Puzzle Pieces 1

The other day, during the “Retro-Active Radio Lunch” I heard some familiar songs, songs that transported me to my high school years. As far as my spiritual life is concerned, my teenage years were very important, so whenever I remember them, I remember the journey I took to find the Lord. I am going to spend a few posts sharing some of the journey I had. Not because I think it’s anything spectacular; no doubt other people have conversion stories that are far more dramatic than mine. But my journey demonstrates the awesome sovereignty of God and the reality that He had His hand upon me from even before my birth. As I get older, and learn of His sovereignty, I see how He ordained circumstances so that I would find Him.

Some people grow up in Christian homes and hear the gospel from their earliest memories; my children, for example. They hear the gospel regularly, and believe it when they are young. It is handed to them. Some people spend a wasted youth and then have a dramatic night and day conversion. It was not like that for me. I liken my spiritual journey to piecing together a very large puzzle. I received pieces from different places and at different times in my life.

I did not grow up in a family of faith. I was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church as an infant, and both my parents were Catholic. They each came from Catholic families. My great-grandmother had been raised in a convent in rural Saskatchewan during the early decades of the twentieth century. She had thirteen children eventually. Oddly enough, only one of the thirteen embraced the faith as an adult. It wasn’t as if no one was taught the basics of the Catholic faith; quite the contrary. But no one really lived it, including my mother’s family. My grandmother and her sisters didn’t even have funerals masses when they died; they were simply buried the way one would bury a pet; no ceremony, no memorial, no gathering. It was kind of sad. My father’s family wasn’t much better, except that despite living like there was no God, they still attended church regularly. There was nothing in the life of my grandfather that would suggest to me that he held God in any regard. He was a hard-working, fairly affectionate person. He was always good to us, and I loved him. But as for God, I never heard His name mentioned outside of the context of cursing. It was kind of amusing when he died. My mother, who is not a Christian (she refers to me as “you Christians” so I am only using her description) thought that I would like my grandfather’s Rosary beads and prayer book because I was the only one who was “religious.” I do have them, but not for any reason of faith, but rather because they remind me of him.

Neither of my parents embraced their faith, either. In fact, my mother had nothing but antipathy for God. I think her reaction to God had more to do with the Catholic Church, but it never occurred to her that there was any other church to go to. Our lives were without church except for the marriages of various relatives. My own parents did not tell me there was a God, but I received the first piece of the puzzle when I was in Kindergarten. One day our class was taken to the library where we sat on the floor at the feet of a lady who was not our regular teacher; she sat on an orange chair. She began telling us a wonderful story of the God of the Universe, the Creator. She told us how He created the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. Then, He made a man named Adam from the dust of the earth. I don’t remember her face, but I remember her hands; delicate, expressively demonstrating how God had made Adam. She told us how He had made Eve by causing Adam to fall asleep, and removing a rib from him. She explained that each one of us there were made by God, too. Then, she told us about a serpent and an apple which came from a tree that made people know good and bad. I don’t remember anything after that; but what a wonderful thing to have discovered! I remember going home and talking about it, and knowing instinctively, in that way children do, that my mother didn’t want to talk about it.

I remember being very intrigued by God. I had no concept of how big He was, but I figured He must be very big if He could make a man. I wondered if he was kind of like a bigger version of me when I played with my little dolls. Did He move us around and make us talk, or did He just watch us? It was the beginning of the call of God upon my life.

Next time, two more pieces of the puzzle fall into place.