My name is Christian, and I am a Christian.
When I was little, I thought that meant I had to be the best one. My mom would say, “Be a good Christian,” and people at church would laugh softly, like that was clever. I used to think they all wanted to be me.
It didn’t take long for my name to stop sounding like a name. It started sounding like a job title, something you could succeed or fail at.
When I was six, my Sunday school teacher asked who had peeked at the answers during Bible trivia. I hadn’t, but everyone around me raised their hands, so I did too.
She smiled and said, “That’s honest of you all. That’s what a good Christian does.”
I remember thinking: I lied to be honest.
At home, my mom kept a framed verse above the sink: “Let your light shine before others.” She said it so often it became background noise, a command hidden inside the clinking of dishes. I used to imagine light literally shining out of my ribs, like a flashlight. I wanted her to see it. I wanted everyone to see it.
For a while, I tried to be light itself. I held doors open, prayed loud enough for my mom to hear, I told the truth even when it hurt me. But no matter what I did, I always felt like I was performing, standing in a spotlight I never asked for.
By middle school, “Christian” felt like a name people said to test me. Would Christian say that? Should a Christian do that? I didn’t even know what they meant.
Youth group came with rules disguised as Bible verses. Don’t swear, don’t lie, don’t think about certain things, don’t hang out with people who don’t go to church. We sang songs about surrender and smiled like we were hearing something holy. The leaders raised their hands in prayer, eyes closed like antennas reaching for a signal I couldn’t hear.
I tried to tune in, but mostly I just felt ridiculous.
Jonah was the first person who made me question any of it. We were twelve when he joined youth group, around the time boys started pretending they didn’t care about anything. He didn’t pretend. He doodled all over his Bible, cracked jokes during the sermon, wore his hair too long for Pastor Jim’s liking. He sat next to me every week, like he’d decided that was our thing. We whispered jokes until one Sunday we got caught.
Afterward, Pastor Jim said, “You’re a good influence, Christian. Keep Jonah on the right path.” I laughed.
I didn’t understand the weight of that sentence yet.
We stayed friends for years after that. The kind of friendship built on shared boredom and quiet rebellion, passing notes during devotionals, sneaking out of lock-ins to sit on the curb and talk about anything except God. Jonah had a way of making faith feel less like a script and more like something you could hold up to the light and examine.
When we were fifteen, he came out to me. We were on his back porch, drinking orange soda from glass bottles, cicadas buzzing like electricity around us. He said it quietly, as if the secret might disappear if he spoke too loudly.
I remember the taste of metal in my mouth. Not because I was shocked, because I suddenly realized how unsafe the world we’d grown up in could be for him. I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. He nodded like he expected that.
The next Sunday, Pastor Jim gave a sermon about sin. Not all sin, just one kind. Jonah wasn’t there, but I kept seeing him anyway. His laugh. His kindness. His shaking hands on the porch. I stared at the hymn book in my lap and tried to make the sermon line up with the person I knew, and it wouldn’t. It couldn’t.
After service, I walked past the pastor without shaking his hand. My mother noticed.
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked in the car.
“Nothing,” I said, but my throat felt tight, too full of truths I wasn’t ready to speak.
That night, I prayed for Jonah. Then I prayed for myself. Then I stopped praying altogether.
Jonah and I drifted after that. Not suddenly, slowly, like two boats loosening from the same dock. He stopped coming to youth group. I stopped asking why. We still texted for a while, but the messages got shorter, then less frequent.
By junior year, we talked maybe once every couple months.
By senior year, not at all. Not because of a fight. Because neither of us had the language yet to bridge the space between who we were and who we were becoming.
College was supposed to be freedom. And it was, just not the kind I expected. Nobody asked if I’d gone to church. Nobody checked if I prayed. I went to one campus ministry worship night and spent the whole time pretending to know the lyrics to songs I’d forgotten. I clapped when everyone else did, smiled at the right times, felt nothing.
The next Sunday, I slept through service on purpose. Not because I was rebelling, because it felt like rest. I woke up late, made pancakes in the dorm kitchen, and ate them in silence. It wasn’t holy, but it felt whole.
Still, old habits lingered. Bowing my head when an ambulance passed. Whispering grace before meals even when I was alone. Saying “bless you” too earnestly. Little fragments of faith, still alive in muscle memory.
This past Christmas, I went home for the first time in months. The house felt smaller, like it had grown inward. The verse above the sink was still there, same frame, same faded letters. My mom hummed hymns while she cooked. She asked if I wanted to go to the Christmas Eve service.
“I’m tired,” I told her.
She paused, just long enough to prove she cared too much, then said, “Well…Pastor Jim will be disappointed. But I guess if you’re really that tired….”
Her voice trailed off the way guilt does: softly, but sharp.
That night, I sat on my childhood bed surrounded by relics of who I used to be, my confirmation Bible, choir medal, devotionals with bent covers. I opened one and found my name inside in my mom’s handwriting: This belongs to Christian.
For a moment, it made me laugh. Of course it does. Everything about me once belonged to that name.
I thought about Jonah. I still had his number, even though we hadn’t talked in three years. I wondered if he ever went back to church, if he still believed in anything at all. Maybe he did. Maybe belief isn’t something you lose; maybe it just changes shape.
The next morning, I helped my mom wash dishes. The sun hit the framed verse above the sink. “Let your light shine before others.” I used to think that meant being perfect, being watched, glowing bright enough that no one could doubt my goodness. Now I think it means something else.
Maybe the light was never about showing off. Maybe it was about warmth.
I’m not trying to be a good Christian anymore. I’m just trying to be a good person. And maybe that’s closer to faith than anything else. I used to think faith was something you proved. Now I think it’s something you carry, like a name. Even when you stop answering to it, it still belongs to you. ◆
Lily Fabela is a current student majoring in communications with a minor in English. She is set to graduate in 2029. Originally from Northern Kentucky, she hopes to pursue a future in writing and is excited to see where that path takes her.
Pensworth 