the Empathy List #54: Need Machines

Needing God more than ever.

Hey friend, Liz here.

I’ve been on a spiritual journey for some time now.

I was brought up conservative, nondenominational, and firmly evangelical in a (practically) all white suburban East Coast city. My parents brought us to our big box church every Sunday where they volunteered. I attended youth group lock-ins and the sort of teen bible studies that asked you to fill in the blanks every few sentences. I also spent several summers in Mexico building concrete block houses as part of a “short term mission” team.

(No, obviously, I had no experience either building houses or working with concrete. What an irrelevant question to ask!! We had something more important than experience: a white savior complex……….!)

Before eighth grade, I had spent the majority of my allowance money on NOW mix CDs from Sam Goodie or glittery make-up from Claire’s, in order to catch the eye of a popular boy at my private Christian school, in case he might want to date me. (It didn’t matter that I wasn’t allowed t…