Prompt number 3. Moment. Pick one moment during which you felt most alive this year. Describe it in vivid detail (texture, smells, voices, noises, colors)
Over this summer I got to go to Applegate Church, which is in Jacksonville, Oregon. They have this amazing outdoor amphitheater where you sit on the grass and when you sing praise and worship, you can look up at the sky and sing right to God. It was awesome. At that time I was still attending my old church, and hadn't really felt at home there in a long while. I'm learning to be open and accepting of this intense passion I have for tattoos and people being free to express themselves, and that greatly has tied into what church I go to and this experience at Applegate. 
All of the churches I've ever been to, at one time or another, have either mentioned in a sermon or preached a sermon focused on how tattoos are wrong. I find that so disheartening. It's hard to have something you're so passionate about preached against. But anyways!

Here I am visiting two of my best friends in Oregon, and their mom and I go to this awesome church. And I'm standing there singing surrounded by all these people, and I finally feel at home. I'm loving that I can see the sky and am surrounded by these gorgeous mountains; the air smells as only Oregon air can smell (it's this sort of crispness that makes my lungs go "Yay!"). I'm seeing tons of people with tattoos, and knowing that there's no judgement here. I'm finally in a place that is not focused on the "you're wrong for this" and "you're wrong for liking that" but instead on the BIG picture. 

I started crying. You know when you have a super stressful day, and there's a moment that comes when you lay down in your bed at the close of the day and just breath a sigh of relief, because your day is finally over, that stress is finally gone? That's how it was. I cried out of happiness. Out of finally finding a place where I didn't feel judged. I cried because I had found a place that felt like home.
Picture
This was the amphitheater during one of their young adults services on a different day.

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