Story of Faith by Kristy Janigo

I have always felt the hand of God over my life. I guess that might have something to do with my upbringing in a Christian family. When I was a toddler I used to sing with my mom in our church while she would accompany on the piano. I sang “I Cast My Cares” and “Jesus Loves Me,” songs that are their purest when sung by children. Congregants used to ask me, “How could you stand up there and sing? Weren’t you scared?” I said, “No, Jesus was with me.” I became a Christian at age four after praying a simple salvation prayer with my dad at a Billy Graham crusade (I think that’s what they used to call them) in Bismarck, ND. This is one of my earliest memories. I remember my dad holding me, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the crowd, then closing my eyes to pray with him while others were also praying for Jesus to come into their lives. It was a powerful moment, and that must be why I remember it to this day.

As a child, I was a faithful Sunday School attendee. I loved memorizing Bible verses and singing traditional hymns and contemporary praise songs. I also enjoyed theological discussions with family. I was the only child among my four other siblings who wanted to be confirmed in the Lutheran church. I’ve always had an interest and appreciation of religious traditions and customs. As a teenager, though, I had some doubts about my faith framework that I’d so solidly followed. I wanted to make sure I was not following what my parents, grandparents and church leaders told me to believe blindly and without questioning. Further, I wanted to see what it would be like to live as a non-Christian. I tried to do it, but my efforts were not that successful, lasting at most a year and a half. I never fully bought into it, although it scared my parents half to death. I got into plenty of trouble and made some idiotic decisions, of course. When I told my dad that I was done with this phase, his eyes filled with tears and he said, “I was so scared.”

I believe that God gave me all my life experiences to reveal to me the lessons I needed to know to relate to others’ life experiences. Yet God put up barriers in my life to keep me from too much catastrophe. I joined the military and went to basic training two weeks after the terror attacks of 9/11. Later I received orders in 2003 to deploy to the Middle East, but those orders were canceled after I was on active duty with my unit for three months preparing to ship out, so I never served overseas despite being a member of the Army National Guard for six years.

My dad was very important to me in my faith journey from my childhood through adulthood. He was an amazing example of Christ-like behavior. He was a small man, no more that 5’4” and 130 pounds at any time in his adult life. He was soft-spoken and humble. He would get up before anyone else for his daily devotions, without fail. He did not wax philosophic about theological issues – I had those types of discussions with my mom He just had a very straightforward, simple approach to his faith and if I had a question about what was right to do in my life, he would say, “Pray about it” or “I think you know.”

Dad died at age 65 without ever having any prior health issues. He got pneumonia, was hospitalized in intensive care, and died a week later. We tried everything, multiple types of mechanical ventilation and a last-ditch effort to try to save him called ECMO, which is a procedure similar to what is used during open heart surgery, to oxygenate his blood since his lungs were not working. The unexpected, violent loss of dad was like a punch in the gut for all of us, but especially my youngest sister who was only 23 at the time. For me, it couldn’t have happened at a worse time. My husband had just left a job that was no longer bearable for him, the college I was working for was inevitably closing, and I was preparing for my doctoral written exams in just a couple of weeks. In regular circumstances, any one of those events would have been devastating to me. I survived that time with divine intervention and adrenaline. I passed the written exams, and I got an amazing job back in industry, so I was no longer concerned about money. I will never forget how God sustained me through that difficult period and beyond. That was my dad’s final gift and lesson to me.

Losing my dad was a formative event for me in the sense that it woke me up to how I needed to prioritize my family and serve them and to live my life more intentionally. That sense of duty later extended past my family and out toward my community. During the 2016 election, I was devastated by the nastiness of the national political rhetoric. I realized I needed to do much more to serve my community and be a source of good. I joined my city’s Arbor Committee, started teaching Sunday School at my church, and participated in local political activism . In 2017, I attended a seminar held by the Yale Center for Faith and Culture called “Life Worth Living” where I explored how to get the most out of life and live my faith to the fullest without regret. At that time, I was really questioning my career choice and wondering if I needed to do something entirely different to more directly benefit society.

The search for more meaning in life led me to leave a very comfortable job at a company I loved in the Twin Cities to lean into my work life and to expand my leadership capabilities. I applied for a middle-management position at a company headquartered in Duluth. My husband and I decided that I should rent an apartment in Duluth, and that he should stay back for the time being in our house in the Twin Cities while I was deciding if I really wanted to be up in Duluth for the long term. I commuted often (and still do) back to the Twin Cities on the weekends, but connecting with Duluth was important to me, so I searched for a church.

A friend of mine who grew up in Duluth, and a stranger I’d met at a local restaurant, both recommended FLC. I went to the Sunday morning service and then a short time later attended the evening service. I loved the huge pipe organ and the choir in the Sunday morning service.  Having attended conservative churches most of my life, I felt thrilled and validated to see a strong female leader in Pastor Dianne. The congregational prayers, liturgies, communion, and hymns of FLC all portrayed an inclusive approach to our faith, which I had been craving for years and could not find in the churches I had been attending. As a woman, I finally felt validated and seen as a whole person by all the congregants, although my agnostic, long distance husband was not there with me. I attended evening services often, since I was commuting on Sundays and that worked best for my schedule. The evening services were a small, intimate group where I met several people, including FLC’s pastoral interns, Christina Kadelbach and Daniel Grainger. I connected with the young adults who gathered Sunday evenings at Sir Ben’s. Thanks to the choir director Michael Fuchs’ and the entire choir’s openness, I have a standing invitation to sing in the choir whenever I am in town on Sunday mornings for church. I have gotten to know Pastor Dianne. Last fall, she encouraged me to enroll in the NE Synod’s Lay Leader Network Intensive Training, a four-part series of day-long trainings where we have delved into selected scriptural passages, books and history lessons, theological, and personal growth discussions. I have gained so much personally, and the training has expanded my knowledge about Christianity. I have found my theological home in the ELCA, and FLC is one of the most impressive churches I have ever seen and attended and is one of the factors that is drawing me to consider making a full move up to Duluth.

Over the past few years, I have been learning to dwell more solidly in the present and entertain the notion that perhaps God put me exactly where God wants me in the moment, and that I am doing exactly what I was meant to do. Not all of us are called into ministry, and indeed God can use us for good in any vocation, but if God is calling me to something else, I want to make sure my eyes and ears are open to hear any message I am supposed to receive. As I continue to journey toward God’s best for me, whatever that may be, I am grateful for the supportive community of FLC.

God, Thank you for staying with us no matter the circumstances. Thank you for bring us to what is next in our journey at just the right time. Amen.