When I was about 16 years old, I was present at daily mass for a homily that would change my life. The priest that day spoke of having a love for God, not just a regular type of love that you would have for a friend or family member but a deep, passionate, self-sacrificing. and romantic kind of love. At 16, I had yet to experience anything remotely like this at that point in my life. Something, however, clicked in my mind that day that I couldn't shake. I had a feeling of love in my heart and I couldn't get the Lord off my mind. I was falling madly deeply in love with Him. I looked up at the cross and the image of a man hanging from it. The symbol for the one man who didn't deserve to die, the one free from sin who chose to give up His own life so that our sins may be forgiven. A sacrificial kind of love; a love so deep and so passionate that nothing could surpass it. That's when I realized that I wanted to give Him that same kind of love in return and that in my heart, I was beginning to feel for Him the same way He felt for me and for all those He created.
I've told my story before, my own testimony of how God has walked with me in my life. I've called it my love letter to God. I'm going to share some of my story today.
From a young age, I've been attracted to the heroic from superheroes in fancy suits fighting criminals and saving the day to knights in shining armor giving their lives to protect the kingdom and its inhabitants. It comes as no surprise then that I would have a desire to learn more about a God who gave His life so that others may live. He was my hero and my inspiration from the first moment I began to learn about Him.
My mother taught me about God. Then it was when I went to St. Paul's Catholic School that I began to learn more about Him and how to connect with Him. I learned about Jesus's life and about how He desired for His followers to live. The teachings of the Catholic Church always interested me. They placed an importance on tradition and living a holy life like one of the heroes from my favorite stories. As I went through my education at St. Paul's my desire to learn more about God only grew. Then when I was home schooled during my late teen years, through joy and through pain I learned to cling to God.
I suffered from lonliness and an addiction to pornography, a futile way of dealing with the pain. I was afraid of interaction with anyone outside of my family but at the same time I deeply desired it. My shyness and my social anxiety made it difficult for me to make friends. Then my OCD made it hard for me to focus on anything else. I obsessed over my negative thoughts and feelings. Though it was bad in my childhood, it only became worse in my teen years. I didn't want to pray or go to church when I was feeling that way, but leaving behind my God was the worst thing I could have done. To come to a deeper relationship with God is the reason that we live and breath. Anxiety and pain are a result of living in a world suffering as a result of the Fall but with God we can learn to live in His joy and His peace. Jesus did not promise that we would be free from pain on this Earth, but He did promise that He would always be with us and that was enough for me.
After allowing myself to fall in love with God, things started to change. I felt a sense of purpose in my life. I felt drawn to the mass, especially the Eucharist. I saw Christ in the Eucharist more than I ever had before. I felt blessed to receive Him in such an amazing way through His Flesh and Blood transformed on the alter. I wanted to receive Him in every possible way. I came to Him through the Eucharist, I came to Him through helping and loving others as Christ tells us to do, and I came to Him through His Word in the Scriptures. As my time as a homeschooled student ended, I felt that I was being called to college to pursue a degree.
It was in college where I met the girl with whom I would have my first relationship. Through the next two years I experienced the pains of the relationship. I also began to learn that I was called to be a father and a husband but that relationship had to come to end. Through God's intercession, I ended the relationship and turned to Him to move on with my life and eventually met the amazing woman that would become my wife Brandy.
Living this amazing life has filled me with great joy and I am incredibly excited by the coming of my son Daniel next year! Now living with God in my joy, I choose not to abandon Him but to offer Him thanks in the good times just as I asked for His intercession during the bad times. It is not always easy and still I find myself feeling a spiritual dryness at times but I recognize that God is greater than any feeling. I may still feel anxiety, but I can see the transformation in myself. I am kinder and more loving, more at peace when I pray and deepen my relationship with my Lord.
I encourage you to look back on your life and look for the ways that God has touched you and remind yourself of how God has walked with you. He loves you and even when you are not with Him or are not pursuing Him, He is always pursuing you, calling out to you, loving you, and asking you to return to Him. I encourage everyone to write your own personal love letter to God and remember that He loves you above all things. to live your purpose in life is to accept this love and to love Him in return with the same deep, passionate, self-sacrificing love with which Christ loved us when He died on the cross for us.
Lord Jesus, I love you always. You are my amazing and glorious God. I ask you to be with me this day and to help me to remember that you walked with me in my life during the bad times and the good times and that you will continue to walk with me both now and unto the end of my life on this Earth. Lord I desire nothing more than to have a stronger and deeper relationship with you. Help me to deepen that relationship and to always seek You just as You always seek me. I love you always.
