Changing Friendships Got Me Through

And I'm thankful for those friendships for a season, even if that season has passed

Photo by Syda Productions on Canva Pro

Note: The story of my faith journey, church trauma, and spiritual abuse is inextricably linked to the stories of my parents and sisters, but this is my story. Their experiences, memories, and hurt are separate from my own and I do not speak for them. Details are also their own and not mine to share, and so I keep the details where they matter only to my own experiences.

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Moving when you are sixteen is devastating. Moving as a result of church trauma brings a different kind of devastation to a teenager who has deeply embraced her faith but is left with unanswerable questions in the wake of that trauma.

In Wyoming, I had friends of all stripes at my relatively large public school. (When you live in a state with a population less than the closest actual city—Denver—one thousand students is a large school.) I had friends who were Mormon, non-Christian, Catholic, and of course, my close youth group friends from my Lutheran church. And while I loved my non-youth group friends, both Christian and not, those Lutheran youth group friends kept me grounded in both my faith and my life.

My best friend was a year behind me, and by the time she joined me at the high school, she was constantly looking out for her boy-crazy best friend to ensure that I wasn’t losing my head over yet another boy. Despite the religious conservativism of my peers’ parents, regardless of faith tradition, most of my peers struggled to find safe activities to occupy their time in a town of 10,000 people. Drinking, sex, and drugs were a normal part of life, but one that my youth group friends mostly avoided.

But moving to Michigan completely removed me from an environment that provided a near-constant safety net.

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When We Left the Mountains Behind

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It was a long goodbye. We went on our first family trip back to Michigan at the beginning of summer while Dad deliberated the Call. We returned in time for me to spend some time with my non-youth group high school friends. I went on a date with my friend Chris, fulfilling a promise I had made to him in the spring when he blindsided me after lunch by asking me out. I went up to the mountains with another group of friends for a picnic lunch, driving up past the closest town and along the canyon, soaking in the last of the mountains that I would experience for the next year.

I traveled with my youth group to San Antonio for the national youth gathering of LCMS youth, connecting with old friends from Illinois and hanging out with several of my evangelism friends from around the country.

I got home in time to pack for my next church adventure: summer training with my church-connected evangelism program. When I left in the fifteen-passenger van, I said goodbye to Riverton. My parents would finish the packing and wait for the moving van while I was in Salt Lake City and I would hitch a ride with a Colorado group so that I could meet my family for a family reunion with my dad’s side of the family. I spent the next week fully immersing myself in everything that I could with friends from around the country that I hadn’t seen in a year. I played my guitar, sang with my evangelism team, went to workshops, and ate meals with people who helped me temporarily forget the pain of everything I was leaving behind.

I also got my first boyfriend.