As far as my faith goes, I spent much of the first nine years of my life attending my local baptist church with two of my aunts. For the most part, I enjoyed attending church and learning about Jesus' life. Some of the activities and clubs also helped me to increase my faith... maybe a little too much for a child as young as I was.
I'd be sitting there listening to the sermons that they were preaching and I'd get questions in my mind. I couldn't research all these questions by myself because I didn't have the knowledge or understanding as a child. One day, I asked my mum a question about my faith that she couldn't answer as an atheist - so she did the only thing that she felt would help me and guided me towards her sister-in-law who should have been able to have helped me. Unfortunately, she wasn't able to help me in a way that stopped my young mind from working in circles and she ended up getting frustrated and accusing me of doubting the word of God.
For me, that was the pivotal moment that began my twenty odd year hiatus from the church. I was just nine years old. During my teenage years, I found that I missed the youth groups that the church offered, but there was no way that I dared to return when I couldn't try to make sense of the Bible without being accused of questioning God's word.
After I left the church, I quickly became spiritual and spent the twenty years seriously involved in things like witchcraft, tarot and empathy. Though this sort of thing doesn't fly well in the Catholic faith, it served me well at the time because it kept me aware of the fact that there were beings higher than me... though, at the time, I wouldn't necessarily have accepted God in my life exactly as He is.
With that said, I accept that God never really gave up on trying to call me back to His church. During my teenage years, a few things happened to me that I still can't fully explain to this day. I became interested in a Christian duet group that would put on shows at what I would later find out was my local Assemblies of God church or the local sports centre.
These events weren't necessarily the safest things for me because I am asthmatic and often found that their heavy use of dry ice during the shows would affect my asthma before the night was over. It was at this time that my first "random unexplained event" happened. I was at a show that the Christian group were preforming at the sports centre when my asthma struck. Because of the layout of the building, I was able to remove myself to a (closed) bar area upstairs, where I was still at least able to see the group - even if I wasn't able to actually hear them singing anymore. Unbeknown to me, there was a group of Christians up here having some sort of meeting. One of them came over and engaged me in conversation and I got to explaining that I came to see the group downstairs and that I was sick.
She asked me if she could pray for me and I hesitated for a moment, remembering why I left the church and became spiritual in the first place. In the end, my logical mind reasoned that prayers were about all that I had at this point in time since my medicine was a mile away at home and I still had at least another hour before mum came to picked me up - so I agreed to allow her to pray for me. She returned to her group and explained to the others about my problem. I soon found myself surrounded by this group of people to the point where I started to feel claustrophobic. They all reached out their hands towards me and began to pray. I don't recall much of the prayer itself because I was too focused on a strange warmth that I felt and a golden aura that I could see around me. They left soon after that prayer and I never got the chance to tell them that their prayer took me from the point where I was seriously considering going to reception and asking them to call an ambulance to take me to hospital to being able to go back downstairs and enjoy the last half an hour of the event that I went there to see.
Both times I saw this group, I felt the call to return to the church... though I didn't feel like this was the church that I belonged to. The more I thought about it, the more I kept recalling a weird event/dream that happened before I joined the Baptist church as a child. I had a dream in which I saw a particular church in my locality. The fair was in town, so it had to be autumn in my dream. We were returning home from visiting family members on my mum's side of the family and the route would have taken us past the Catholic church - though I was too young to understand that the church was Catholic... to my young mind, all churches were basically one and the same.
The church was in darkness, though I could see candlelight shining through the bottom half of the stained glass by the front of the church as we passed by. It was to take me twenty years to even set foot in that church to at least begin to try to make sense of that event - but, once I did, it became clear to me almost instantly that there's no way that what the child me saw could have been a candle or even a collection of candles because 1) there were no Masses celebrated in darkness at that time of year and 2) the light was coming from the place where the tabernacle was - the window is too high for any light pollution from candles lit inside to escape into the outside world and illuminate the glass as brightly as that. No matter how much I've sat and thought about it, I've never been able to come up with a plausible explanation for how that window came to be lit quite like it was that night - or even if it was a dream or a reality.
In the days leading up to my first Mass, I've never really done well with men in general and I have a deep distrust of strange men, then I had to enter a church that was led by a strange man by myself, that was a terrifying thought. This was after the Catholic abuse scandal had blown up the media - so, from the outside, it probably would have presented itself in a way that might have implied to someone that I sort of expected to be abused as soon as I stepped over the threshold.
When I did finally set foot in the Catholic church for the first time (it was the exact church that I saw in the event that I described above), I felt like I had finally found the place where I belonged. I wasn't scared or nervous... I just felt strangely calm and at ease, though I did mess up a few things during that first Mass (and a few after that).
One of the hymns that I sang that first Mass was Colours Of Day. I vaguely remembered it as one of my favourite hymns from the Baptist church of old and I saw it as one of several signs that I was given that night. I have added it below for those of you who might want to listen to the song for reference There is one sign that I received that night that I won't be talking about here in this post because of the deeply personal nature of it. Only a handful of people know about that sign and I intend to keep it that way out of respect to other people who were involved in it.
Attending RCIA class in preparation for my baptism just reinforced my belief that I had found the right church for me - though I was often too afraid to speak and preferred to listen quietly as I fiddled with the beads of my rosary (my rosary is a huge source of comfort and reassurance for me). I had finally found a place where I could ponder on the Bible and ask for guidance without being made to feel like I was doing something that I shouldn't be doing. In fact, it was something that we were actively encouraged to do as part of our RCIA class.
Even at this late stage, I was given opportunities to step out of the church and return back to the discerning phase of trying to find the right faith for me... but I didn't falter in my path because I knew that I was on the correct path - though I was very much afraid of the unknown. I would obsessively search the Internet looking for clues on what to expect. I soon found that every Catholic I spoke to was hugely secretive, preferring to leave my interpretations of these Masses untainted by others' interpretations of them... little did they know that I was asking more about what to expect rather than interpretation help at the time. Had I walked into my baptism, not knowing that the lights went out and there was a fire lit at the back of church, I would have freaked right out. It was scary enough for me as it was and I'd been warned to expect these things as it was.
Almost a year later, I'm still happy with my decision and glad that I joined the Catholic church. Over the course of the past year, I've been growing into my new faith and as a result of that, I'm becoming more aware of the ways that God is working in my life and using me as a tool to reach out to others.
For me, that was the pivotal moment that began my twenty odd year hiatus from the church. I was just nine years old. During my teenage years, I found that I missed the youth groups that the church offered, but there was no way that I dared to return when I couldn't try to make sense of the Bible without being accused of questioning God's word.
After I left the church, I quickly became spiritual and spent the twenty years seriously involved in things like witchcraft, tarot and empathy. Though this sort of thing doesn't fly well in the Catholic faith, it served me well at the time because it kept me aware of the fact that there were beings higher than me... though, at the time, I wouldn't necessarily have accepted God in my life exactly as He is.
With that said, I accept that God never really gave up on trying to call me back to His church. During my teenage years, a few things happened to me that I still can't fully explain to this day. I became interested in a Christian duet group that would put on shows at what I would later find out was my local Assemblies of God church or the local sports centre.
These events weren't necessarily the safest things for me because I am asthmatic and often found that their heavy use of dry ice during the shows would affect my asthma before the night was over. It was at this time that my first "random unexplained event" happened. I was at a show that the Christian group were preforming at the sports centre when my asthma struck. Because of the layout of the building, I was able to remove myself to a (closed) bar area upstairs, where I was still at least able to see the group - even if I wasn't able to actually hear them singing anymore. Unbeknown to me, there was a group of Christians up here having some sort of meeting. One of them came over and engaged me in conversation and I got to explaining that I came to see the group downstairs and that I was sick.
She asked me if she could pray for me and I hesitated for a moment, remembering why I left the church and became spiritual in the first place. In the end, my logical mind reasoned that prayers were about all that I had at this point in time since my medicine was a mile away at home and I still had at least another hour before mum came to picked me up - so I agreed to allow her to pray for me. She returned to her group and explained to the others about my problem. I soon found myself surrounded by this group of people to the point where I started to feel claustrophobic. They all reached out their hands towards me and began to pray. I don't recall much of the prayer itself because I was too focused on a strange warmth that I felt and a golden aura that I could see around me. They left soon after that prayer and I never got the chance to tell them that their prayer took me from the point where I was seriously considering going to reception and asking them to call an ambulance to take me to hospital to being able to go back downstairs and enjoy the last half an hour of the event that I went there to see.
Both times I saw this group, I felt the call to return to the church... though I didn't feel like this was the church that I belonged to. The more I thought about it, the more I kept recalling a weird event/dream that happened before I joined the Baptist church as a child. I had a dream in which I saw a particular church in my locality. The fair was in town, so it had to be autumn in my dream. We were returning home from visiting family members on my mum's side of the family and the route would have taken us past the Catholic church - though I was too young to understand that the church was Catholic... to my young mind, all churches were basically one and the same.
The church was in darkness, though I could see candlelight shining through the bottom half of the stained glass by the front of the church as we passed by. It was to take me twenty years to even set foot in that church to at least begin to try to make sense of that event - but, once I did, it became clear to me almost instantly that there's no way that what the child me saw could have been a candle or even a collection of candles because 1) there were no Masses celebrated in darkness at that time of year and 2) the light was coming from the place where the tabernacle was - the window is too high for any light pollution from candles lit inside to escape into the outside world and illuminate the glass as brightly as that. No matter how much I've sat and thought about it, I've never been able to come up with a plausible explanation for how that window came to be lit quite like it was that night - or even if it was a dream or a reality.
In the days leading up to my first Mass, I've never really done well with men in general and I have a deep distrust of strange men, then I had to enter a church that was led by a strange man by myself, that was a terrifying thought. This was after the Catholic abuse scandal had blown up the media - so, from the outside, it probably would have presented itself in a way that might have implied to someone that I sort of expected to be abused as soon as I stepped over the threshold.
When I did finally set foot in the Catholic church for the first time (it was the exact church that I saw in the event that I described above), I felt like I had finally found the place where I belonged. I wasn't scared or nervous... I just felt strangely calm and at ease, though I did mess up a few things during that first Mass (and a few after that).
One of the hymns that I sang that first Mass was Colours Of Day. I vaguely remembered it as one of my favourite hymns from the Baptist church of old and I saw it as one of several signs that I was given that night. I have added it below for those of you who might want to listen to the song for reference There is one sign that I received that night that I won't be talking about here in this post because of the deeply personal nature of it. Only a handful of people know about that sign and I intend to keep it that way out of respect to other people who were involved in it.
Attending RCIA class in preparation for my baptism just reinforced my belief that I had found the right church for me - though I was often too afraid to speak and preferred to listen quietly as I fiddled with the beads of my rosary (my rosary is a huge source of comfort and reassurance for me). I had finally found a place where I could ponder on the Bible and ask for guidance without being made to feel like I was doing something that I shouldn't be doing. In fact, it was something that we were actively encouraged to do as part of our RCIA class.
Even at this late stage, I was given opportunities to step out of the church and return back to the discerning phase of trying to find the right faith for me... but I didn't falter in my path because I knew that I was on the correct path - though I was very much afraid of the unknown. I would obsessively search the Internet looking for clues on what to expect. I soon found that every Catholic I spoke to was hugely secretive, preferring to leave my interpretations of these Masses untainted by others' interpretations of them... little did they know that I was asking more about what to expect rather than interpretation help at the time. Had I walked into my baptism, not knowing that the lights went out and there was a fire lit at the back of church, I would have freaked right out. It was scary enough for me as it was and I'd been warned to expect these things as it was.
Almost a year later, I'm still happy with my decision and glad that I joined the Catholic church. Over the course of the past year, I've been growing into my new faith and as a result of that, I'm becoming more aware of the ways that God is working in my life and using me as a tool to reach out to others.
