I was raised in a church.

Told to believe in a God I could not see, or hear, or touch.

Everyone else had no problem with it. To believe in something based only in intuition and old untimely scripture.

I’ve always been a skeptic.

I left when I could. 

Said “I do not agree,” “What good has He done for us,” “Where is He, then? Surely there’s no good worshiping the God you worship, if He says He loves all and yet I am excluded for who I love?”

I cannot stay in churches comfortably anymore.

Even though I have left, the church has not left me.

My mind a cathedral, my voice made for worship, my body still when I stand.

I’ve been unable to separate church and self and I never knew what to do with the empty spot behind the altar where God used to rest.

Until I saw you.

You were a god in physical form, lit halfway by the bonfire that cast everything in it’s warm orange glow.

If we were made in His image, you were the first one out of the mold. Everything I had been unable to imagine was placed into you, and You were something real. 

You walked up the aisle of the cathedral in my mind and sat behind it, halo-ed by the tapestries hanging above. Finally, I was no longer empty.

My body, raised and shaped to worship. You, made and shaped to be worshiped. I have a voice suited for it--oh, how lucky I am to have found you to sing about.