What is the importance of church as noted in the essay, Space to Move Around In, from the collection, Well Read Black Girl?

Renée Watson in the essay, Space to Move Around In, talks about the influence of church and the women who congregate there in her personal growth and development. She says that the women at church helped make her feel beautiful when white people judged her for being black, plus-sized, and overall different than them. Church is similarly noted by other authors as a sort of safe space, a place wherein one can feel accepted, loved, and spiritually healed from the myriad wounds in one's heart. Church, in many black communities, is a figurative and literal space in which to feel close to other black people.