16 Month Absence

The full extended version nobody's heard yet

This is an expounded upon version of "There's Joy in the House of the Lord." published by God Hears Her.

When I walked through the parking lot on that freezing cold February day in 2023, I didn't look back. The pain in my chest was so heavy and oddly familiar. I didn't want to leave my church, but I had this gut-feeling I had to. When I got in the car, I said aloud in tears, "Lord, if it's not here, show me where we do belong."

When I sat on the cold bleachers in the sanctuary just 10 minutes before, amidst the pain and using everything I had to fight back tears, as I felt the gentle clarity "this is the last Sunday, Hannah" I felt at the same time "never will I leave you, never will I forsake you."

I didn't know if I would ever return, but I drove away not expecting to. For a year, I could not look, listen, or even go near the part of the city where my church was without feeling anxious, that horrifying deep pain in my chest, and partaking in behaviors that sustained a very serious eating disorder.

I wish I knew everything God needed to heal, teach, and restore in me. I wish I knew how dark and hard that season would be. But I also know that if He had told me these things, I would have left town and done everything possible to avoid it.

Somehow I knew something was coming though. In October of 2022, as I was kneeling beside my bed praying, God gave me an image of me standing on the edge of a peer over the ocean, and on the horizon was black storm clouds coming my way. A nasty storm was undoubtedly coming, and then Jesus appeared and put His arm around me.

The things I am about to share are very personal and not for sympathy. They are to show the miraculous power, love, sovereignty and faithfulness of God.

For the first two months after leaving, I cried every Saturday night and Sunday. Cried, puts it lightly. I wept as in full mental breakdowns. It hurt so much, and I didn't realize everything my body was purging through these tears and sweat. I often called my sister, who was in college, and who sacrificially left Bible study and social events to talk me down and pray over me as I screamed in pain over the phone.

I didn't understand everything God had to do in me, nor the depth of it, so I was anxious excited to find a new church, new routine, new friends; I was absolutely trying to be in control of it, and I figured whatever God had to heal, He could do it as I found my new church. The truth is, while I was eager to find a new church, I was also anxious to.

I thought, "If I don't belong there, then I need to find where I do belong." I made a list of things I liked about a church, and for two months straight I visited a new church, by myself with Jesus, every Sunday. I'll never forget the sermon I heard the first Sunday away from my church when the pastor said "God's plan is perfect, and His timing is brilliant."

At first it felt like an adventure, but shortly after, the things I was suppressing under the rug re-surfaced and before I knew it, my Sunday routine was go to [a] church, break down crying while driving home, engage in eating disorder behaviors to cope with the pain, and do it again next week.

After 2 months of church shopping, I did decide on a church. It was an enormous church so I loved that I could sit in the back, not be known by anyone, and leave. At my previous church, I was apart of groups and volunteering, so I was eager to volunteer here too-- I felt like I had to.

The church was so big it had a library, so I emailed the woman in charge and signed up to volunteer. It took a month for background checks to go through and I'll just cut to the chase; The day I was trained was my first, last and only day of volunteering,

In the month leading up to it, things had gotten bad. I was breaking down in the parking lot before church, experiencing feelings of (I hate to admit it) hatred for all the people (I didn't even know!) walking in, forcing myself to go inside, breaking down again in the parking lot after church, and then going home to partake in more eating disorder behaviors.

Until one Sunday, after I got back to my car and was in the middle of my Sunday routine breakdown, I said aloud, again, "Lord, I know You want us to go to church and be in community, but at what cost? I'm forcing myself into a building labeled 'church' every weekend but I hate the people inside Your church, and my body is shrinking because of it. Surely, this can't be what You want from and for me."

And then, without using definitive words, The Lord gave me peace about doing my own church on Sundays for a while. I drove away from church with the most peace I had after church in years.

From that point on for the next 10 months, every Sunday morning I made myself a cup of coffee, I put on my favorite overalls, and I livestreamed my favorite church back home, Moody Bible Church in Chicago, and went on a walk. During those months, slowly and invisibly, God worked in incredible ways in me.

He restored my joy of the Sabbath. A day that was once the scariest and darkest day of the week I looked forward to and found joy again.

He broke the chains that prevented me from eating on Sundays.

He showed me that my anxious desire to find a new church right away came from a perspective of legalism and worried what others would think.

He taught me that if Jesus was all that I had (and it certainly felt like that at times), I actually had all that I needed. Seeking God and Jesus alone provided a permanent fulfillment, peace, and satisfaction that nothing else gave.

He revealed to me that those emotionally violent first few months were not just mourning the church and everything I had just lost with it, it was processing for the first time in my life the pain I've always felt and attached with church since I was a little girl-- that at the place amongst the people who you expect to be the most welcomed and accepted by the most, I felt the most unwanted, inferior, and out of place.

No wonder I put the label "fake" and felt anger and hurt toward people who I didn't even know walking into a church.

As a little girl, I always had my dad to sit by with his arm around me when the kids and leaders never seemed to know how to talk to or include me. But as an adult, whose dad was 2 states away, there was nothing to comfort that familiar, painful feeling, until rock bottom brought me to Jesus.

Grieving and processing that took many months, and at the perfect time, He not only showed me but helped me to one-by-one, forgive every person who had ever hurt inside God's house. While I had gained peace again on Sundays, I didn't experience a sense of freedom until I forgave.

After this, I also experienced substantial healing from my eating disorder which showed me that I was even more sick than I thought. Over this entire season, I had one friend-- besides my sister-- routinely ask me how I was doing, never making me feel bad or ashamed.

I never told anyone else all that was happening, one, because I didn't trust God's community, and two, because I was afraid. Being a Christian, and in the place I lived, the idea of not going to a physical building for church is unfathomable. Because there's an expectation, "we're Christians. We go to church every week with a smile on our faces because that's what we do and we like it." I knew if I told others what I was going through, I would be judged. I knew people wouldn't understand. I knew people would assume false things about my faith. I knew I would feel even more ashamed and embarrassed than I already did.

And I knew people wouldn't believe me if I told them, "God had to do what on one would've suggested in order to heal me," and that was take my hand and walk me away from the physical building for a while.

For 11 of the 16 months I was away, I thought "God, Your church and Your people hurt... why can't I just spend Sundays with You?" I always trusted God, I knew He loved me, and that He was with me, but I didn't trust the people who made up His church.

About a year after I had left my church, I developed a microscopic desire to go back. The thought terrified me because I couldn't picture myself going back. I feared how I would feel, that the pain that took so long to subside would return, who I would see and what questions I would be asked. But I started praying about this desire, and on a cold night in February of 2024, I drove to the parking lot and looked at my church for the first time in a year and I prayed God's blessing over it. I prayed for the leaders and congregation, and for every person inside who had hurt me.

I prayed that if He was willing, He would open a door and make a way for me to return. I surrendered it to Him, and drove home in peace. Over the next 3 months, that desire to go back grew, and one day in June, while I was at work, I looked up my church's sermon series out of curiosity-- the first time going to their website in well over a year. When I opened the homepage, the current sermon series was a 3 week series on "Joy" (the word God had given me for the year 2024).

The sign could not have been any more clear, and so I listened to their first sermon on Joy; the first time hearing the familiar pastor's voice in almost a year and half. I felt no anxiety, no triggers of an eating disorder, no tears, and no heaviness. I wanted to go and hear week two in-person, but I think I was in partial shock and disbelief that this door was open. So I went to another church that Sunday, and all I could think during that sermon was "I belonged back at my church."

When week three came along, I prayed and thanked God fervently the night before. One of my best friends also prayed for me and even offered to go with me, because she knew how big of a deal this was. But I graciously told her, "I think I need to do this myself and show myself how strong I am." On that Sunday morning in June, I walked back through the doors I thought I'd never walk back through a year a half before.

I was timid, and still a little anxious of who I would see and get questions from, but I knew I belonged there.

And I felt like a new, stronger, creation.

For 6 months, I went every week I was in town, and journaled a couple lines every week of how I was feeling, and now it's such a testimony of God's faithfulness, but still never told anyone.

In November of 2024, I signed up for an hour prayer slot at 5a.m. in the morning as part of a 24 hour prayer week my church was doing. When I got to the prayer room, I spent the hour thanking God for all that He graciously did, that I didn't deserve.

I prayed for my family, friends, and those who hurt me. In January of 2025, I started going to the Saturday evening service volunteering with the kid's ministry on Sunday mornings, and in April I joined a women's Bible study again-- which brings us to present day of writing this.

The people who learned of my return all happened organically. There were many times when I wanted to tell people about what had happened, but the fear of people not listening, and the desire of treasuring the special thing God did for me kept me quiet.

Friends, God is good. He is faithful, and everything happens in His perfect timing. His ways are perfect, and despite all He has already done and restored, I know He is still working.

Thank you for reading :)