I am as it were, a born again Christian.  In my case the realization came following years and years of feeling that the Church was nothing more than a system of control.  I find it odd now on reflection that those thoughts paired so neatly with the years of my life that were “self” focused.

A rebellion of the spirit if you will, a driving force to go out and make a name — prove what I could do in the form of jobs, possessions and self approval.  In short, the years when I thought I knew everything.

At first when I made my way away from the Church, and I say Church because at the time I really did not have a personal relationship with Jesus.  Religion was the Church, and the Church was God.  The Bible was no more than a fictional teaching tool of the church.  Something not to be believed as real.

All this may seem surprising giving my upbringing in Catholic grade and high school, the tragic flaw of the experience was that what could have been a spirit filling experience, turned out to be spirit draining.  And by the end of school, I had had enough of religion.

And at that moment, religion was locked away in my heart as nothing more than a bad experience.  Life would throw me a number of curve balls such as the death of my mother, and countless failed attempts to get pregnant with my wife.  All of which made the occasional thought of God even more bleak.

It would take a book of fiction, to bring me back to God.  Fiction.  My wife had picked up a copy of “Left Behind” at a community swap event.  She thought I might like it, so I started to read it.  The problem was, I could not put it down.

I read it, devoured it would be a better word.  It got me thinking about God again, little wisps of questions in my head, little flickers of thought that maybe I was wrong about God.  My subconscious quickly pushed these away.  So I started to read the second book.

And more thoughts surfaced.  I resisted.  I read the third book.  Still more thoughts, it was becoming harder to deny them.  I read the fourth book and… could not deny it, the calling resounded inside me, I tried to fight it but it was like a baby trying to fend off a prize fighter.  Finally I broke down and with tears in my eyes I asked for his (Christ’s) forgiveness and acknowledged his sacrifice.

At that moment, I was born again into Christ.  They say that being born again has different effects of different people.  Those who have never experienced religion or God are sometimes overwhelmed having never been filled in such a way before.  Others like myself, felt a comfort of having come home like a prodigal son.

I was filled with a sense of fear.  Fear of God, and fear of my friends and family.  I feared God because I for the first time had a realization of what Revelations foretells.  The Bible had taken on a whole new level of importance to me, and the dismissing thoughts of it being something other than divinely inspired were gone.  I had to get my life in order, I had to repent, and change the way I lived my life and looked at things.

And fear of what my friends and family would think of this conversion back to God.  I’ll make no bones about it, I made my lack of faith public over the years.  If you were to ask my friends if I was religious they would laugh at the thought.  My fear was that I would be seen as insincere, and would be mocked.

I gradually got over this feeling, and grew in my resolve to my faith.  But quickly found that this new-found understand brought with it new-found challenges and difficulties I had never before understood.  Sin had been a physical thing, you do something bad, you sin.

When taken into the context that sin begins in the heart, thoughts become sin outside of the physical realm.  Much harder to contain, much harder to avoid.  You would think that following this conversion that I would sin no more.  I tried, I really did.  But it failed as it was bound to from the beginning.

We cannot help sinning.  Its in our nature, we are flawed in this most important way.  I have committed sins, big and small, and have felt that forgiveness could not be had again.  To say I am ashamed of these failings is an understatement.  I would like to think that they served a purpose, that they helped me refine my faith through failure, if that makes any sense at all.

Where I find myself now is at a point where I have to consider the Church.  More importantly, which Church I belong to.  I was baptized a Catholic, raised and confirmed a Catholic.  Yet I belong to the Methodist Church.  But where does my heart reside?

For a long time I thought my days as a Catholic were over, that I was done being Catholic.  And yet in my heart I feel like I am still Catholic.  I became a Methodist largely because my wife wanted to be Methodist, her Mother is Methodist, and the Methodist orthodoxy is a bit more relaxed than that of the Roman Catholic Church.

I have never really felt like I understood what a Methodist is, I have not studied the doctrine.  I don’t have it ingrained in me yet.  I think what I need to do is study.  Study what it means to be a Methodist, study what it means to be a Catholic, even study what it means to be Episcopal (we have good friends who are Episcopal and have done a number of study courses).

Church is important, being part of a community is something that we need as Christians.  It provides a medium for learning and sharing of faith with the community.  Where will I end up?  Catholic? Methodist? Other?  I really can’t answer yet.  It will be something I will pray about that is for sure.

To look at me, you would never think I am a religious person. I am not going to lie, I have my vices. But I am trying to be a better person and given that we are all flawed, that is about as much as anyone can hope to do in this life.

The concept of forgiveness is probably the hardest one to come to terms with for me. By and by we come in contact with situations where it is relatively easy to forgive another person who has done us wrong. Someone scratched your new car, it was an accident, you are upset, but you get over it.

Someone says something inappropriate to you, but apologizes and while you don’t wipe the slate clean right away, over time you forgive and forget.

But what about the big things? Could I forgive a drunk driver who killed a loved one, could I forgive a murderer, a pedophile, a terrorist? These are the really big things that separate the men from the boys spiritually speaking. Could I do it? Can I in good faith call myself a Christian if I can’t answer yes to that question… the unfortunate thing is that I can’t have it both ways.

We can’t do what Christ teaches when its convenient to us. It doesn’t apply conditionally, just like God’s love isn’t given conditionally. I’d like to think I could forgive someone of any offense over time, the nature of that offense might take me a lifetime to get over, but I think I could do it. I hope I could do it.

I think the problem most Christians have when they think about this kind of extreme forgiveness is that we have a tendency to look to our own strength as a measure of what we can and cannot forgive. I think at some point a person realizes that they can give themselves over to God’s will, and rely on his strength and to get you through a tough time.

We all remember the poem about the footprints in the sand…

Footprints in the Sand

One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord.
Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand.
Sometimes there were two sets of footprints,
other times there were one set of footprints.

This bothered me because I noticed
that during the low periods of my life,
when I was suffering from
anguish, sorrow or defeat,
I could see only one set of footprints.

So I said to the Lord,
“You promised me Lord,
that if I followed you,
you would walk with me always.
But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life
there have only been one set of footprints in the sand.
Why, when I needed you most, you have not been there for me?”

The Lord replied,
“The times when you have seen only one set of footprints in the sand,
is when I carried you.”
Mary Stevenson

Almost as difficult, maybe even more difficult is being able to forgive yourself. I myself find myself racked by guilt many times wondering if I truly am sorry for what I have done. To put it simply, I don’t feel like I should be forgiven, the guilt of knowing what I have done is there haunting me.

An insightful gent from an Alpha class my wife and I are attending said quite poignantly — “Guilt is one of the greatest tools the devil has at his disposal”. I believe that to be a true and accurate statement, guilt has the uncanny ability to make us feel unworthy of God’s forgiveness and pushes us away from him.

Sitting here, writing this, it all makes perfect sense. Of course I should let it go, be comforted that I have been forgiven… and yet, it just doesn’t work out that way when I find myself in that situation. I can only hope that time grants me something I else besides wiping away painful memories — wisdom.

When times are good. If things go your way, its easy to have faith in God. But when the shit hits the fan… that… is when your faith is really tested. Its human nature to want to blame something, someone for your misfortune.

All too many times we stand shaking our fist at the sky — Cursing God or what we perceive as an uncaring universe. We want something to blame. We need it. It gives us an anchor to hold onto — it keeps up from being consumed by the misery maelstrom threatens to suck us into the vortex of depression.

They say when it rains, it pours. Having just lost my sole surviving Grandfather, you would think heaping another loss onto my shoulders would be almost too much to bear.

But I don’t see my Grandfather’s passing as senseless, as unfair or even uncaring. He was ninety-two, he lived a full life. Listening to stories, seeing pictures of him in his younger years and knowing in my heart that it was in fact his time, does not cause me to rage against God.

It gives me pause to thank him for giving him a long life, a loving wife, and three great children. He had a fascinating life, and seeing him suffering as he was, death was a relief as much for him as it was for those who watched him wither away.

Its easy to have Faith when life is good…

Such a simple truth, and so easy to take for granted. As some may know my wife and I are in the process of adopting a little girl from China. The process is long and drawn out, more waiting that I ever thought I would have the patience for, and something that will not become a reality for several years.

What not everyone knows is that we felt moved to start a concurrent adoption for an eight year old Taiwanese girl. We want a bigger family and it looked like she would be the perfect fit for us. With three half siblings 20 minutes from us and as the closest family to apply for consideration, we thought our chances were very good.

The agency assured us that proximity to her siblings was very important. So we slowly began to hope with guarded hesitancy. Go through a number of failed fertility treatments and you quickly learn how to put armor around your heart as a protection measure.

What was five families, became three. We were among the three still under consideration. Additional questions were sent to us and another couple. Was it a good sign? Was it a bad sign? Anxiety began to build.

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t pray to God that we be chosen. We wanted her to be our daughter it seemed like destiny. After a month I received a phone call at work.

My wife Karin was on the phone, crying, sobbing. I knew instantly it was about Chia-Jung. We had not been chosen. We would learn that despite our location, Chia-Jung’s desire to be the youngest child had ultimately been the deciding faction. With a six year old son, we could not offer her what her heart ultimately needed.

Most shocking was the news that the family that was chosen was located in Michigan, over two and a half hours away. We felt a crushing blanket of depression descending upon us.

Its easy to have Faith when things go your way…

I found myself in a detached position. My normal reaction would be to apply blame to something, anything. To run out and curse God and the heavens. I have done it more times than I can remember. This time something was different inside me.

I can remember telling myself that God wasn’t punishing me, that I had a choice of how I could view this moment in life. I could see it as random, I could see it as payback for some sin, or… I could accept that it was part of God’s divine plan.

I actually found myself asking how I can use this event to serve God. Was that grace working within me? I don’t know if I will ever know. I chose ultimately to view it as part of God’s plan. Its a plan none of us can fathom, its a plan that to have comfort in requires one key thing — Faith.

Faith is easy when life is good. Faith is hard when life is hard. The question really comes down to this — How genuine is your faith?

I’ve spent a lot of years going through the motions. This may be the first time in my life when my faith has not faltered, when it was genuine.