“I knew intellectually that I was saved by grace through faith as a good evangelical Protestant,” she says. “But experientially, when it came to the worship of the church, it really felt like when I came to worship, it was my responsibility to prove that I was saved, week in, week out.”
Amid painful emotional turmoil, Dr. McGowin found herself unable to muster up the energy to “produce the right kind of emotion.” She was unable to carry herself through the faith. But a visit to a friend’s Anglican church with her husband changed her stance in worship.
“You physically walk up with your hands out empty. And Jesus literally gives himself to you. And all you can do is receive it. I was able to experience with my body and my emotions and my mind what I knew theologically was true,” she says. Liturgy removed her from the center: “It carries you.”
https://magazine.wheaton.edu/stories/spring-2020-the-power-of-liturgy