My niece, Cindy and I

My parents weren’t religious minded, but for a short period, we did attend church together as a family when I was a little girl. They had faith and believed in God strongly enough that church was an important event. My mom dressed me up and fixed my hair so that I looked my Sunday best each week. I even carried a little white patent leather purse to match my white patent mary janes. Of course, you only wore white shoes in the spring and summer; black shoes were for the fall and winter months. Oh how I hated wearing those ridiculous tights and shoes! How I lamented putting them on every Sunday morning. At some point, I threw a big enough fit to convince my mom that I no longer needed to wear those wretched tights and mary janes. I graduated to pantyhose and small heels. Woohoo.

My parents and I attended a small Methodist church somewhere in Shady Grove, a little suburb in Bossier City, Louisiana. My mom signed me into childcare so she and dad could attend the big service. It was a traumatic event each Sunday. I was the screaming child trying to cling to my mom for dear life. I don’t recall exactly how old I was during that time, but I’m guessing around the age of kindergarten – 1st grade. Little did I know then that I was experiencing severe separation anxiety, something I struggled with up through 4th grade, a symptom of attachment disorder. I was so painfully shy and felt like my whole world tumbled upside down once my mom left me. Occasionally, I’d sit in the big service with my parents. I’m sure after a while, the drama of leaving me in childcare became too exasperating for my poor mom. The sermon was oh so boring, and I would fidget through the whole thing. After service, my parents and I often went out to lunch to the Officer’s Club at Barksdale Air Force Base. Now that was cool. In my little girl mind, I thought the club was so fancy. The tables were lined with starched white linen tablecloths, and the dining room seemed so spacious and beautiful. My parents enjoyed going to the Officer’s Club. I enjoyed my biscuits and gravy.

In my later elementary years, my parents stopped going to church. They still, however, made sure I went every Sunday. Imagine that. By then, they began sending me to a different church, Bellaire Baptist; that’s right, fire and brimstone each week from the pulpit for the adults. Mom still dressed me up, typically in a dress that she’d sewn herself, and did my hair. I loved having my hair set in those spongy pink rollers the night before so that it was curly the next day. Every Sunday morning, a little red church bus would come to my house. Bellaire Baptist had a bus service that transported kids around our neighborhood to and from church. I’d sit in our front living room and peer out the window waiting for that bus to arrive. The driver, J.D. Harris, and a very sweet man, opened the bus doors and greeted each kid with a big smile on his face. I can remember his face and that smile clear as day. I knew most of the kids who were picked up because we all went to the same school. I got to church for 3 years on that little red church bus, my bible and devotional in hand. I was the kid in Sunday school class who read my weekly devotional and memorized the memory scripture faithfully.

I have fond memories of that little red bus and J.D.’s bright smile upon greeting all of us each Sunday. When I got to high school, I quit going to church; boys and socializing became more of a priority. In college, I sometimes attended church, but it was rather sporadic. I write about all of this because last week at my women’s study group, I was reminiscing about that little red church bus and my mom. She was the first person to instill in me a faith in God. Mom eventually went back to her Catholic roots. I’d go to mass with her every once in awhile. I never quite understood the whole standing up, kneeling, sitting, communion part of the service, but I do know that going to mass together encouraged her a great deal.

After college, I became quite faithless and avoided church like the plague. Religious people seemed hypocritical and unrelatable. I still believed in God, but often questioned the establishment of church. Eventually, I started going back to church when I moved to Orange County, California and was met by a college student who invited me to go to her church. That is a completely different story, which maybe I’ll write about sometime. The good thing about that experience is that I developed a much deeper spirituality, learned a lot of life lessons, and made some very wonderful friends.

I believe that God allows all things to happen for a reason. Reuniting with my birth family has only been possible because of God. His timing is perfect. It amazes me how all the pieces fell into place at just the right time from connecting with Tien, the person who helped me find my birth family, to finding my sisters just weeks before my trip to Taiwan. I scheduled my flight to Taiwan not knowing if we’d find my sisters or not. Personally, my faith in God has gone through the wringer over the past several years, but thankfully, God proves that he never gives up on me time and again. Faith can be such a fickle thing. There’s a scripture that says, “train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” (Proverbs 22:6, NIV). My mom did good when she put me on that little red church bus every Sunday.