Parking Lot Panic Attacks
Parking Lot Panic Attacks:
Realizing the limits of perfections and the power of grace
by Sara Kernan
I sat with my hands neatly folded and my legs wildly restless on the worn couch in my counselor’s office trying to breathe through tears that had escaped from their place and were now making canyons down my cheeks.
No surprise, I'm a big crier. And in the warmly lit, Cubs memorabilia office of my counselor, it felt safe to cry with this stranger that I now just poured my heart out to.
I finally decided to take care of my head and heart and seek therapy after neglecting my anxiety for too long. I had carried my hurts to the point of immobility. There comes a point where your baggage just gets too heavy and you need someone else to help you carry it. And then you need them to teach you how to pack it lighter, next time.
I had dragged my luggage across state lines. I knew my anxiety was being mismanaged but just didn’t care. My panic attacks had reached double-digit daily and my lungs were used to feeling like rags being wrung out over and over. When you mismanage your baggage long enough, you just kind of forget that it can be better. Anxiety becomes a security blanket, a personality marker.
Without this, who am I? Someone’s got to be panicking around here. But the anxiety started moving into uncharted territories once heartaches and hurts piled on.
I went into that office with a lot I wanted to talk about. I wanted to talk about how I had started to fear leaving my house. How words get caught in my throat. How I was really, really mad at Christians and would have panic attacks in church parking lots. How faith used to be my biggest identifier and it’s now a giant question mark in my life. I wanted to talk about the year I had just survived and how I’m just so, so tired.
And then I found out my counselor was a Christian. I caught on quickly to it. College certificates on the wall, desk items around her monitor, her basic demeanor. We danced around faith.
And then we started talking about church hurts. And then the tears came. Because church hurts are a profound level of hurt.
The people who read the same Scripture we read, worship the same God, and gather in the same place can cause the deepest wounds. Anyone involved in church knows them.
Churches split.
Judgment replaces grace and fellowship.
Rules, tradition, and piety trump love, compassion, and people.
Invisible bars are placed around buildings keeping out who we don’t want in.
We publicly shame, we misquote, we discount emotions (unless those emotions are #blessed).
We mirror a group called the Pharisees instead of a group called disciples.
My baggage included a lot of things. Many suitcases filled with church hurts that I didn’t know how to fix. So I sat in the warmly lit office of a Cubs fan counselor prepared to spill my words. Once they started they wouldn't stop, as if I had been desperate to tell someone for too long. Do you see this? Can you help me?
“When Christians fail us we sometimes blame God,” she told me.
A sudden click. I was so mad at my church hurts because the behavior I had seen, I assigned to the way God must feel. The hate and judgment and hurt that I witnessed I felt was a mirror of God, Creator in my mind.
“When Christians fail us we sometimes blame God,” she told me.
A sudden click. I was so mad at my church hurts because the behavior I had seen, I assigned to the way God must feel. The hate and judgment and hurt that I witnessed I felt was a mirror of God, Creator in my mind.
Friends, Christians are people. And I think I forget that we are going to fail. WE are not going to represent the goodness of God perfectly every time. We are going to fail hard, and people might be hurt along the way. I might be hurt along the way.
I can't have a faith built on the actions of people, because it will fail every time. We are imperfect people in love with and representing a perfect God.
The church hurts you’re carrying ... They’re made by imperfect people, and in their misrepresentation, we should not confuse them with the character of God.
We will all fail. I know I have had my share of misrepresenting God and hurting others. I can only hope that we own where we fail, and heal, and heal, and heal.
The goal is not perfection. It’s humility and continuously showing up. It’s forgiveness. Forgiveness can have boundaries and space for healing at the same time. Recovering from church hurts does not require a prerequisite of removing boundaries. Having boundaries and finding forgiveness can exist hand-in-hand.
I spent so long being hurt because of accusing the church hurts I experienced as acts endorsed by God -- an approval from Him slapped on every hateful action, every misquoted Scripture.
The character of God will never fail. It’s immutable and perfect. And while as Christians we will fail one another, there is perfect truth in who God is and where our faith should be. Because our faith must be in God, not in the people who make up a congregation.
And when I feel church hurts weigh on my heart again, I now focus heavenward on the consistent and never-changing character of God.
God is grace.
God is love.
God is just.
God is faithful.
God is consistent.
God is merciful.
I am able to enter the doors of a church again with the boundaries I need to have but also with forgiveness for when these human people fall short because they will. We all will. There is grace for all of us in all the ways we fall short.