Reconstructing Triggers

When moving on also means moving with

Photo by Kelli McClintock on Unsplash

This past year has challenged me to come to peace with triggers that I had previously rendered immutable. Especially my triggers around large-church-evangelicalism. After firmly transitioning into the mainline tradition, I didn’t think I’d revisit evangelicalism, either in entirety or in part. I was done with huge glass buildings, heavy branding, worshipping in the dark, and uncomfortably Calvinistic theology.

But I also had a problem: I needed an affordable and academically sound preschool for my youngest child, which, ideally, would also support him in the faith. And I knew from firsthand experience that the options in our community were slim. However, my Anglican priest had raved about his girls’ experience at the school in our area’s largest evangelical church: they were solid in faith and academics, and sat at an affordable price point. He suggested that I consider it.

One problem: this didn’t jive with the enlightened, trigger-avoidant aspects of my faith I’d cultivated post-deconstruction. I considered large-church-evangelicalism an unopenable box, neatly containing past hurts, points of confusion, and experiences. I didn’t think I’d ever peek into that box again. It wasn’t worth the triggers.

Right?

The question kept nudging me; could I partially reenter this world for the sake of an enriching (and affordable) preschool experience? Or would I let my triggers keep my son and me away no matter what?

In the end, I made the purposeful decision to enroll at the church’s preschool, knowing there was a psychological journey ahead, but convinced it was the best thing to do.

At the beginning of the year, things were complicated. Every time I pulled into the church parking lot, I felt the old triggers surface. I couldn’t park straight; I kept hitting curbs that should have been easy to avoid (granted, this is already my tendency). As I walked him in, my mind lumped all the families together in an unfair monolith against which I felt like a disguised apostate, terrified of anyone catching a whiff of progressiveness.

My anthem for driving away from school after drop-off was Taylor Swift’s “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together.” Meaning, “Not today, large-church-evangelicalism! I’ve moved on!”

But as the year went on, my prideful particularity began to slowly crumble. My son’s favorite part of the school week became chapel, a place I was previously afraid could steep him in restrictive, unfair theology. He latched on to the stories of Jonah and the whale, David and the giant, and Jesus dying and rising again. And the way he talked about God wasn’t formulaic or overly obsessed with sin; it was delightful. I didn’t think this was possible to come out of an evangelical context, and I was convicted of my allegiance to a self-fabricated, false dichotomy. The Church, for all its errors and its different manifestations, was still The Church. Where Jesus was proclaimed, there was light. And this poked holes in my “enlightened” box. Being enlightened didn’t mean just being in a new box; it meant the wisdom to grow without throwing everything from the past away. To realize which triggers were severe enough to pose a threat to mental health and which triggers could be overcome for the sake of moving forward.

Gradually, throughout the year, I began to park straight. I stopped the musical declarations of an evangelical breakup. I repented of the negative thoughts I had unfairly harbored toward the school’s culture. I made an effort to engage with the moms in the drop off line and started to see the grace of God on display in people that, even though they didn’t seem like “my” people, were nonetheless people filled with an earnest love for Jesus and kids.

I felt, for the first time, that I had come to peace with evangelicalism. It wasn’t ever going to be my church home nor my primary theological lens. I stand firmly against the MAGA leanings and female diminishment that so often go hand in hand with church (especially in the South). But it’s not all bad. I don’t think “bad” is even the right word; maybe a better way to say it is that it’s not all off-limits. There are parts that I can leave behind and parts that I can bring with me. I don’t want to teach my kids a false binary of evangelical vs. mainline; I want them to be flexible and to see Jesus without strict, denominational categories.

In the end, I didn’t need to be afraid of an evangelical school telling my four-year-old that Jesus loved him. He loved them telling him this. He loved telling me this after school. He grew in kindness and intelligence. And it was thanks to the communion of saints that, before this year, I had considered off-limits. Triggers are not always immutable; growth is always possible. Especially with the Lord being our helper.