I am beyond lucky to be so clearly called so clearly to such a life changing experience.
I want to share my story with you; my journey in faith that led me to respond to this call.
My walk with Christ has been an ongoing battle. I have found Him and lost Him repeatedly, but I believe this long journey will never truly end as it is not until we reach Heaven that our relationship with Christ is perfected.
My journey starts with my family. I was born a “Cradle Catholic” into a family that surrounded me in love: From the day I was born I’ve been surrounded with love from my parents, my family, my church, and my friends. I grew up with Jesus at my side. I’ve always known him and loved him, but I had always taken that love for granted.
They sent me to church class where I learned the things they couldn’t teach me about our savior and I can never thank them enough for bringing God into my life since the day I was born, but I hadn’t really learned it for myself, it was just drilled into my brain all my life. My mom was probably the most influential in my early faith life, she taught me the importance of faith and the basics of what it meant to be Catholic. My family has always called ourselves Catholic, but growing up we only went to Church on Easter and Christmas and unless they were dragging me to church class, my family never talked about our faith.
This gave me the wrong idea of the Catholic faith. I never understood that our God is a personal God. I looked at Christ as a historical figure whose history we had to learn and I looked at the Church as a regulator who gave us rules to follow and attempted to keep us in line, but I could not have been more wrong.
I had never truly understood that I could have an intimate and personal relationship with Christ in which He loved me individually. I knew God loved man, for He saved us, but I would soon discover that our God died for each of us. I began to comprehend that God loves me, myself so much that He would have died on the cross to save just me, alone.
My walk with Christ remained unchanged through elementary and middle school, but high school brought a change in me that I was desperately in need of.
In High School I was introduced to Praise & Worship Music which began the formation of my personal relationship with Christ. I was never one to like prayer… I said my Our Fathers and Hail Marys but I never really felt like prayers were bringing me as close to God as I wanted to be, I wanted more. Praise and worship showed me what more I could have, I truly felt myself become closer to God than I ever had before in the songs we sang. They said everything I had wanted to say in prayer but could never find the words and gave me an overwhelming feeling of a love so strong that warmed my soul. To this day, Praise & Worship is where I find Jesus without fail.
Since I attended Catholic High School, my experience was also full of theology classes and retreats. Junior Year, these impacted me in a way I’ll never forget. Through theology class, I fell in love with my faith. I finally came to appreciate the traditional aspects of it, because I understood where it came from.
I also took an elective class called Faith Leadership. I can easily say this was the class that brought everything together: the personal relationship met the traditional faith and I was at the peak of my faith. I started driving myself to Mass all alone every Sunday morning and this inspired my family. Soon enough, they were joining me every Sunday and I found myself constantly teaching them the things I had learned.
At this point I was attending and leading retreats regularly. First, I attended a four day long retreat called Kairos which means God’s Time. For those four days I was in my own world with God. I heard many testimonies from friends and teachers. God continued to amaze me. I cried and I cried in adoration. I was surrounded in the deepest love and happiness with God I had ever known.
Here, I learned a valuable lesson, without it I would not be on this World Race.
I learned to fully trust God. On that retreat I gave my life up to Him. I put everything in His hands and relied on His plans for me. I was finally at peace.
A few weeks later, I lead a similar retreat. This one was called Quest. Again, for four days I got to leave the real world behind and instead spend it with God. However, this time I was leading others to this place of peace I had found. And that set my soul ablaze. I shared my testimony. I cried again and again. I listened and gave the best advice and comfort I could. I brought God’s light to the life of others.
I knew this was going to be a part of my life forever. Spreading love was what I was called to do. At the time, I would have never imagined it would be to such a scale that I am attempting, but this is my call.
My faith journey continues. Today God reiterated His call to me with such undeniable force. I cannot even explain the joy and happiness this brought me.
I attended Mass with my family this morning as usual, but today I was moved to tears. In the reading, we heard God call to Samuel and reveal Himself then in the Gospel we heard Simon be called to become Peter the rock that the Church was built on. The accompanying songs are what brought me to tears. Here I am Lord , The Summons, and Go Make a Difference. God was not letting me misunderstand or overlook this. No, He wrapped me up in His love as He reinforced that this is what I am to do and that He will be with me every step of the way.
