Into The Light

New Sundays

I slowly roll out of bed and walk into my bathroom. I stood under the hot water for a few minutes, trying to wake myself up, after about 20 minutes, the water starts to get cold, I quickly rinse the conditioner out of my hair, and turn off the water. I wrap a towel around myself and start to blow dry my hair. It takes around 45 minutes for me to finish getting ready

Sarah had told me to come over by 8:30 so we could leave for church. I check the clock and notice that I only have 10 minutes left to get ready. I brush my teeth, grab my purse and walk out the front door and over to Sarah's house. I knock on the door, which was almost immediately opened by Sarah.

"Good Morning, Lila! My parents will be ready in a minute,"

As soon as those words left her mouth, her parents walk into the living room.

"Good morning Lila,"

"Good morning Mr. And Mrs. Campbell,"

"You girls ready to go?" her dad asks

"Yes, we're ready," Sarah says

"Alright let's go,"

We walk out of the house and get into their car. Her dad backs down their driveway and begins the 20-minute drive to church.

As time slowly passed, I could feel myself becoming more and more anxious. The last time I was in a church was my dad's funeral, three months ago.

"You okay?" Sarah asks

"I'm a little anxious,"

"I promise you have nothing to worry about Lila, you have me, Luke and Zack and I know you'll make other friends too," She says reassuringly, placing her hand on mine. I couldn't explain it, but I started to feel peace, almost like I knew everything was going to be okay.

"We're here," her dad says as he turns into the parking lot. "We'll drop you girls off at the entrance so you can get to class,"

Sarah and I get out of the car and she leads the way through the main lobby, we walked through a set of double doors and into the gymnasium where they served coffee.

"Do you want to get some coffee before we go to youth group?"

"Yeah, why not, I didn't drink any this morning,"

"Really? That's surprising, you love coffee,"

"I know, but I was so anxious this morning that I couldn't eat anything or drink coffee,"

"Makes sense,"

I made myself a cup of black coffee, and wait for Sarah to finish making hers. Once she finishes, I follow her into a classroom that was attached to the gym. I could see Luke and a few others standing in the front of the room talking.

Sarah starts to walk toward them, but I sat down in the last row of chairs, closest to the wall. I pulled out my phone and mindlessly scrolled through Instagram. I didn't look up from my phone until someone sat down beside me.

"Hey Lila! I'm glad you came this morning,"

"Hey Zack, "I honestly had second thoughts about coming this morning, I only came because they were going to be talking about camp,"

"Why did you have second thoughts?"

"I'm not like everyone else. I don't know what I believe about God,"

"You're always welcome here, this is a safe place where you can learn about God and ask questions if you need to,"

"I know, I guess I'm just dealing with all of this inner doubt. If God loves me, why did I have to go through so much bullying, why did he take my dad away from me,"