Introduction
Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.
—Henry David Thoreau
When do we find God? And who really finds who? Do we find
Him, or does He find us? Is it when He’s ready to show himself, or
when we’re ready to see Him? Those are some of the questions that I
used to ask myself. Today, however, I don’t question it at all, because
today it doesn’t matter who found who. What does matter is that I
am no longer lost.
One thing I know is that I could not have found Him or been found
by Him until I was ready. In fact, as I look back over my life, I can
tell you of many failed attempts that He made to enter my life before
I was ready. Or were they failures? Is it even possible that God has
failed at anything? But each time He came close, it was as though I
ran and hid under the bed for fear of Him finding me. I knew that
if He did find me, He would see the truth, and in seeing that truth,
He wouldn’t accept me just as no one else had ever accepted me. It
was that fear of rejection that kept me lost for so many years.
Maybe the first attempt He made to enter my life was when I was
baptized as a baby. Because I was raised Catholic, that was how
xii
it was: I was born, and shortly after, I was baptized. Without my
having any sense of awareness as to what was going on, someone put
holy water on my head and said I was a Christian and was cleansed.
And why did I need cleansing when I was a pure and innocent
being? I hadn’t yet had time to dirty myself, to need cleansing. The
cleansing should have come a little further down the line, after I
had become soiled and impure, after I had violated several of the
Ten Commandments, after I had turned to the outside for my
salvation. I had not known to turn inward, and I don’t know if it
was because I hadn’t listened or because I hadn’t been taught. I went
to Catholic school through eighth grade, so one would have thought
that someone would have said something during that time. Maybe
they did, but I missed it.
He may have attempted to come into my life again when I was
sixteen. I was in a motor vehicle accident where the truck in which
I was a passenger rolled several times. I was thrown out the back
window and survived with only minor injuries. I’m certain that it
never crossed my mind that that was God attempting to slow me
down, redirect me, and guide me to Him. But, how would I have
known to look at it that way unless I had been taught by someone?
Perhaps that is where the lesson lies—in teaching our young to look
for God. Today, I know to look for Him, but I did not know that
when I was a child, or even through most of my adult years. Because
I did not learn it as a child, my life took me down a road that did
not invite me to learn it as an adult.
I never liked church as a child. Maybe because we had to go every
day except Saturday. And maybe because we had to wear little lace
doily-looking things pinned to our heads with bobby pins. And
maybe because Catholic mass seemed like it lasted forever. And
maybe because sometimes the priest swung this weird thing around
that had steam coming out of it, and it stunk. And maybe because we
had to go in this little room with the priest and tell him everything
xiii
we had done wrong, and he punished us by making us say a bunch
of prayers. Or maybe it was because I was slightly ADHD. Whatever
the reasons, when I no longer had to go, I did not go. As I got older
and began breaking more and more of those Ten Commandments,
I could not find it within myself to go. I could not face Him as He
hung there on opulent display, on the cross in the front of the church,
and judged me.
Nevertheless, God continued His attempts to reach me over and over
throughout my life. He never stopped trying, and He never gave up
on me. I got glimpses of Him here and there, but nothing was strong
enough to hold my attention for very long, until either I was ready
or He was ready. I have come to believe that at any point, had I been
able to shed that cloak of despair and shame and regret, and had I
allowed Him one small space, He would have entered. But it wasn’t
until I was fifty-six years old, when He gazed out at me through the
sparkling blue eyes of my dying mother, that without a moment’s
hesitation, I opened up and let Him in.
I implore you to give Him that space. No matter how old or young you
are, shed that cloak, whatever it may be, and let Him in. Whether it
be through friends, family, church, Alcoholics Anonymous, science,
or even this book, let Him in, and He will take it from there. How
it comes about doesn’t matter, only that it comes about. As I have
learned through my own spiritual journey, we cannot live the life
that God has prepared for us until it comes about, and the life that
He has prepared for us is unbelievable. It’s a life filled with love and
peace and truth and honesty and forgiveness and self-healing—a life
beyond anything we could have envisioned for ourselves. As for me,
I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.
But I did not get there easily. I spent many years way out there
and then many more right on the edge, seeking Him but not quite
able to grab hold and hang on. As I’ve come to realize the role that
xiv
self-image plays in our belief or non-belief in God, it makes sense
that I had a hard time getting there. I did not, or could not, love
myself for most of my life. Therefore, if we are to move toward
creating a more God-conscious society, we must start by teaching
our children to love themselves. As a society, we tend to focus on
church as the way in which to lead our children to God. Church is
one option; I simply don’t believe it is the only way. And it may not
do much good if they are filled with self-hate due to some external
factor. They may come to know of God in church, as I did, but not
actually come to know Him, which I believe to be the ultimate goal.
Our focus needs to be on teaching our children, from the time they
are old enough to understand, that they are magnificent beings
and are absolutely perfect, that nothing anyone says to them to
the contrary is true, and that they are beautiful. I am certain that
no one ever told me that I was beautiful, and therefore when other
children started telling me that I was ugly, I had nothing with which
to defend myself. It became my reality, my identity. We’re broken
simply because we believe we are, and we will continue to be until
someone comes along and tells us that we aren’t. The sad part is that
it’s probably simply because someone didn’t know to tell us when we
were young that we weren’t broken. We were magnificent!