Coming out of the world into the culture of Christ can be a wrenching experience, as evidenced by the fact that so many tend to return to their old life.

So what is it that will help the newcomers stay? Maybe this story will help.

Karla came to Idaho to live when she was about nine-years-old. Her parents were not church going people. Her grandmother however, here in Idaho, was a woman of faith, and immediately arranged for Karla and her siblings to be baptized, even though they scarcely understood what they were doing.

Her mother then felt that if the children were going to profess religion, well they ought to attend. So she began to take them to Church and drop them off. It was awkward and difficult for a girl as young as Karla, but she soon made friends with Janis who invited her to sit with her and her family.

“I know now I must have always smelled like smoke,” Karla says, “but they never made me feel different.”

Well, they kept saving her a place, week after week, month after month. Before long, Karla’s mom quit taking the children to Church, and they needed to find other means to get there. Eventually, Karla’s brother quit going, and for a short time so did her older sister. But Karla stayed.

“I always had a place,” she said. “I always felt like I belonged on that bench. I wasn’t alone. I was comfortable there.”

And if by some chance, Karla didn’t come to Church on a given Sunday, the family would notice, and Janis would find her at school the next day and inquire about her absence.

Now, you know this: Friends come and go, especially among teenagers, but Karla and Janis stayed close all through high school. Until she left for college, there was always a place for Karla in the Moreland Second Ward on the pew in the middle toward the front.

When the Apostle Paul spoke of us being “… no more [longer] strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints …” this is what he meant. This is how it happens. (Ephesians 2:19)

My friends, we go where we’re wanted, we stay when we’re welcomed — and we return when we’re missed.