Finding God

Looking back on my life, I am amazed to see that God has been there all along, drawing me to Himself. Even when I was a child, even when I didn’t attend church, even before I understood what it meant to follow Him, He was seeking me and patiently waiting. It took over 30 years for me to find Him.

God was not a big part of my childhood. We did not attend church. My parents let me go to a weeknight youth program at a friend’s church sometimes. I remember the smell of the food, doing crafts with my friends, and singing songs that I didn’t understand. 

I also remember attending Sunday church with another friend one time. We went to a classroom with a bunch of other kids and everyone was supposed to recite a memory verse. I was terrified because I had no idea what a memory verse was, or how I was supposed to know that I needed to memorize it. Didn’t the teacher know it was my first day? I remember listening intently as each child said the verse, hoping I could recite it correctly when it was my turn.

Another time my family went to an event at a church… a wedding, or maybe a baptism? And in the middle of the ceremony, they brought out bread for everyone. I really wanted to have some, but I wasn’t allowed to.

Church was so confusing!

I knew some things, though. My parents had taught me some prayers to say at bedtime. That is one of my sweetest childhood memories. I remember lying in bed and reciting as many as I could before I fell asleep each night. And every Christmas Eve, before bed, I would sit in my mom’s lap and she would read me The Nativity Story. It was one of my favorite traditions. There was something about the story that I could feel deep inside me. No one had to tell me that it was real. I just knew.

I had a children’s Bible and would look at the pictures and sometimes read the stories. My mom’s Bible was gigantic with thin, fragile pages, and it had strange words in it like “thou” and “thy” and “shalt”, like a foreign language. At one point I decided that I should read my children’s Bible from cover to cover. And I did, all 387 pages. I liked some stories, but I didn’t understand most of it. I remember copying the 10 Commandments very carefully and neatly onto a piece of paper to hang up in my bedroom.

I didn’t know it at the time, but God was speaking to me through all these little things. He was slowly and purposefully revealing Himself to me.

At the age of 18 I got engaged. My fiance was Catholic and wanted to get married in the church. After meeting with the priest, he suggested that I go through the confirmation class. After all, I had been baptized Catholic as an infant. Why not? I honestly don’t remember what I learned in the class, but when I was 19, I had my first confession, received my first communion, and was confirmed in the Catholic Church.

We were married and attended church regularly – at first. It was so strange. For the longest time I had wanted to be a part of a church, but now going every week just felt like a chore. I’m not really sure what I expected it to be like, but I didn’t expect it to be like that. It was hard for me. I found myself making up excuses for not going. I was told that since I wasn’t attending church the devil had my heart. I don’t know if that was true or not, but either way, it wasn’t a helpful thing to be told.

We attended church on and off for the six years of our marriage, and then came the divorce. I knew that the Catholic Church did not believe in divorce, and since going to church had become such a struggle for me, I fell away. 

A lot happened over the next five years. I changed jobs, I moved, I remarried, and we had a baby. Church had not been a part of my life, but my husband and I decided that we should try to find one. Neither of us had been raised in a church and we wanted our kids to grow up with one. 

So, I began the only place I knew where to begin – the Catholic Church. It felt familiar to me, but totally foreign to my husband. It wasn’t long before he decided it wasn’t for him, and I was going with our baby alone. It was hard. It was hard to keep our little one quiet and still. It was hard to focus on Mass with the baby squirming. One day he bumped his head on the pew and started crying. One of the people behind us gave me an annoyed look. 

Things weren’t working out the way I had hoped.

The next week I left our little one at home and went by myself to talk to the priest. I told him my background, about my divorce and getting remarried, about wanting to be right with the church and raise my kids in a Christian home. The priest told me that even though my previous marriage was annulled, I was living in sin because my husband and I had not been married in the church. We would need to have our marriage blessed. I was not allowed to receive communion. 

It was about the same time that I had been reading the Bible and came across Malachi 2:16 “‘For I hate divorce,’ says the Lord, the God of Israel.” My heart sank. I had failed God. I felt alienated. I felt like my sins were too big. I had made too many mistakes. The church didn’t want someone like me. 

I felt defeated and confused and ready to give up on every conscious level, but there was still something inside of me that was seeking God. 

One day my neighbor invited me to go out for coffee with her and a woman from her church. The woman was relatively new to the area and had a son the same age as mine. It felt good to get out of the house and connect with someone in a similar stage of motherhood as me. She was kind and friendly. She invited me to attend a Bible study at her church. 

The Bible study transformed me. I couldn’t believe how much I learned and how applicable the Bible was to my life. I was hooked. I couldn’t get enough of God’s Word. A few months later we began attending church there. It felt weird at first, after attending Catholic Mass, but everyone was so friendly and welcoming we felt like we fit in right away. 

That was five years ago. We are still going church together, as a family, every Sunday. I have attended many Bible studies with the wonderful ladies at the church and have even led a few studies in my home. 

I don’t just believe in God anymore, I follow Him, and following Him has changed me. 

I have a peace that I had never known before. I have been comforted through losses. I have been humbled by His mercy. I have seen His strength overcome my weaknesses. And when things happen that I don’t understand I rest in the confidence of His perfect plan. I can’t imagine what my life would be like now without Him.

As I look back over my life, I can see that even from a very young age, my soul had been longing for God. Why did it take me so long to find Him?

Thanks for reading!

~ Sarah ~

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