I have been working on my faith story for weeks. It's not that hard of a story to tell and it's not overwhelmingly long. I have just been dragging my feet on sharing it for some reason.
I was born and raised a Catholic. I attended Mass every single Sunday and sat with my Lutheran Dad, Catholic mother, devout Catholic Grandma and Grandpa and my uncles. Every single Sunday. We would come in, sit in the same pew as my Grandparents, right near the organ. My grandma would be reciting the rosary. Sometimes my grandpa would be in the pew, sometimes not. If he was commentating he'd be there. If he was doing the reading he'd be back with our priest. It was the same thing, every Sunday. For me, it was a part of my weekly routine. Brush teeth before bed, brush teeth in the morning, allergy shots on Thursday, CCD on Monday, church on Sunday. It was what we did.
Then, the bottom fell out. My mother left my father when I was 12. She moved in with my dad's best friend who is now my step-dad. I won't go off on this tangent right now but this event did have a profound impact on my future. You guys read about what it did to my dad in my
"full disclosure" post.
I moved on, did the best I could to keep up with my Catholicism with all the chaos around me. Instead of meeting my grandparents in church they now picked me up on Sundays. I usually spent the day with them and then they drove me home in the afternoon or early evening. It helped, too, that my best friends were Catholic. I could still attend mass when I stayed with any of the three of them, although, two of them attended a different Catholic church but I felt comfortable with either parish.
I started driving at 16 1/2 and drove myself and sometimes my friends to church on Sunday. It was now the only structured thing I had in my life. It was the place I went where nothing ever changed. We had a different priest every four years or so but the choir and music and the mass were always the same.
I graduated high school at 18 and celebrated with my greatest friends of my entire life at our church's baccalaureate mass. I still have that photo of all seven of us and it can be seen on my Fa.cebook profile.
Shortly after graduation my grandma died and I move in with Grandpa to help him take care of the house. I developed a new awareness of Catholicism as he took the time to explain parts of our faith more deeply than I knew before. Living with him I caught a few glimpses of my future faith.
Three years later I married a young man I had went to high school with, another Catholic born and raised. Our wedding ceremony was performed by his uncle, Monsignor Ted and was a traditional Catholic service with my grandfather doing the readings, our aunts distributing communion and cousins as altar servers.
We had been married for 2 years when we started really trying to conceive. We had never not tried but at this time we got serious. Most of you have read my infertility story but if you haven't here's the
link.Then in late 2005 things started to change. For almost 32 years I had been the model Catholic woman. What our family and friends couldn't see, what I didn't show, was that I had begun to just go through the motions. For several years I had felt absolutely no sense of purpose. I had no faith that God had a plan for me. I had no faith that our infertility was serving a higher purpose. Going to church was all a show. My faith had fallen away. Oh, I still believed in God and Jesus but it was a shallow belief. More like, oh, I know him but what has he done for me kind of belief. I wasn't sure how to become faith-filled again. At this point I was still attending church but there is a huge difference in going through life as a church attending Catholic or a Baptist, or a Methodist or a Lutheran and going through life as a
Faith Filled Christian.
My turning point was in late 2005. In September I got pregnant and promptly miscarried. My dad's dad died in November. My mom's dad, the one I had lived with, died in December. My dad and I fought in December and didn't see each other at Christmas. Dad and I actually went almost 4 months without speaking to each other because of the very hurtful things he said to me in December. Then in March I found out why he had been so nasty. Mid-March 2006 Dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. By the time he was diagnosed it had already spread to his brain. Once he was diagnosed and I began spending time with him again I saw many personality changes in him and I realized the fights earlier where due to his cancer. I was kicking myself big time for not reaching out to him right away after the fight. I hit rock bottom at this point.
I, along with my grandma, nursed Dad through the remainder of his life, all 3 1/2 months of it. One of my dad's sisters is a minister and she helped council me through the pain I was feeling from the previous year. I was going through the worst time of my life and all I knew was that in 10 months God had taken my baby, my two grandpa's and my dad. What had I done? I felt like I was being punished for something I did but I didn't feel I had ever done something so terrible to deserve this kind of pain.
Something that happened part-way through Dad's illness touched me in a way I had never known and started to heal me. On Easter Sunday 2006 my dad accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. As he said those words to my aunt my eyes were opened. I realized that while spending my whole life in the Catholic Church and saying the profession of faith every Sunday those words had rang hollow with me. I believed in God and I believed in Jesus but I had never said out loud and really meant it that Jesus died for me. To save me from all my sins. He took the whole weight of the entire world upon His shoulders. And, so did his Father. That was way more of a burden than any pain I was feeling at that time.
My aunt talked to me at length during the long nights I stayed at my dad's during the last months of his life. During the last week, Dad was unconscious and I was praying to God to take him home. My aunt helped me to truly see that while I was mourning for my loss I really should be celebrating Dad's gains. For when he died he gained a whole new life. A complete life with our God and Savior. A life where he is not weak, blind, sick, depressed and in pain.
Dad died at sunrise on Monday June 26, 2006. My aunt and grandma had sent me home the night before. Dad had been unconscious for a whole week and I barely left his house. My aunt wanted me to go back to work because she said Dad could go on like that for several days more. When that phone rang early in the morning on that June day I knew Dad was gone. I saw in my mind Dad walking into that sunrise and right into Jesus' waiting arms.
I realized that God's plan all along was for my dad to join him after just 55 years on earth. God's plan for him involved hurt and anger and sadness and loss and fear and desperation....I had felt all those feelings, too, during my battle with infertility. Dad endured all that pain so he could spent eternity with his saviour.
I know that my infertility was planned years and years before I was even born. I have felt fear, rejection, loss, longing, sadness, heartache....the list goes on and on. But along with all those negative feelings I have felt hope and excitement and happiness and most of all, faith. Faith in God and Jesus and their plan for each of us. And faith is what gets me through all of life's ups and downs.
I can't say I am at an all-time high as far as my faith goes. I have to work at it every day. I read the Bible and spiritual books and I pray constantly. I have a monologue going with God and Jesus at all hours of the day. I truly appreciate it when people say they are praying for me because I still falter in my faith. I still ask, really? Are you sure this is what I'm supposed to do? Even though it is so perfectly clear.
Take our adoption. Back in the spring of 2005, we started this process. It lasted about a month. I cried every day. People were rude. The adoption agencies said we couldn't parent a child that had been in the foster system. We weren't experienced. Become foster parents and get some experience. No one wanted us as foster parents because my hubby is a sheriff's deputy. It went on and on. I felt like I was trying to shove a square peg in a round knot hole. I gave up. It took me 3 years to realize God knew what I didn't. He knew the bottom was about to drop out again. He wanted me to get through 2005 and 2006 and then center myself again.
I am now centered and know what God wants me to do. I can council other women on the pain of infertility. I can council children on the pain of a traumatic childhood and help them rise above their past hurts. I can be an example to my friends and family and show them how rewarding foster adoption can be (I hope). I am confident now in God's plan for me. And it's my past, the days of pain and sorrow, that give me faith to face the future.
