My Journey With God

Hi there!

So, you clicked on this post.  Why?  Think about that for a bit. I’ll give you some time…

Got it?  Ok, leave your reason in the comments down below, I really want to know.

Let’s begin.  I really want to say all that I have kept inside of me, and I hope you want to hear it.

My family is Catholic, which some say mean that I am Catholic.

Catholicism is the religious practice of worshiping Jesus Christ who sacrificed so much for human kind.  Now I know a lot of you are Christians, and I wanted to make it clear that Catholics believe the same thing as Christians, they just have different customs to celebrate Christ.  Do you understand?  Good.

Now, back to how my family is Catholic.  I’ve had some questions over the years about how your family’s faith relates to yours.

It does have quite the influence on you.  If you are raise to believe in God, chances are, you believe in God.

But I believe that your faith is YOUR own choice, not anybody else’s.  If you truly believe in Christ the Savior, then YOU can make the choice to be Christian/Catholic.

I was baptised at an early age, as a tradition of Catholicism.  Ever since my family has been Church-going people, attending Church as much as we could manage.  In fact I will be going to Church in just a few minutes, and then when I get back, I’ll continue to write this post.

When I was in 2nd grade, I attended my first reconciliation and my first Communion.  Until about age 11, I would never ever pay attention to the sermons of Church.  I thought of Church as a very boring place, where I just sat for about an hour, thinking of anything that crossed my mind.

Yes, I would join in the prayers, but I never thought about what they meant.  I never truly prayed, and I never opened up a Bible to listen to God’s word.

That all changed when I was given the chance to go to a Christian camp by Hume Lake.  I went to the camp with a Christian Church my Best Friend went to, and that was when I realized the Christian faith wasn’t very different from the Catholic faith.  We believed in the same things, and that’s all that mattered.

When I arrived at the camp, I was shocked by the beauty of all the nature.  Trees towered above us, and minnows shimmered in the creek.  Sunlight lit up everyone’s mood, including mine.  Every day, we went on adventures.  And every day, we would have a discussion with the entire camp about our savior.

I was so invested in these discussions, and I always soaked up all the words like a sponge.

 

In other words, I found The Lord.

I found him, he was inside of my heart, guiding me through all of my troubles, and he has been ever since.

I accepted him into my life, truly.  I saw things I had never seen before.  I gained empathy for other people, my one goal in life was to love everyone, no matter what.  I wanted to be the best I could, I found that it was impossible to disappoint God, and so I became so very close to him.

He was the one being I could tell anything to.  My life opened up.

I began to use this newfound gift from God.  Sure, it wasn’t a huge present wrapped with a bow, but it was much better.

This is the story of how I applied this newfound gift to my everyday life.

This isn’t just another religious post, this is the story of how I used the Power of God to help me get through my struggles… and how you can too.

It was around this time that I discovered the inevitability of death.  

I was the type of person who would see a horror movie trailer and be scared of the things I saw in that trailer for months on end.  I was scared of death, and the worst part was that it was the kind of fear that crept into my mind every single night.

On one of these occasions, I realized that I should do something about this phobia that was slowly eating away at my well being.

So I reached over to my nightstand, and opened up my bible.  I looked for verses about death and the fear I was going through.  Needless to say, I found that God had plenty to tell me about that.

John 14:1

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You Believe in God, believe in me.”

and

John 11:25

“Jesus said to her, ‘I am the Resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die.”

These verses comforted my heart, and for the first night since my fear began, I slept soundly, knowing that God was everywhere, caring and protecting me.

Throughout the school year, I prayed every morning and night.

I felt so blessed.  I finally recognized how wonderful the life that God gave me was.  (and of course, still is.)

My life is so easy, and I’m beyond thankful and blessed for that.

The next Summer, I went to that Camp again.

I had the same experience, except this time, God was walking with me, everywhere, in my heart.  My religion surrounded me, and I felt safe and confident with my faith.

Because you see, I could just say I believe in God, but unless I truly accept him into my heart and never doubt that he’s with me, it would be lying.

On the first day of camp, 

I saw this girl with this really cool Action bible.  It was like a bible that explained the great word of God with comics.

I was really interested in it, because I had been having trouble translating the sometimes complicated sayings in the Bible.  I so desperately wanted to dive into the stories of God.

I asked her if I could look at it, and I read one story, and immediately knew that was something I really wanted, to grow in my relationship with the Lord.

So I prayed that somehow I could get my hands on that book, I planned on saving up for it or asking for it for Christmas.

And this may seem silly, but this is how I know that God was listening to me, and was always listening to me.

Later in my camp experience, I won the camp-wide archery contest.  (haha I don’t know how, I think I wasn’t as close to the Target as I could’ve been,)  I was so happy when I heard that I won, and when they gave me my certificate, the award they were giving away was…

The Action Bible.

You see, I think there are many reasons why God chose that situation to give me that bible.  I think he was showing me why my faith shouldn’t falter, and that he’s always hearing my prayers.

One belief that I have never faltered from is the idea that God has a plan for us.  He knows my destiny, and he knows what I’m meant to be.  I firmly stand by the concept that God gives us obstacles and sad instances in life so that in the end we can be in a true state of happiness.  

 

Every day after camp, I pored over that Action Bible.  I read all through the Old Testament, and understood the power of my Savior.  Then I moved to the New Testament, and developed in my relationship closer to God.

One of the bible stories in the Old Testament that has stuck with me was the entire book of Esther.

It demonstrates how a woman can defend her faith.  I really enjoyed it, you should read it when you get a chance.

I want to stress how important and life changing it was for me when I started to get involved in the church.

I became an Alter Server.  It has taught me discipline, and it fulfilled my urge to serve the church in some way.  I felt like being not just in the congregation has contributed to my journey with the Lord.

I also started to listen to all the sermons at Church.  I learned that if I really, really thought about it, everything applied to my everyday life.  All the reading?  No, they’re not just stories.  They’re connected to God’s teachings.

A constant saying I have to remind myself of is that I’m not perfect…and that’s ok.  

God has taken care of the fact that I’m not perfect.  Only one being is perfect, and that’s Jesus.

I pray every chance I get.  When I struggle, I look to God.

That is my journey with God… and the best part is, my journey is never ending.

Have a wonderful day.  I’m praying for you.  ❤

I know this wasn’t like a normal post, but I just really felt the need to tell you all about my faith, since I have this awesome platform with lots of people who follow it.  ❤