January 2020

    My journey to a faith filled life is incremental. I thought that “my conversion” story count because it didn’t consist of a watershed, hit-over-the-head-with-the-Spirit moment that marked a definitive “before Christ” and “after Christ” life experience.
 
    I was raised in a very loosely religious household, and was never baptized. My mother mentioned Jesus as a factual, historical person who was the Son of God.  That was pretty much all I got at home. Fortunately the community in which I grew up was roughly 99.9% practicing Catholics, so I was blessed to have a sporadic exposure Catholic practices. I was always curious about Catholicism, but I didn’t know any converts and always felt like it was a by-birth-only club and I wasn’t part of the club.
 
    My teenage, college, and post-college years reflected the decisions of someone with a shaky moral compass and no sense of self-worth. I was living MY plan for my life, knowing no other, and was making a grand mess of things. These times were filled with bad choices, some whose negative fallout still travels with me today.   At 26, my childhood best friend went through RCIA after marrying a devout Catholic man. We’d had similar spiritual upbringing, and she suggested RCIA to me. After a rather lackluster experience in RCIA, I joined the church. Box checked. All I knew about the faith was the Our Father, the Hail Mary, the Creed, Order of the Mass and the Sunday obligation. I thought that was pretty dry, but at least I was in the club. I had no idea that through the sacraments, I had received the gifts of grace, mercy, salvation or being sealed with the Holy Spirit. What a shame!
 
    In the years that followed, I practiced a lukewarm and obligatory form of the faith. I didn’t know that there was anything beyond it. I got married in the Church with no understanding of the sacrament even with a year of ‘formation’ and the obligatory ‘couples retreat.’ Also during this time, I had hurtful experiences with several priests. On many occasions I was treated with little, if any, charity. I erroneously thought all priests were infallible, so I incorrectly felt shunned by the entire Church.
 
    By virtue of these experiences, I waited 8 years to have my own child baptized. Only when asked by a friend to be her son’s godmother did it occur to me that I was doing my son a huge disservice by letting the Church’s negative treatment of me affect his adoption into the family of God. They were ultimately baptized weeks apart, and my son was able to receive his first communion. The realization that I needed to work on faith formation with my son and godson led me to a fervent desire I had never had to learn more about and be able to explain the faith.  I started feverishly reading scripture from the only Bible I had…my Good News Bible from high school. The effort was useless. This stuff was way over my head, but I soldiered on with no added insights to show for it. This fervor was short lived, and I continued about my life.
 
    Still seeking “success” by the rubric of the outside world, I had a successful marriage, a well-adjusted child, a good job and an all-around comfortable life. I didn’t see the need for God. It didn’t seem to me that anything was missing. Then seemingly abruptly, I realized that my life consisted of dropping my child off at school, having my parents attend school functions or field trips, having a nanny pick him up from school and stay with him until the early evening when our family would sit down and eat food I had paid someone else to prepare daily for us. What I realized was that I was not participating in my own life. I was merely a spectator.  I was surely missing something BIG.
 
    I became increasingly frustrated with and resentful of my professional life. It became obvious to me that I had sacrificed my family life for my professional one. Something (or maybe Someone) prompted me to start attempting to read scripture again. This time I was serious. I was making family trees with the Bible ‘characters,’ making my own maps of the ancient Middle East and charting the travels of the patriarchs, and making a list of covenants God made with his people. This newfound zeal made my hostility toward my job almost unbearable. After what I can only explain as a nervous breakdown of epic proportions, my job and I parted ways. I immediately had a period of detachment, embarrassment and humiliation, after which God promptly entered and turned it all upside down for my ultimate good.  This is exactly when I found out how God works in people’s lives. He comes to you in the struggle and violently fights off what is holding you down and triumphantly releases you from its grip. He gave me my life back. He gave me my family back, and He set my heart on fire to get to know Him and continuously find new ways to thank Him.
 
    Through God’s ongoing plan, I was invited shortly thereafter to join a Bible study at St. Catherine. During that class, I heard the words that would change my life forever: “God loves you and died on the cross for you, specifically, by name, and He has a plan for your life.”  That was 5 years ago, and our group is still going strong. My life is full of graces, which usually come in the form of people. These people are the spine of my new life. I have rearranged my schedule to prioritize those things and people that bring me closer to Jesus.  I have a legitimate and fruitful prayer life, say the rosary daily, and attend daily mass and adoration when I can.  Making the effort to spend time with Jesus has given me a real relationship with Him.
 
    Maybe you don’t have time for all of this, understood, but getting into Jesus’ world starts with just choosing one thing. He does the rest. You will begin to recognize when He puts something new on your heart. You will learn to develop an ear for His voice. My life changed completely for the better; yours can, too. With God, nothing is impossible. He is accessible to anyone, and no one is beyond His reach.