Today a new “RCC inquirer” reminded me of that feeling I had earlier in my journey….the feeling of “Why me, Lord?” Why do I see the Truth of the Catholic Church, but not those nearest and dearest to me. Why me? What am I missing? Do my friends, pastor, family and others more spiritually and theologically adept than me know something really important that I don’t about the Catholic Church, and if I did, would I then realize my error and run back to Protestant Land? But which church would I run back to? Which one included all the essentials of the Christian Faith as I now understood them to be? None of them. I searched all the other side out, looking for an argument to save me from my mistake. But none of them made since. Only the Catholic Church made sense. They had the more convincing argument, actually. They had the explanations for all of my questions that I used to push to the back of my mind for another day. And those wonderful ladies on the LLL forum were a convincing testimony to me as well. They were well spoken and articulate and loving in their arguments. Seemed like how a Christian should act. Not that Protestants aren’t well spoken and articulate and loving in their arguments, just that Catholics weren’t supposed to be. They were supposed to be non-thinking easily deceived ritualistic pagans that were being duped by the Pope into thinking they were worshiping Jesus. AND they weren’t supposed to have an argument.

And I remember being confounded that those around me couldn’t see what I could see. It really bothered me. Actually it scared me. I remember asking the gals from the Spitfire Grill, “Why Can’t They See It”. And their answer was it was His Grace given to me to see. There was nothing more special about me than anyone else….I wasn’t smarter or more reflective or more anything except that I had asked God to show me more about Him, I wanted to know “Who He Is?” I asked….and He answered. God doesn’t push Himself on anyone. If you want more, He will give you more. But you have to ask. I will confess I did NOT expect the answer He gave me.

2 years back, when my journey began I remember feeling so desperate when I was worried for my loved one’s salvation (which now looking back I shouldn’t have, she was just fine) but at that time I was so worried, and that was when the first chipping of my Protestant foundation began, when I first realized that maybe I might not have my doctrine right after all. Maybe it was my understanding of the Bible and who God is that was wrong, not my loved ones. So I asked God, I remember crying out to him from my living room couch, tears streaming down my face, “What does it mean to serve you, the Living God of the Universe?” “Because I want to serve YOU, not who I think you are, not someone I’ve made you up to be, but You God.” “Please Show Me The Truth”. I felt so low. But lower times were to come. Because that was before my comfortable church home split up. That was before we began church shopping and seeing all the differences out there. That was when the real hard questions began….like why am I a Christian? And what is a Christian? And what if this is all make believe? I was close to becoming agnostic. Not an atheist, because I never stopped believing that there was Someone Who Made It All. But I didn’t have a solid foundation for my Faith. It was all built on the Bible alone. But I was starting to doubt the Bible because everyone and their Grandma was quoting from it to make it say what they wanted it to say, including myself. And I needed to know that it spoke clearly. It’s almost hard for me to believe now that I didn’t think these questions before!!!

And how does conversion take place? Even that is a weird thing if you think about it. I guess that is what Jesus is talking about when He says you must be born AGAIN. The first conversion is just as hard to understand but we accept it in childlike faith. I remember watching an episode of “The Journey Home” and Fr. Benedict Groeschel was on (I think that is who, but don’t quote me on that) and he mentioned something about your entire life being a series of conversions. To be open to them. And that the conversion to the Catholic Church is an intellectual one for Protestants. That makes sense to me, but still…..very strange this journey from one land to the other. I don’t look at my past Christian walk in various denominations as a waste of time, but truly God was using all of the stops along the way to bring me home to the Catholic Church. Why did it take so long? I don’t know, but I am thankful that it didn’t take longer!