A Complicated Simplicity

I grew up in a very devout Christian home, starting off at at a church known as the Chapel where my parents were married and attended even before I was born. We were at Church every moment it was open Sundays, for morning service, Sunday school, and evening service… even going to mid-week Pioneer girls meetings and Flocks groups. I grew up with very solid Biblical teaching in my church, learning my Bible and what Biblical truths were- focusing more on the actuality of the Truth than the application. My mum home schooled me and my 5 siblings… from the time I was 5… and I remember being given responsibilities and chores from a very young age because there were so many of us and my mum was so overwhelmed with the responsibility of raising 6 children. My dad worked as a businessman in my earliest years of life down at Ohio Desk right across from the Cleveland Gray's Armory- I have memories of taking him lunch, picking him up, or going to the company Christmas parties there. I don't know when he transitioned into a custodial job at ShakerMiddle School, but I remember when he obtained his boiler operator's license and other qualifications. My dad was very busy with work, working many jobs to allow my mum to homeschool us- though when I was very young, he did art, math, and science with us.

After my younger sisters were born (I was eight when the second youngest was born), my dad took on a paper route as well… those were the years I remember him being always tired, but never ever complained about working so much. My dad has always been really funny, loving, joking, and makes working with him great fun. All through my young years, being involved heavily in community sports and homeschool coops, I was very enthusiastic and calculating about every adventure I undertook from choir (which at my old church, Parkside, I was a part of from kindergarten through 5^th grade when we left) to learning about my Bible. I loved church… the preaching, which still deeply touches me every time I go to Parkside… and Sunday school where I learned about my Bible. My mum and dad didn't teach me about the Bible growing up, but did teach my the Bible stories.

When I turned eleven, I was beginning to become overwhelmed with everything that was expected of me and that I expected of myself. I began looking at life very seriously, and not finding the fun I used to in the joyful things of life. I started looking for that hope I'd accepted into my heart at age 6. From the time I can remember, I learned about God. Now I really wanted to know God. I knew mostly of Him- a danger of being raised in the church… one tends to learn more about God faster than one can grow to know God. So I was barely starting to know God around eleven… and I wanted to learn more about Him the more I grew to knew Him. My "world" I lived in was mostly the Church, and I hadn't seen much of God working in the world outside my Christian bubble.

Around the age of twelve, I started asking questions about the CatholicChurch- an entity absolutely foreign to me, and unconsciously bad-mouthed by those I trusted in many circles. I was curious, if we both believe in Jesus, what can be so bad about the Catholic Church? I started reading about it and finding out the differences of belief rather early on- and I was fascinated at the differences. I didn't understand why someone could believe something outside of the Bible. But then, as I discovered the wonders of emailing, keeping in touch with friends, meeting people through the internet, I made the unexpectedly moral acquaintance of a young Englishman about 3 years my senior. It was six months before my 13^th birthday when he emailed me out of the blue- we were both part of the same online interest group… Tolkien (I've been a lifelong fan), and I was too free with my information, and advertised my email address. I have since withdrawn from any sort of such ways of "meeting" people. But we became friends- this guy was fascinating, we shared a lot of common interests, and he was Roman Catholic.

Through this friendship, I learned a lot about what the Roman Catholic church can mean to an individual person, and what the differences meant. As I formed a relationship with this young man beyond the computer, and we began discussing very deeply our faith and the differences between our belief. Maybe it was because for a time I abandoned the fervent pursuit of God through the Biblical basis I learned as a child and focused predominantly of the studying of the Catholic faith, but I slipped in my grasp of the truth. I lost focus of the truth God has given in His Word and was deceived by what the Catholic Church taught. My friend was a persuasive discusser, and I should not have attempted to grasp the differences in our beliefs at such a young age. We kept in contact for years, until well after I turned 16.

This young man became my best friend over the years- I felt like he could really explain to me what I didn't understand about my faith in the Catholic faith. And so, over a year, I pretty nearly adopted it. I wanted to please God, I wanted to know Him more… and somehow as I tried to obtain a worthiness for the grace He'd given me, I felt as if I were drifting farther and farther from Him. I prayed the Rosary devoutly every day, and tried to learn how to make myself holy according to the Catholic Church. I must admit, my motivation was not wholly the glory and magnification of God. My friend who grew close to me as we shared and discussed many personal things as well as our beliefs, became far more than a friend. We grew closer than we ever should have become, especially at our ages, and by the time I was 14 or so, we had definitely become romantically minded towards one another.

I thank God that we were both very ignorant of romance, having stayed in the intellectual and athletic circles, and didn't even know what it was besides something we felt inside of us towards each other and what we'd mutually read in ancient tales of chivalry and the like. All this time, we never met, but I continued to try and make myself ready to some day join the Catholic Church. I never had a peace, and I thought that meant I needed to pursue more ways of making myself holy. I cut myself off from most of my close friends growing up during this time, and tried to pursue God in a secret, quiet of my studies of Catholicism. My family didn't find out until I was fifteen, quite a long time to have kept such a huge secret… and I don't need to tell you they weren't pleased, though mostly the relationship between myself and the young man came out.

It took me until my mission trip to in 2004, being a very Catholic country, to realize that all I had picture the Catholic church as being, a way to enable men to be holy before God- was wrong. I realized truly then that Christ's blood is all that is able to make us worthy. It broke my heart to realize how hard I had pursued a lie…harming both myself and the young man, who had actually asked me to marry him. Because of the intensity of our friendship, I tried to convince myself during the mission trip that somehow I could marry him and serve God in the way He'd called me. God painfully showed me that our beliefs were so different… that my rosary prayers- to Mary, to the Saints- had been idolatry. I had been engaging in sin by hiding our relationship, my main means of becoming "Catholic" (I actually told people for about 3 years that I was Catholic… even during my whole time in CAP), from my parents. God showed me so much on that trip- and at the end, as much pain as I was in from trying to cling to something He didn't intend for me, He freed me from that which I felt bound to and willingly had given myself over to the pursuit of.

God truly revealed to my heart the lies I had been pursuing in attempts of pleasing Him, and totally reversed my perceptions of how to serve and please Him. Since that time about two years ago, I have abandoned completely all my old Catholic practices- many of which I haven't even mentioned- and pursued God in the way He's revealed to me through other followers of Christ and His Word. I have passionately fallen in love with my Bible again, and probably have much of a new believer's enthusiasm… God released me yet again.