Taking the scenic route
My childhood and teen years
I was brought up in a Christian home, and for reasons that I won't go into here, my parents, younger sister and I started attending the Catholic church in town when I was eight. I took my First Holy Communion at 10, and was confirmed at 15. My Dad and I (and eventually my Mum) were members of the church music group which played every week in the services.
The week before I started sixth form college, I went on a pilgrimage to Taizé with a group from my local diocese. It was a really profound experience for me. Although I didn't know anyone in the group (most of them were from the area near the Cathedral, and nobody else from my town went), I really enjoyed getting to know a wide range of young people from all over the world, and was able to put my French skills to good use too. I loved the calm routine of the community, the repetitive songs and the periods of silence. I really felt God was with me that week, and it was fantastic. Over the years I made many further trips to Taizé by myself, and it was always very special.
I remember not having a very large number of friends my age at home who were Christians, and it wasn't until I went to sixth form that the Anglican church in my village had a new youth worker. She was advertising a Scripture Union holiday for teenagers which took place over New Year, and wondered if I might be interested. I decided to go, and found it an overwhelming and amazing experience. To be amongst so many people my age who knew God seemingly a lot more than me was at the same time incredible and also a bit frightening. I felt that I was actually a bit afraid of the way that God seemed to be so much more powerful to them than to me. My church talked a lot about God as our loving Father, but these people seemed to know a lot more about Jesus as the powerful Son. I also loved the music that I discovered, and found it much more uplifting than that at my own church.
I also joined the college Christian Union, and I remember being very nervous about being there. Much in the same way as I had been on the Scripture Union holiday, I was the only Catholic. I remember my friend encouraging me to come, and me insisting that I had to be near the door so that I could escape if I needed to. I think I was both intrigued and wary.
University
Once I started at university I started to question my faith a bit more. In my first year I found lots of other Christians through the university chaplaincy, and although there were other Catholics, I found much more connection with those in the Methodist and Anglican societies. By Easter that year I had struggled to find a local church that felt comfortable, and I had also encountered people who questioned why the Catholic church taught different things to other Christians. I had no answer to this, and began to go as far as questioning everything I had been taught. Not having been to any Catholic schools, I had not had as much explained to me as I felt I needed, but instead of looking into the Catholic faith more deeply, I decided to question all of it. I stopped going to church entirely and eventually concluded that I still had a faith, but I wasn't sure it was a Catholic one.
After university
So, fast forward a few years, I entered my early twenties with a faith, but I was willing to go to the most welcoming church of any kind (except Catholic), so I tried Anglican, Methodist, Baptist and Evangelical. I avoided ones with obvious tradition as I had been questioning the value of things handed down, and I assumed that the newer the style, the better. I would still say that my faith was active, but the foundation on which it sat was definitely a little bit wobbly.
The lowest point
In my mid-twenties I became embroiled in a controlling, and ultimately very damaging relationship, the after-effects of which I still deal with to this day. I was trapped with that man for 6 years, during which he made every effort to erode my sense of self and my sense of security. The mental health scars which he caused took years to heal, and when I escaped his clutches, I was clinging on to my faith by my fingernails - he had taken so much from me, and i didn't want him taking that from me too. But there was some damage. I concluded that I was angry at God for not rescuing me sooner, and that if he was just going to passively stand by and watch me suffer, then I didn't want anything to do with him. But after a lot of support from the local vicar, who I talked it over with a lot, I realised that I could be angry with God but I couldn't deny his existence. And if he existed, then I probably needed to know more about him. I decided to go on a Christianity Explored course to think some more.
My faith was restored to slightly less shaky ground, and so when I went to another university to do my Master's degree, and ultimately stay in the city I had moved to, I was keen to find a new church and to get involved. My previous experience of helping with church children's work was put to good use by that Anglican church as I was encouraged to help out with Messy Church, and through some lovely church friends there, I was introduced to my husband, who was a very active member of a local Evangelical church. We got married and further involved at that Anglican church, until we had a baby and moved house to another area, where we changed churches to a local Evangelical church, where we stayed for some years.
During this time of healing, I wrote a different blog, called New Life from Old, which may be of interest to some.
The final twists and turns
Fast forward again to the pandemic. Everything was uncertain, up in the air, difficult. Church wasn't the same, home was stressful, and everyone was finding things tough. During this time, my husband had started to consider the Catholic church as a possible direction. I was not considering this - I had left for what I considered to be very good reasons at the time. But I know my husband and how he thinks about things, and I knew that he was not going to let this one go. So I agreed to watch some Masses online with him, so we could get used to it.
And that is how, in the midst of all the uncertainty and all of the upheaval, God threw me a life saver to pull me out of the muddle of anxiety, depression and fear that I found myself in. In that time of change (which I struggle with in normal times), where nothing was normal and even church was so very different, the Catholic church was still the same. The words of the Mass which I remembered from my childhood were the same (albeit with a very slightly different translation). It was comforting to know that it was unchanged even as the rest of the world was changed around it.
Now
I still have questions, and I still have things I don't fully understand or know if I totally believe about the Catholic faith. I still wonder about why women can't do more, and how it is that we can pray to Mary and other saints for intercession. But I know that I am in the right place. I no longer come home from church fighting off a shutdown because of the loud music and bright lights (which was always a little alarming seeing as I was also the one driving us home!) I am able to do my bit in a small way by helping with the music, serving Communion, and running a new midweek toddler group. I feel at peace with my faith, and am happy for how things have turned out. And thanks to taking the scenic route, I know myself and God a lot better.
