I Renovated a Room in a Church

In late 2023, I began renovating a room a church. More of a closet, than an office, it was getting the job done for a music-studio space. Back then, it took me a moment to realize, that this hadn’t been the first time I made improvements to the cleanliness, organization, and aesthetic of a church space. In early 2016, I was a fresh college graduate who had secured an interim worship director position at an EV Free church. Sometime in the spring, I had convinced the church leadership to completely clear out an office room cluttered with years of accumulated, unused items, that was attached to the sanctuary stage. Simultaneously, I got them to repaint the back wall of the stage that had maybe a decade or two of scuff marks on it. Also during my time there, I got us all using Teams, a tech platform for worship service scheduling. 

Fast forward to an annual community Christmas concert hosted by the church I had just played in a steel pan drum class, run by their current worship director. I had actually served as a director at this church in 2017, but stepped down after only a few months due to rising C-PTSD symptoms. Every Sunday I showed up to lead worship, I was a zombie. Literally — I would get insomnia every Saturday night beforehand, because of my unresolved religious trauma. That night at the concert, I actually won a prize for “most festive person” — being the last one standing through an elimination game around Christmas traditions.

After the concert, conversations commenced and the need to move my music studio space came up. It just so happened that there was a room available in the upstairs hallway, that was available for lease. The only catch: it had been wildly neglected for decades. When I saw the room, I thought to myself: “PERFECT”. It was going to be the foundational building block of my business and my mission — in the physical realm — a symbol of the symbiotic relationship between our trauma and our triumph. I endured spiritual abuse in my upbringing, under the guise of Christian-influence and leadership. In order to really leave THAT all behind, I had to renovate an abused room within the walls of a church. When I saw that room, I was looking at the transformation of a wasp and fig. It’s the wasp, that gets trapped inside a flower bloom. It’s the wasp that is then broken down and transforms into fruit.

About a week later I got to work. I filled every hole in the walls, including the base of the walls where giant chunks of lattice were missing. I removed every single staple from the window sill (WHY??). I STRIPPED PAINT from the window sill and the door, its frame and the inner door KNOB. I laid out some vinyl flooring, cutting it so that the wood print lined up longways, like 3 puzzle pieces, because while at Lowe’s, we overlooked this detail. I painted the walls Tambourine White that was mixed with gold glitter dust. I put up white brick panels over the wall that was destroyed from wallpaper glue and removal. I placed a mirror on the glitter-painted wall so that when you stand in front of it, you have natural light from the window shining on you and back at you. You get to see yourself as the art on a blank canvas of white bricks. 

The door and windows actually didn’t turn out how I planned. One, I got too tired. I don’t know if it’s from the cross-work I do all the time or the fact that I turned 30. Or the fact that I recovered my suppressed traumatic memory that year… or the fact that it’d only been 3 months since September 13th 2023.. Point being, near the end of that year and into the next, my hands got tired, abnormally quickly. So I just let it be the distressed paint look that it ended up turning into. Everyone liked it actually, especially the window. For some reason the window was the most emotionally triggering aspect of the renovation. It just didn’t make sense. WHY would anyone staple a freaking window sill? The wood was so old, it was difficult to extract the staples without tearing up the sill in the process. Paper staples.. not even a heavy duty staple for large projects which would at least somewhat make “sense”. 

In my opinion, I was standing in a room of ignorant, careless, abuse. This, being something that the church (Christian/Catholic/Mormon/etc), unfortunately has tolerated and has a history of attempting to cover up. Within this context, within the walls of “church”, and religion, is where not only I experienced severe religious trauma, but my family had been abused and taken advantage of as well. And without going too far an aside on the why around this — churches, those residing within building structures, tend to focus on controlling the conduct of their congregants to upkeep to a certain look to the world. They focus on the divide and how to get outsiders to conform, over helping those (congregants or not) in need. I’m confident in that because when you meet the global church? They see the opportunity to be like Christ when the woman from Luke 13 knocks on their door — they don’t gaslight her for being in need, while on her own. The difference, then, is stepping into action — that’s the foundation of faith — and a living God if you believe in one.

Which is what got me back into a church to clean up a room, where you might be thinking: “Then how on earth did you go back into a church?”

Because I realized, in order to really access my life? To truly have freedom? I had to face my trauma directly. It’s a part of the healing journey that is inevitable. If you truly want to heal, facing and overcoming your trauma will become the foundation of your wealth, success, and happiness. 

You have to turn inward to your pain, feel it with a big embrace, and let it go. 

Allow beauty to come from the wounds you took the time to care for and heal. 

Because what is underneath pain? 

The sweetest love you ever had, that was lost. 

You wouldn’t have experienced pain, if you didn’t have love. 

The tricky part for us all? Connect with the pain, to get back to the love. Stop hiding underneath the pain. Stop putting your pain on others so you don’t have to deal with the loss. People are here ready to support you when you face it, you just.. have to face and embrace it. Turn towards it so it no longer haunts you. And the hard truth about all this is that — instead of allowing yourself to turn inward, feel, and help the wounds heal, we tend to wait till someone will notice. But waiting just makes the wound worsen — you have to be swift. Speak up, the moment something happens before it has a chance to calcify in your system, hardening your heart against love. Really, it’s all about the heart. 

-B

Before and after photos of the space