By Shyloh Crawfurd
Shyloh was invited by Chris Johnson, a member of Collister Methodist Church to share his story during Sunday Service. He has agreed to allow us to reprint his speech in this issue of WOTS. He brought the house down!
Hi everyone,
I want to start off by being completely honest with you — I never thought I’d be standing in a church, talking about God. Because for a long time, I didn’t believe He was real. And even now, I still wrestle with that every day.
It’s hard to have faith when your life feels like one long test you never signed up for. When it feels like every time you start to stand up, the world knocks you right back down.
I didn’t grow up in some peaceful home where people prayed together at dinner. I grew up in a house where God’s name was thrown around like a threat. Where “faith” was twisted into fear, and “obedience” meant keeping quiet, even when you were being hurt.
I was told that the pain I went through was somehow “God’s will.” That I was being punished, that I had to suffer to be saved. And when you’re a kid hearing that from the people who are supposed to love you, you start believing maybe you really are the problem. Maybe you deserve it.
That kind of upbringing doesn’t just hurt your body — it breaks something inside you. It makes it hard to trust anyone, especially a God who supposedly watched it all happen.
When I got older, I thought leaving that house would mean things would finally get better. Little did I know that life was about to throw me another curveball. My family turned their backs on me, the day I turned 18 and drove me from Mountain Home, to Boise and dropped me off at a homeless shelter. Some because I’m gay. Some because I was the “troubled adopted kid, who had no future” and they didn’t want to deal with that. Either way, I was out — and I was alone.
And that’s when the spiral really started. You tell yourself you’re strong, that you’ll figure it out — but when you’re sleeping on the streets, when every night you wake up covered in bedbug bites, when people walk past you like you don’t exist — it starts to eat away at you.
It’s hard to believe in God when you’re freezing, when you haven’t eaten in days, when you’re standing in line for a shower that might not even have hot water. It’s hard to pray when you feel dirty, forgotten, and unwanted.
People tend to say “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” But when you’ve hit rock bottom, and you’re still sinking lower, when you’ve got nothing left — you start to wonder if that’s just something people say to make themselves feel better.
For a long time, I stopped believing in anything. Not in God. Not in people. Not even in myself. I just existed.
And then, I found Interfaith Sanctuary. I didn’t go there because I had some spiritual awakening. I went because I needed help — plain and simple. I needed a place to sleep. I needed a break from fighting the world alone. I needed some semblance of safety and security.
But what I found there… was something I didn’t expect. I found kindness.
Not the kind of kindness that’s obviously performative. The genuine kind — the kind that sneaks up on you. Someone handing you a cup of coffee on a cold morning. Someone remembering your name when you didn’t think anyone would. Someone saying, “You matter,” without actually needing to say the words.
Nobody there asked me to prove I was worthy of help. Nobody told me to pray harder or to “fix” myself first. They just met me where I was — tired, angry, scared, doubting everything — and they loved me anyway.
And somewhere in that, something in me started to shift.
I started to wonder — maybe God isn’t who I thought He was. Maybe He’s not the one who hurt me, or the one who stayed silent while I was suffering. Maybe He’s the reason I have a second chance to make myself into something. Maybe He’s the reason people at Interfaith care so deeply.
Maybe God doesn’t always show up in the ways we expect — not as a voice in the clouds, but as a warm meal, or a safe bed, or a stranger who treats you with dignity when the world doesn’t.
I still have doubts. I still get angry. I still have nights when I look up and ask, “Why me?” But I also have something I didn’t before — hope.
Hope that maybe I’m being given a second chance. Hope that maybe I can build a new life, one that isn’t defined by the pain I came from. Hope that maybe redemption doesn’t come in one big miracle — but in small, quiet steps back toward believing life can be good again.
Interfaith Sanctuary didn’t just give me shelter. It gave me a reason to believe in people again — and maybe, just maybe, in something bigger than all of us.
I don’t know where I stand with God. But I know that every time someone offers me kindness without judgment, every time someone chooses compassion over fear — I feel something that feels holy.
Maybe that’s all faith really is — not certainty, but showing up anyway. And if that’s true, then I guess I’m starting to believe again — just in a different kind of way.
Thank you.