size doesn’t matter when one catches me off guard. These eight-legged creatures are not my friends. I think a spider’s sole purpose in life is to scare me unexpectedly. The thought of one crawling on me makes me cringe in irrational fear. And when I saw that spider, my body tensed, and I thought to myself, “Really, God, I ask for someone to notice me and you send me a spider!?!” It felt cruel.

I kept my eyes on that spider until he disappeared somewhere underneath my chair. For the next twenty minutes, I imagined that spider crawling up my leg and onto my lap. It was hard to focus on anything but that dark, creepy crawler. When I stood up at the end of the service, the spider was nowhere in sight. I had no idea what the pastor talked about that morning because I was lost in my thoughts, and I walked out of church more discouraged than I felt going in. I’d love to tell you that my encounter with a spider at church helped change my heart at the time, but it didn’t. In all honesty, it made me very angry. It was probably around the same time I threw my Bible in a drawer, out of my sight. And yet it left such an impression on me that I still think about my spider confrontation today.

Now that I’m in a place on my faith journey where my faith has been revived, my soul nourished in my close relationship with God, my Bible restored to its rightful place in my hands, and the cobwebs of my heart cleared, I reflect on my church spider friend with calm. While the spider didn't change my heart at the time, there are three important lessons I believe God taught me through that experience.

First, no matter what I’m going through, I have to be willing to share what I’m battling through with someone. Being transparent with my feelings when life throws painful circumstances at me is key to dealing with them. It also allows others to help me redirect my pain and see it through Jesus’ lenses rather than my own. Now, I’m not talking about simply sharing the details of difficult circumstances, but sharing the deep-rooted feelings such as fear, anguish, bitterness, anger, etc. Essentially, I have to be an open book to at least one trustworthy person. And if I want others to know what I'm struggling with, I should tell them without expecting them to figure it out on their own.

Second, I must be aware of others, especially those that step into the church. I have no idea what struggles they are bringing in the door with them, but I never want someone to sit in church praying for someone to notice them and then NOT be noticed by someone. As an introvert, it’s not always easy to walk up and talk to someone I’ve never met before. This is an area where I need to pray for courage and discernment. I also don’t want to come across as standoffish, like a spider hovering in the corner, to someone coming through the doors of the church because I’m not willing to step out of my comfort zone. Also, I want to validate people, helping them know that I see and care about them, just as God does.

Lastly, and most importantly, I must not disconnect from fellowshipping with other believers. Everyone has a time when a break from the church is needed, but based on my own experience, it shouldn't last for very long. The longer I am apart from a church family, the easier it becomes to make excuses not to be in a community with them. I risk cobwebs forming again from the lack of nurturing that being in a community brings. Church will never be perfect, but Christ is. And the more I focus on being Christ-like in my church rather than focus on what I can get out of the church, the more those “what about me” thoughts become “this is all about You, God” thoughts.

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​“Look to the right and see: there is none who takes notice of me; no refuge remains to me; no one cares for my soul.” Psalms 142:4 ESV

“Answer me quickly, O Lord! My spirit fails! Hide not your face from me, lest I be like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love, for in you I trust. Make me know the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.” Psalms 143:7-8 ESV

​“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 13:34-35 ESV

“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Galatians 6:2 ESV

“Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31-32 ESV