Better late than never: I'm in love with God, 20 years later

Now that I'm officially in finals mode, I made myself a list of things to do before tonight. But this post should have come much, much earlier - as in Easter weekend earlier. School just became a bit of a mess once Easter ended, so I'm so, so sorry about that.

Second, a quick shout out to my fellow friend and blogger Brenna and her most recent post about the temptation in our lives, as she has filled the gaps in my incoherence and has practically written what I was struggling to say. You can read more of her wonderful posts on her blog here.

Okay, here we go.

El and I, circa 2006. Note El rocking the knit vest.

As I draw closer to my 20th birthday, I've become more and more pensive about my life journey, particularly the past decade of my life. From the moment I turned 10 and entered the tumultuous world of the "double digits", it occurred to me in a plain fashion that this was where I was going to stay. As in, I more than likely will not see my 100th birthday, and I'm not really sure if I would really want to.

But I digress. Turning 10 was a defining year, not because of the double digits but just merely because that's when everything started changing. From my own body to the world around me, things started to move rapidly, and sometimes I felt like I was left behind. Admittedly, aside from a few critical junctures, I don't really remember anything before turning 10 years old. I would call that decade of birth to the day before turning 10 development.

"Tumultuous" really sums up my 10th birthday up until now, in one simple word.

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The word "tumultuous" is defined as "excited, confused, and disorderly." And my life was exactly that. As I grew up and things started changing around me, I felt lost in my own self and the environment that I had grown so comfortable in. In a sea of confusion, I was in a tiny boat that had no anchor for me to throw down so that I could regain my orientation.

The chapel at The Grotto, Portland

As I sat in the darkness at Easter Vigil, I thought about all of this. It was interesting, at least to me, how uncomfortable I felt with my faith even though I grew up in a Catholic school. It didn't make any sense to me, how being surrounded in the faith would push me away. But to this day, I have no resentment against my Catholic school upbringing, as it has brought me so much other joy. However, this was my challenge growing up: I didn't fully understand everything. And of course, there is no way to fully understand God's love - it is called a mystery, after all. But I guess the difference was that even though I knew I wouldn't be able to understand everything, I never made the effort to try.

My relationship with God was "tumultuous". There were periods of excitement - retreats, conferences, et cetera, et cetera - but outside of these one off experiences, there was confusion and disorder.

I went through high school religion and going in to it for the grade, and not for the grace. 

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I didn't believe that God loved me. Me, in a sea of 7 billion people. How could He possibly know me by name, all of my heart's desires, and have a plan for me? I was reminded of this day in and day out, but I never fully bought it. This lack of trust and lack of grace thrust me into a lot of trying times, time when I questioned if God's GPS for me was recalculating and just plain stuck. And with each instance - bullying, death in the family, break up with a boyfriend, drama with friends, disordered eating or self-harm - I was pushed away even more. Where was God and His love when my grandfather got dementia, and couldn't even remember any of us anymore? Where was God and His love when one of my exes forced me to have sex, and hurt me when I said no? Where was God and His love throughout any of this?

I left high school as a person who was broken, and even though I had a sense of direction with what I wanted to do, I had shattered God's compass for me.

In an unlikely turn events, as I met new people in university, a secular environment, I felt so compelled to tell people that I was Catholic. It was something so foreign to me, as I never had to explain that to anyone growing up. And through this sudden burst of honesty, I made friends and lost some. As this honesty grew, it felt like there was something inside me that was itching to get out. But something was still missing deep inside of me.

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I was invited to join Catholic Christian Outreach and I began studying with them. With each week I surrounded myself with people who were so on fire for their faith was exciting, but all the same confusing for me, as I had no idea how I too could achieve the same sense of love and faith.

When one of the missionaries asked if they could pray over me, I was a little apprehensive because I had no idea what it would entail. But as the prayers were said, I felt an unbelievable sense of calm wash over me. Suddenly, it felt as if all the doubts I had about God's love was washed away, and my eyes were opened - if only a little bit.

It was then that I began to get more active and began to help out with youth ministry at Precious Blood. But something was still missing.

I know that I am a sinner, and I know that the past 20 years have been marked by constant mistakes and failings. And despite the beautiful sacrament of reconciliation, I didn't feel like I was getting any closer to God. In fact, I was always scared of it.

The Upper Gardens at The Grotto

So this year, when time for Lenten confession came around, I was scared, again, because I didn't see how this was going to be any different from before. But God must have sensed this, because as I knelt down, another wave of honesty came over me and I was telling the priest everything. I finished by saying that I didn't believe that God has a plan just for me.

The priest contemplated everything that I said, and then he pointed behind me at the Crucifix that hung on the wall of the church. "That is how we know God has a plan for us."

When I looked back at him with confusion, he continued: “No cross is greater than the sins of mankind. And you don’t need to worry about a cross being too heavy, because Jesus already carried that cross for you. 

"Jesus could have stayed in heaven and dictated everything from above. But instead, He went about it the most difficult way possible so that we might have hope."

Wow.

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So back to Easter Vigil. My family spent Easter weekend in Portland, at The Grotto of Our Lady. I was contemplating the words that the priest had left me with during that confession, and I thought about the whole purpose of Lent, the Triduum, and the celebration of Easter. 40 day of waiting. 40 days of sacrifice and prayer. Jesus spent 40 days in the desert, choosing not to eat or drink and fending off the devil. He died on the cross for everyone, past, present, and future. To show His love for us, He went about the most difficult way possible - the ultimate sacrifice, He laid down his life for our own.

Such a simple, yet complex truth. And the greatest thing is that He doesn't want us to feel guilty for it, or to put ourselves through the same excruciating pain. What He does want for us is to to our best, return back to Him when we fall astray and remember always that His ways are not our ways.

I don't have all the answers, and I will never fully understand why God does the things that He does. I have faith that He has something bigger than I can even comprehend, and I pray for the grace to accept His plans humbly. 

With this new found confidence in my own faith journey, I look forward to what's ahead beyond my 20th birthday.

Be bold & know that He is always for us,

x R

What It's Like to Be Catholic... and Depressed

I can proudly say that I am a Catholic. Though I have had my fair share of ups and downs with my faith growing up, it wasn't until getting to high school that I was really able to embrace it and share it. It has become much easier now to share with others that I am Catholic without feeling shy about it.

However, being opening up about depression is a different story altogether. It wasn't until recently that I began to open up about my struggles through different pathways such as this blog and the Speak Out Blog, for which I contribute to.

I have begun to talk to more and more people about mental illness and other things that surround the topic. I'm not really sure what came over me, but I guess the biggest thing is that I wanted to stop finding excuses to validate my depression.

We don't need reasons to be happy, because sometimes we just are. In the same way, we shouldn't need reasons to explain why we are down or depressed or anxious.

But there was just one, tiny problem. I remember talking with other Christians about the whole issue of depression and suicide. It is through those conversations that I opened myself up and talked a little bit about my past experiences - namely, I've been depressed for a while and had thoughts of suicide in high school.

The people I talked to would look back at me in disbelief. "But you're Catholic, you aren't allowed to be depressed. God said so."

Now before I go on, I would just like to pause and say that this is not me having beef with other Christians, nor am I ragging on them for their seemingly narrow-minded ways. I am open to other Christians - I have friends who are Christians and non-Catholics. And while there are minor differences in certain practices, the God is still the same. The paths are different, but the end goal is the same.

Okay, push play.

In conversations that followed, I got more or less the same reaction, along with sprinklings of "you need to be baptized ASAP" and "you're going straight to hell". It made me question all my feelings, but it also made me somewhat fearful. Was I really going to hell because I had thought about suicide a couple times?

But the hardest hitting one, and the one that sparked this post, was this one:

"Why are you acting so selfish? Are you not grateful for what God has given you?"

Whoa, okay.

(umm... from giphy.com)

Let me be clear of one thing: I am not just grateful, I am EXTREMELY grateful. I know how lucky I am to be born in this part of the world and to be in a family that loves me. I have access to a home, to food, to education, and I am healthy. I'm lucky that I wake up every day so that I can write more pointless words so that people can read them (though I really hope that they aren't pointless).

Having depression, or any other mental illness, does not make you selfish. Wanting to commit suicide is not selfish, and committing suicide is not selfish.

Any person who has suffered from depression will know that we have very heavy hearts. We feel more than sad - we feel down on life, like the world's odds are stacked against us. On top of that, we feel like we are burdening everyone - family, friends, and others - with our depression.

So we don't talk about it, in part because we don't want to burden people, but also because 1) we don't want to admit that we need help and 2) we don't want to be shunned or thought of as "problematic" or "different". But as we all know, not talking about any kind of problem perpetuates more problems, and suffering alone sucks. It absolutely sucks.

Being a Catholic was an extreme clash inside of me. On the one hand, I know exactly what the Church teaches on life and death - we value from conception to it's natural end. So that's why we care so much about abortion and euthanasia - not because we want future babies and terminally ill people to suffer, but because we don't dictate the value of life and we don't decide who's life ends because of our socially constructed "life value". Similarly, by taking our own lives prematurely, we would be going against the same Creed we recite every Sunday.

However, God is good. He knows that we make mistakes, that we all fall down, and that sometimes, life is hard. Feeling depressed does not make you ungrateful. Committing suicide does not make you selfish.

Hearing these conflicting ideas, I think, ultimately kept me from going through with anything serious. There were many points when I wanted to end it all, but in those quiet moments where I felt something that had some semblance of sanity, I weighed the pros and cons. Sure, my pain and suffering would be over, but I would rot in hell. This logic ran through my head over and over, and I felt incredibly guilty for it. I didn't want my family to grieve, and I didn't want to be labelled as selfish, as a failure, or as someone who just couldn't suck it up.

(http://nedhardy.com/2013/09/24/24-comics-that-capture-the-true-essence-of-depression/)

Admittedly, despite the fact that I have met some incredibly supportive friends and have done more research on the topic, I have always felt guilty of my depression and thoughts of suicide. But it wasn't until a few months ago, when I watched this video about Kevin Hines, a man who attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. He is one of the very small percentage of people that survived the fall, and now shares his story with others in hopes of bringing more awareness to the topic of mental illness.

You can watch the video here - and I encourage you to take 5 minutes to do so:

Regardless of your faith, know that you are not being "selfish" or "ungrateful" if you are depressed, anxious, or suffer from any other mental illness.

You are still human. You don't need reasons to feel this way - and you shouldn't have to provide reasons either.

Sorry for ranting,

x R