Me and God

In the beginning there was my father, my mother and four rowdy siblings, and I almost had the distinction of being the youngest until two more brothers popped up, three and ten years later, respectively. Unfortunately, our Catholic family carried a special kind of shame; my father had been married before he met Mom, so no Holy Communion for them in the Catholic church.

Our family religiously attended Mass every Sunday; and until seventh grade, I attended parochial school, which often meant daily Mass. Back then, service was in Latin. Of course, I didn’t understand a word that was being said; nevertheless, I developed a close relationship with God. In fact, when I was in middle-school, I once told a friend that I spoke with God. Her biting response was, "Well, it’s a one-way conversation!”

By the time I was in my late teens, my religious attendance was more hit-or-miss than faithful. One Sunday morning, I was super late for service and the church was teeming with people crowding the back of the church. Rather than go home, I opted to go to the empty sanctuary in the basement. During the celebration of Mass, I had rarely experienced a sense of intimacy with the Lord, even if by then Catholics were celebrating in English. But on that day, I felt God’s love and light. I'd poured my heart to Jesus and asked for His guidance and forgiveness. I also asked Him to please always be with me.

With hindsight, I have no doubt that His grace on that day paved the way for my deliverance twenty years later. That Sunday was to be the last time I mindfully attended a worship service until two decades later when the lemmings of sin brought me back to my knees and Him. By then, I had married a tormented soul who was wonderful when sober but wretched when drinking. And in 1991, I needed divine help!

Someone once said that coincidence is simply God choosing to remain anonymous. In my case, my ex-husband’s disease was God’s call for me to repent and return to Him. I can now view my life and discern the holy synchronicities that nudged my spirit this way or that way; and it is this perspective that gives me peace. Yes, I still have moments of darkness filled with fear and doubt, but then the Holy Spirit unmistakably raps me on the shoulder and lets me know that Jesus is real; and they are occasions of sheer bliss and delight that I choose to recall during my flashes of mistrust. The Bible tells us in Luke 23:46 that Jesus with his last breaths "cried out with a loud voice, 'Father into thy hands, I commit my spirit.'” For me, these are the words that lead to salvation on earth.