I began my life some 70 years ago in a French-Catholic family. I was baptized as an infant and went through the usual series of ceremonies that assured my standing in that belief system. While I didn’t always fully understand the meanings behind these various events, called Sacraments, I followed along obediently, because that’s what a good little Catholic girl did if she didn’t want to die suddenly and end up in hell.
The Catholic Church employs seven distinct means to open the way between believers and God’s grace: Baptism, First Communion, Confirmation, Penance (or Confession), Marriage, Holy Orders (priesthood), and Last Rites (administered to the dying.) At various times in my life, I took part in the first five of those sacraments, and again, their full significance was never clear to me.
In retrospect, I have now come to believe that, although other Christians might not agree with the significance or the necessity of those sacraments, they are nonetheless GOOD things, because they provide the catalyst to focus on God and his love for us Anything that compels us to do that is a good thing. Considering how far society as a whole has drifted away from God, I celebrate anything that causes people to turn back to him in any way, shape, or form.
Fast forward to 2021, and now here I am, alongside everyone else, grappling with issues I thought I’d never live to see. I hardly need mention the current pandemic, considering how all that surrounds it has become, in essence, a new way of life. Add to that the political and societal unrest that has reached nightmare proportions, and I honestly don’t know which way is UP anymore most days. I just muddle along, trying to stay as positive and productive as possible within these new, and safe, parameters, continuing always to hope for the best, and PRAYING a lot.
It’s not that I get down on my knees all that often. First, I can’t do that anymore. Kneeling is akin to someone driving two knives into my kneecaps, so that’s out. And I don’t sit anywhere for any length of time in conversation with God. I haven’t been to any church since last March, so I watch services online and read the Bible other times. In essence, my prayer is an all-day continuous thing, sort of an “I know you’re watching me, God, and I know that you can hear me” kind of thing wherein I say things (not out loud usually) like, “Well, isn’t this a nice turn of events,” or, “Can you help me out here, Lord?” Last week, when I came out of a supermarket to find that my car wouldn’t start, I sat there saying (out loud), “Seriously, God?” Fortunately, the roadside service guy showed up within minutes, and it wasn’t all that long before I was back on the road. And I did remember to say “Thank you, Lord” as I drove away.
So here it is for all the world (or anyone who cares) to see, my testimony. YES, I’m a Christian. Now that might shock some who know me as a moody judgmental sarcastic cynical sometimes too-arbitrary harsh-sounding woman whose bark is much meaner than her bite, but there you have it. I’ve come to realize, after much trial and error, that God DOES love me just the way I am, because he has answered more of my prayers and plopped me back on the right path more often than I can count. And all THAT despite all my blemishes and shortcomings.
After all, he made me, as is so beautifully told in Psalm 139:13-16-
“For you fashioned my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.I thank you because I am awesomely made, wonderfully; your works are wonders—I know this very well. My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes could see me as an embryo, but in your book all my days were already written: my days had been shaped before any of them existed.” (NIV-Bible Gateway)
So there it is, a blueprint of sorts, the proof that all this awesomeness is not mine to claim, but God’s. Added to all that he has done for me and to all the things I have to be thankful for that countless others do not have, how could I possibly consider turning my back on him again? It WAS turned for many years due to doubts and a feeling that I was just not worthy enough to claim a relationship with him.
Oh, I still have my doubts at times, and he knows this, and loves me anyway. That’s when he usually shows me something that makes me feel silly and I end up saying (out loud), “Now, why did I even think that, Lord?”
And as for not feeling worthy, well, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) So, it seems that I’m not alone after all. That word “all” takes in every single other human being alive, who has ever lived, and who will lived.
For a long time, I lived under the mistaken notion that MY sins were just too terrible to forgive. I’d go to church (the Salvation Army most recently) and look around at all those other people, knowing in my heart that they had not ever even come close to some of the experiences I’d had and that I’d walked into willingly and willfully...experiences that pulled me about as far from God as it is possible to be.
But here’s the thing: his arms are long, VERY long. They are able to reach around this world, ten times over if necessary, to gather in those, who, like me, don’t feel worthy. They pulled me in, time and time again. And each time, I’d run away again, until finally, one day, I said, “Enough. I’m staying here, as close to him as I can possibly get, because that trip back and forth from the ends of the earth to God’s heart is just too much for me now.”
So here I am, a child of God, and a proud one. Proud to say that he has loved me enough to have rescued me time and time again, enough to hear and answer my prayers, not always exactly as I’d hoped, but ALWAYS better than I could have ever dreamed of.
And right now, as I twirl around inside this twister like Dorothy and Toto, not knowing where I’ll land in all this current chaos and uncertainty, I know one thing for sure. When I open that door, I know exactly who’ll be on the other side, and his arms won’t have to pull me too far this time.
