SideBar
Side Bar
I was brought up in a very strong faith environment where I was taught bible stories from an early age and where personal commitment was taken so seriously that I wasn’t even allowed to be baptised until I was old enough to decide for myself, at fourteen.
Not long after this I began to experience severe doubts as to whether God existed, was the bible true, had I really made a true commitment to Jesus , etc. At the time I found this very uncomfortable, and thought it was strange it should have begun so soon after my baptism, but looking back I can see it was the work of God’s grace in me, because my faith had been very narrow and unquestioned up till then. This persisted through my teenage years and I was unable to find any answers to my doubts either from well-meaning Christians or from books.
I suppose many teenagers would just have walked away from the Church, but I felt a bit like Peter when he said to Jesus : “Lord, where shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.” If life is indeed a journey, there has to be a sense of progress towards something better for it to make sense, and even though I could not believe in my childhood Christianity, none of the alternatives seemed any better.
I would like to be able to say I met some wonderful Catholics who changed my life, but the truth is I came to God by a rather humiliating route. One day, while I was at university, my state of doubt about everything became so intense that I spontaneously cried out, “God, I have no idea if you exist or not, but if you are there, do something!” I think in hindsight this was the first real act of faith I ever made, wrenched from me by a kind of despair.
There was no immediate response, but a few days later a picture came into my mind apparently from nowhere of the Catholic Church, which I had been brought up to believe was seriously in error. I saw a huge building with many side rooms like chapels in a cathedral, and the thought came into my mind: “somewhere here there is a place for you”. Immediately a sense of peace replaced the doubts I had had for years, and the picture was confirmed when I walked into Westminster Cathedral some weeks afterwards, and was overwhelmed with a sense of God’s presence.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do about this, until a college friend said he too was thinking of becoming a Catholic, and that we had to go to the university chaplain to request instruction. So off we went on a path that has led me to many exciting places (and some tough ones!), but none more challenging and worthwhile than my present work encouraging Catholics to share faith with others. In a way, I feel God has brought me round full circle, and I wait with fascination to see where it goes next.