From Lost to Found

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!