Home Is Where My People Are: The Roads That Lead Us to Where We Belong

by Sophie Hudson

  In fact, I’ll never forget the night I asked my daddy to sign the permission slip so I could run.

  “I think it’s great that you’re running,” he said. “But don’t you want to aim a little higher? Maybe take on a little more responsibility?”

  “No, sir,” I replied. “I think I’m good. This will be perfect.”

  It was maximum involvement with minimum risk, a pattern that I’m sort of ashamed to tell you has held steady for the better part of thirty years. Keep in mind that from the time I was sixteen until I was about twenty-eight, there was nothing that seemed more appealing to me than working as a background singer for James Taylor. To my way of thinking, it was the perfect job: not too mainstream, not too trendy—but a loyal, established audience that makes for a safe performance environment.

  (The fact that I had next to no talent in terms of singing was never a consideration.)

  (I felt certain that we’d work out all of those pretend details for my pretend job at my pretend audition.)

  Well.

  When that year’s Chi O officer elections were over, I was the new corresponding secretary, a role that couldn’t have been more perfect for my behind-the-scenes-please personality. The corresponding secretary had two primary responsibilities—checking the mail and writing thank-you notes—and since I could do both of those things in my sweats and/or pajamas, I felt like the required skills were well within my personal wheelhouse. I may not be good at much, people, but I can for sure unlock a post office box and write some sentences thanking a bunch of fraternity boys for, like, THE BEST SWAP EVER. I was perfectly comfortable with my ability to fulfill my duties.

  However, there was one part of being an officer that gave me pause: I was going to have to move into the sorority house, which meant I was going to have to leave my beloved Daph. Granted, I’m sure Daph and I did things to get on each other’s nerves when we lived together, but we were both night owls, we were both overthinkers, and we were both far too familiar with all the John Hughes movies. That was all we needed.

  Since there was only one other sophomore officer—a blonde, green-eyed girl from Alabama who was the new pledge trainer—I suspected we’d be roommates when we moved into the house in January. And keep in mind: I wasn’t looking for any new close friends. Emma Kate and I actually lived across the hall from each other in the dorm, but we’d never really run in the same circles. In addition to being a very busy marketing major, Emma Kate was superinvolved in a couple of campus ministries (which I was, um, NOT), so she liked to “wake up early” and “get dressed for the day” and “schedule her time.” This level of discipline didn’t necessarily line up with my personal approach to college life, which was more along the lines of “HEY! I know I have a botany test at eight tomorrow morning, but if we go to the Randy Travis concert and stop by Allgood’s for cheeseburgers after and then ride around and sing old Steve Miller Band songs until about two in the morning, I can still study for FIVE HOURS before I take a quick shower and go to class!”

  I am not saying that my methods were successful. I am simply saying that they were my methods.

  And I am also saying that I was somewhat delusional.

  Even though Emma Kate and I had never hung out very much, we certainly weren’t strangers. We’d visited off and on throughout that fall semester and started to get to know each other when I knocked on her door after I realized that I’d been hearing the same Amy Grant song playing on the other side of her door for the better part of two weeks. As it turned out, Emma Kate had been asked to sing a solo at the next Fellowship of Christian Athletes meeting, so she’d been practicing “In a Little While” like crazy. I thought she had to be about ninety-four varieties of brave since she’d agreed to sing in front of other people, but Emma Kate, who tackles every challenge in her life head-on, wasn’t fazed in the least.

  One afternoon I even sat in EK’s dorm room and listened to her practice her song a couple of times—a process that just fascinated me to no end because, as a general rule, I never like to rehearse anything in front of anybody because I am far too self-conscious. Emma Kate, on the other hand, has always valued feedback and constructive criticism, and EVEN NOW I CANNOT BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW UNCOMFORTABLE THIS LEVEL OF VULNERABILITY MAKES ME.

  Please pardon me for one moment while I take some deep breaths and lo, perhaps even a dab of anti-anxiety medication.

  I told Emma Kate that I thought her song was real pretty, and after she talked for a minute or so about whether she needed to sing a certain part higher or lower, she said, “Hey! Why don’t you go with me to FCA this week? It’ll make it easier for me to sing if there’s a friendly face, and besides, you’ll get to hear a good message from the speaker!”

  And then I think she may have winked.

  My affection for sleeping in on Sunday mornings wasn’t exactly a big secret.

  But that affection had never run up against the persistent evangelism of a sassy little firecracker from Hamilton, Alabama.

  Now this is only my opinion—certainly not some proven theory—but in many cases, I think, moving our faith from the (mostly) safe environments of our home churches and our childhood homes into dorm rooms and first apartments and college literature classes involves a fair amount of spiritual wrestling. Because while I know with everything in me—and the Lord and I have discussed this on countless occasions—that He “began a good work in [me]” (Philippians 1:6) when I was in ninth grade at Camp Wesley Pines, there was a point around seventeen or eighteen when that “good work” was like a boat with a flooded engine.

  Seriously. I felt like I was out in the middle of a lake, trying over and over to get the whole faith thing cranked up again. But mostly it was just a lot of noise, a lot of smoke, and a lot of flailing about while I floated around in pretty much the exact same place.

  So by my nineteenth birthday, I had more questions than answers. Did I believe in God? Yes. Did I believe that His Son, Jesus, died on the cross as the sacrificial atonement for my sin? Absolutely. Did I believe that part of the Apostles’ Creed that I’d faithfully recited for most of my life—the part that says, “The third day he rose from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead”?

  Amen.

  Yep. Sure did.

  Did I have any idea how all that stuff was supposed to inform and impact and illuminate my day-to-day life?

  Nope. Sure didn’t. And I was too prideful, too stubborn, too ashamed to admit to anyone that while, yes, I was crystal clear on the major points of my salvation, I was pretty foggy on what it meant to really walk out that thing.

  So as a result, I did something we’re especially good at doing down here in the Bible Belt: I pretended.

  I played church.

  And I told myself that was enough.

  There were all kinds of problems that led to this pattern of going through the spiritual motions, of course—starting with some faulty theology and then working out from there. If I’d read a lick of The Great Gatsby at that point of my life, surely to goodness I would have seen bits and pieces of myself in Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan and the myriad ways they created elaborate facades that they wanted to believe were real. Because if I were honest, I’d have admitted that I was much more interested in playing the part of Sweet Christian Girl than I was in seeing the Lord transform my mind and my heart.

  And the bottom line, I reckon, is that what I really wanted was for Him to make me look good. I wanted to be a good girl with a good reputation. I wanted to have good friends and get a good degree and find a good job. I looked forward to the time when I’d marry a good man and buy a good house in a good neighborhood and drive a good car and maybe have a couple of good kids who would, naturally, go to good schools.

  But God’s best? Oh, that was nowhere on my spiritual radar.

  So in the midst of all that, you might be thinking that my spiritual life was pretty bleak in the
year of our Lord 1989.

  And you’d be right about that.

  But let me tell you what the Lord did.

  He sent me a pledge trainer named Emma Kate Payne.

  The night of Emma Kate’s big solo at FCA, I decided I might as well tag along. I’d tried going to a couple of different Christian organizations that met on campus at State, but I never made them a priority. Plus, since I was walking around with so many questions, I couldn’t shake the feeling that everybody at Reformed University Fellowship or Campus Crusade or wherever was fully trained in Living the Christian Life, and I was the kid sitting in the back of the room who couldn’t quite seem to catch on.

  And let me be clear: I could have gone to my parents or my high school youth group leader or about a hundred other people at any point and confessed the specifics of my struggle and blurted out my questions and listened to some wise counsel. But I didn’t. My pride told me that I shouldn’t, and I didn’t see any point in arguing.

  Emma Kate and I zipped over to the FCA meeting in her gray Honda Accord, and after she parked and retrieved all her audio equipment, we walked to the cafeteria in the athletic dorm. The first order of business after we arrived was to set up Emma Kate’s boom box on the podium, and while I realize that today we could set up a theater-class sound system using only an iPhone and a pair of pocket-size speakers, the late eighties were a different technological day.

  I didn’t know anybody at the meeting besides Emma Kate, so I found a seat and smiled awkwardly while she visited with a few of her football player friends. I contented myself by thinking that I looked pretty cute in my red corduroy skirt and my oversize mock-turtleneck sweater with a giant bar code and “ETC.” emblazoned on the front.

  After the introductory prayer and a few remarks by somebody I didn’t know, Emma Kate stood up to sing.

  I was off-the-charts nervous for her. But after she finished the first verse, she looked totally at peace as she started to sing the chorus. As someone who’d practically earned a minor in the music of Amy Grant, I’d heard the song hundreds of times. But one part of that chorus jumped out at me:

  We’re just here to learn to love him

  We’ll be home in just a little while.

  Fair enough, Amy.

  But I was increasingly certain that I might need some lessons and maybe even some directions.

  Emma Kate and I were supposed to move into the Chi O house after New Year’s, and over Christmas break she called me at my parents’ house to talk about important things like matching comforters and throw pillows. We gradually shifted into a discussion about what we’d been doing over Christmas break, so I told her all about my high school friends and the fifty-three ways we’d celebrated Christmas together over the course of about eight days. Any visit to Myrtlewood during my college years tended to be an exercise in community building: we went to the movies, visited with each other’s parents, rotated from one house to the next, and traveled up, down, and over narrow rural roads while we sang R.E.M. and George Michael and Robert Palmer. Our time together was effortless, but even then, I think, we knew to treasure it, to hold it tight, to take good care of it. We were nineteen and all too aware that Real Live Adulthood was just around the corner, and golly-dog if our mamas hadn’t taught us how to treasure those friendships and love each other really well.

  Emma Kate asked lots of questions about our tight-knit group of folks; since she had graduated from a much smaller high school in a much smaller town, she’d had a different experience (not necessarily worse—just different). She told me about several of her close friends, including one who attended a small Christian college. EK went on to relay a story that friend had told her, and while I don’t remember all the details, I do know that there was talk of spiritual warfare, demon possession, and maybe even an exorcism.

  I’m gonna tell you one subject that had never, to my knowledge, come up for discussion at the Methodist church where I grew up: ANY OF THAT.

  No kidding. I didn’t even know how to respond. I just remember standing in Mama’s kitchen, twisting the phone cord, and saying variations of “Oh, no” over and over.

  “Oh, no!”

  “OH NO!”

  “Ohhhhh. No.”

  I think that the story had a happy ending—or at least as happy as it could be considering someone had, in fact, battled demons—and I hung up from our conversation with two primary thoughts: (1) I bet Emma Kate won’t pretend to be Charlie’s Angels like Daph did, and (2) those Baptists are pretty hard core about that spiritual warfare business. I mean, yes, I’d watched EK sing an Amy Grant song at FCA, and I knew that her walk with the Lord was the most important aspect of her life, but part of me wondered if she was going to try to lead me in two-hour devotions every night and then cart me off to revivals on the weekends.

  I just wasn’t sure how all that was going to fit into my demanding social calendar.

  Plus, I’d worked long and hard to keep God at a safe distance, and quite frankly, I wasn’t too sure I was ready for a roommate who would more than likely see me as her personal mission field.

  One thing that consistently annoys me about the book of Proverbs is that it just humbles the fire out of me. And in Proverbs 19:21, there’s this little nugget-o-wisdom: “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the LORD that will stand.”

  That verse does not necessarily cooperate with my control-freak tendencies.

  But I didn’t really know that spiritual truth when I moved into the Chi O house in January of my sophomore year, and as a result, I had very clear ideas about how it would all work out. EK and I would be friends, sure, but I wasn’t going to let her or Jesus get too close. I was perfectly content to chart my own course, keep all my questions to myself, and continue to let my Bible serve as a convenient coaster—albeit a dusty one—on the bookshelf above my bed.

  The more I watched EK, though, the more I saw that there was something different about her consistency with Jesus. It’s not that my other friends weren’t believers—because for the most part, all of them were—it’s just that there was a depth to EK’s walk that stood out to me. She wasn’t some goody-goody Pollyanna, and there were definitely areas where she struggled (I will let her tell you about the night a cute boy from BSU invited someone else to his fraternity’s formal dance, and EK was so angry that she slammed and even kicked our door so many times that she finally collapsed on the floor of our room while I covered my mouth and tried to remain sympathetic and also not laugh my head off).

  But here’s what set EK apart, at least in my mind. She believed in doing things with excellence so that God would be glorified. She faithfully spent time in Scripture. She honored her parents with her words and her decisions. She fled temptations. She prayed with expectancy.

  And she loved her friends—including me, who didn’t have much to offer her except my brokenness and my compromise and my inconsistency—unconditionally.

  It was a sermon that preached to me on a deeper level than most of what I’d heard in church.

  I just wasn’t quite sure how I was supposed to respond.

  THE SUMMER AFTER our sophomore year, I went back to Myrtlewood to babysit, and Emma Kate went to about three different states to work as a counselor at various FCA youth camps (as you do). It was difficult for us to stay in touch because texting and e-mail weren’t even invented yet (well, I guess someone had actually invented them, but cell phones were still the size of two bricks stacked on top of each other, and using e-mail would have required us to go to the computer lab at State, so no), and since EK was all over the place, I never really knew the best way to keep up with her. The good news was that there were lots of folks home in Myrtlewood that summer, including Marion, and thanks to a passel of recently graduated friends from State who were getting married that June and July, I knew I’d have ample opportunity to see Tracey, Elise, and Daph at weddings. The summer was full of promise, I tell you.

  That summer also marked a pretty signif
icant decision on my part. I’d gained about forty pounds since I started college (please see that earlier chapter about Popeyes, and don’t forget to factor in late-night hamburgers, French fries, and cheese sticks), and I kept thinking that if I could get the weight off, then maybe that would temper my increasing confusion. Keep in mind that you’d have never known I felt that way unless we were superclose friends or, like EK, you lived with me. I guess I figured that since I hadn’t ironed out all of my faith issues, maybe I’d just tackle my physical ones instead.

  (In the interest of transparency, I should tell you that I’m still fighting those stinkin’ physical battles even as I’m typing this.)

  (Because, yes, while I’m sipping on ice water this afternoon, what I would really prefer is a Caffè Mocha with whole milk and a piece of Starbucks banana-walnut bread.)

  (Perhaps I will chronicle this struggle in greater detail in a future book that I have tentatively titled Bacon Is My BFF—and Other Lies I Tell Myself.)

  (But I digress.)

  Liquid diets were all the rage back then, so I signed on to be a part of a program that was offered through my doctor’s office—an irony that, in retrospect, makes me a little cringe-y. Sure, I could have chosen to cut back on my portions and exercise daily and make healthier choices, but I wanted some quick results. After all, I’d seen plenty of movies and TV shows where a girl who struggled with her weight looked like a completely new person after she ran in place for six minutes, attempted a few awkward push-ups, put on some mascara, parted her hair on the opposite side, and bought some stylish new clothes.

  SIGN ME UP.

  And seriously, there’s really not world enough or time enough to dig deeply into this particular topic, and I feel a little weird writing about it because it’s an area of my life where I just haven’t had significant, long-term victory, but none of that changes the fact that when I was nineteen years old, I had some serious weight-loss plans, and I meant business, by diggity.