I just feel like Jesus had his finger on me from day one and would lift it from me until I finally gave in. I truly feel “He chose me”, and no matter how much I tried to ignore Him or run away He just wouldn’t give up. There was always this inner-turmoil inside of me that knew there must be much more to existence than what we know with our senses.
For instance, I remember when I was in eighth grade my Science teacher telling us matter cannot be created or destroyed, only changed from one form to another. Well, if that’s the case then where the heck did it all come from? At one point and time something had to be made out of nothing in some way. It’s illogical to think anything else.
Also how can things as complicated at the order of the universe, DNA or human thought be some sort of cosmic mishap. For instance, lets say I were to take a clock, completely disassemble it, and bury it in the ground . One hundred years later someone digs it up. What do you think the chances are they will find a perfectly assembled running clock? How about nil. There is now way a clock could form itself by chance, right? If so what is the probability? Yet the structure of something a simple as a leaf on any plant is 1000 times more complicated than a clock and yet is supposed to be some accident that happened by chance? Come on! The probabilities are insurmountable.
These sorts of thoughts are what converted my brain. My heart took a little while longer. That took God stepping in and putting me with the woman who is now my wife 12 years ago. When we met we were both at real low points in our lives. We are real living proof that God can form something out of nothing because the chances of us making it were about as good as the buried clock.
We discovered together that we had the same inner-turmoil and longing for holiness and truth. Neither of us had ever been baptized but we decided together to stop ignoring the whisper of the Holy Spirit and give in.
Now you are probably thinking, “Why Catholic”? Seems like a pretty far jump. For my wife, her family had historically been Catholic, and she had always respected that sacredness and history of the Church. For me I guess I decided if I was going to accept all this, I wanted the deluxe package. If I wanted Christ, I wanted ALL of Him and everything He left for us. I wanted His body, blood, soul, and divinity flowing through me. I wanted his mother to be my spiritual mother. I wanted the Apostles and their successors, the Saints, and the Martyrs. I wasn’t going to settle for any watered down no-frills, mile wide and an inch deep faith. So I just jumped right in.
About eight years ago my wife and I were baptized into the Church together at the Easter Vigil. One of the most blessed things for me was knowing the horrible way I lived before then would be completely washed away through my baptism. Even all temporal punishment. It was truly a new start for me. I’m not saying it’s always been easy for me, but I can feel my roots of faith growing deeper every day. However, I still feel like I have a lot of make-up work to do.
