Losing Respect From the Cool Kids

And gaining it from the horse girls instead

It was one of my earliest realizations when I finally started therapy.

I called my husband as soon as I got in the car.

Turns out I never stopped being that 12 year old doing everything in her power to sit at the cool kids table.

This longing and desire to be accepted by the “right” people started pretty early for me. It became deeply enmeshed in my experience of safety, self-worth, and belonging during my most formative years. My body still remembers the active choice I made to reject the horse girls in favor of the cheerleaders. They weren’t nearly as nice and they also didn’t seem to care for me much, but man, if that didn’t make me want to earn their favor even more.

Fast forward some 10 or so years later and the cheerleaders of Christianity were called Calvinists and the boys that crushed hardest on Calvin were the coolest. They also weren’t very nice and once again, didn’t seem to care for me much (the coolest Calvin loving kids were also Complementarian and they of course had a strict “No Girls Allowed” policy) but man, if that didn’t make me want to earn their favor even more.

So I followed them to their churches and I read the books they quoted from. I began to study quick what they liked and didn’t like about the women they let nearest to their inner circle and I learned how to walk in stride fast. I accepted their views without question, I took their hurtful comments on the chin. And before I knew it, I was getting glimpses of that safety, self-worth, and belonging I longed for, I was even being invited to take a seat.

Sure, the seat was wobbly, and it kind of smelled like spoiled IPAs. It was also a foot shorter than everyone else’s which made me feel small and uncomfortable. But I did it! I finally made it! I was sitting at the cool kids table at last.

Only, somewhere along the way, they forgot to tell me that gaining that seat was one thing— keeping it would be something else entirely. Selling my dignity, confidence, and autonomy is what got me there. But to stay would cost me my integrity, conscience, and heart too.

I’d end up losing that treasured, wobbly seat in an effort to keep that which turned out to be treasured even more. But losing that initial longing to still be welcomed, accepted, and respected by the cool kids, well that has been a far longer and harder road.

Having a church of 11 people is not “impressive” by any cultural standard. The impact we 11 individuals will make on the city of Houston, which I believe to be immeasurable in value, will still most likely not be written about by any great journalistic publication. The practices we have implemented, the culture we have built, the leadership strategies and values I am most passionate about upholding and sharing with the world would simply not be approved of by any Coalition for the Gospel, 29th chapter of Acts, nor my own city’s church planting network.

And that sucks.

It sucks that nearly every major organization that funds and supports the forming of new communities in this city, would fundamentally disagree with how I have gone about supporting my own.

It sucks that the whole “I’ll show em” mentality doesn’t really jive with the humble and upside down ways of Jesus and His Kingdom.

It sucks that I even still care about wanting those moments of pride and superiority over the communities that harmed me.

It sucks that the 12 year old within me still often longs for their approval and respect.

Because the 29 year old me, she knows she won’t ever get it. Because ultimately, she knows she received something far better instead.

She received the approval and respect of those horse girls who were always there and ready to love her all along.¹

The integritous, the empathetic, the overlooked, the honest, the unashamedly themselves, the passionate, and the misfits— they’ve welcomed me to an altogether different table. One where all the seats kind of wobble and where the IPA smell is drowned out by lumpia, homemade corn tortillas, and red bean rice cakes.

It’s one where your hard-earned dignity, confidence, and autonomy is what got you there. And your integrity, conscience, and heart is what allows you to stay.

In many ways, my greatest shame, is that this was not the table I chose to sit at in the first place. I often lament that it took me being rejected from one in order to fully embrace the other. And I must often unpack what it is within me, my own values and beliefs that would still long for approval from that former dining space.

It would seem the very least I can do to honor the beauty, the safety, and the belonging that I have received at this one is to endlessly remind that 12 year old within me to kindly shut the hell up.

To belong, to be loved, to have a blessed wobbly seat at this blessed wobbly table, it is not only enough, it’s everything.

1. Two of our church members are actual certified former horse girls. That feels too important and redemptive not to share.