Sunday, April 26, 2009

A Long Journey Home…

First blog post ever so please be patient. I guess I had better start at the beginning. I was born Jan. 21… No just kidding, no reason to go that far back. My journey home to the Catholic Church is a long one and will not be interesting to most people so I will try to hit the high points.

    I was raised in a Southern Baptist Church. I have always been to drawn to the Bible and God, (although I have not always lived like it). During my high school years I attended a lot of non denominational Bible Studies and learned a great deal about Scripture and Christian living from some wonderful, spiritual people. I owe them a debt I can never repay. I unfortunately also had a wild streak that would haunt me for many years to come.

    I went to Charleston Southern University (formerly known as Baptist College at Charleston). It was while attending college that I decided to enter the ministry as a vocation. I got married while in school, and after graduating with a BA in Religion, moved to Fort Worth, Texas to attend Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary for graduate work. So far so good…

    It was in seminary that my life took a major turn. I went through a divorce that left me confused, bewildered and basically lost. I questioned a lot of things, but the main question I was facing was why had my Faith failed. I was aware of my shortcomings. I admit I was immature and somewhat irresponsible at times. But all things considered my Faith should have been strong enough to overcome these short falls. After all, I was a devout Bible believing, sola scriptura (Bible as final authority only), sola fide (salvation by faith alone), Calvinistic, dispensationalist, died in the wool Protestant. I was fully versed in the Hal Lindsey/Jack Chick world of end time prophecy. I had a Ryrie study bible, all marked up with the keys passages highlighted in yellow. I was attending the premier (at least largest) evangelical protestant seminary in the world. My wife had spent her entire life in the Southern Baptist church. She was born while her father was attending seminary. He was a minister in a large prominent Baptist church. We had about as good a Protestant pedigree as a southern boy could hope for. And yet after a few short years we were divorced, while attending seminary no less. How could this have happened? Why wasn't the faith tradition I had been raised in strong enough to save my marriage. Why wasn't it strong enough to save me from myself?

    I then began to question many things in my Baptist tradition. Where did the Scripture change the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday? Where did the Scripture change the dietary laws? Where did the Scripture change the Feast Days (i.e. Passover, which the Jews were commanded to observe forever). These questions and many others could have best been summed up as "Who had the authority?" Every professor I ask had trouble answering these questions. There really was not a good Scripture-only answer to these questions.

    This began an 18 year journey seeking for the answers to these questions. The next 4.5 years were total hell. I left seminary, got remarried, had 4 more kids (2 sets of twins) for a total of 5. The new wife and kids were a tremendous blessing from God. However the massive increase in responsibility, along with my inability to meet those responsibilities, added greatly to my sense of failure and futility. In my immaturity, I began to drink myself stupid every day. By 1995, I was ready to commit suicide. But God was not finished with me yet.

As I sat in the window seal on the 15th floor of an apartment building in downtown Amarillo, I had reached the end of the road. As I sat there and reviewed all that I had lost and thrown away (my 1st wife and baby daughter, on the verge of losing the 2nd family (they were living in Ft. Worth at this time), my career as a minister, my reputation and the respect of my family and colleagues, etc.) despair gave way to a deep dark depression and I decided to jump out the window and end the pain and misery that I felt and that I was causing to others. God miracously intervened at this point and very firmly and lovingly showed me that the pain would not end. He showed me that by killing myself I would inflict great pain and suffering on my children that would hurt them for the rest of their lives. It was not their fault, and they did not deserve to have that inflicted upon them. My conversation with God went like this:

        God: "What are you doing?"

        Me: "I am going to kill myself and end this. Look at the mess I have made of everything."

        God: "That is an incredibly selfish thing to do. Is that the legacy you want to leave your children? When things get tough you just give up?"

        Me: "What do you want from me? I tried to serve You. I believed in You. I believed in Your Bible. And yet here I am all messed up."

        God: "You don't trust me."

        Me: "WHAT? I just said I believe. I have professed a faith in Jesus Christ since I was a baby. I have always had faith."

        God: "I SAID YOU DON'T TRUST ME. You believe but you don't trust."

        Me: "What the hell are You talking about? (Understand, I don't normally talk to God like that but I was drunk and in great despair)"

        God: "I have never seen the children of a righteous man begging for bread."

        Me: "Huh?"

        God: "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will honor those who honor me."

        Me: "Huh?" (Me being dense) "What???"

        God: "Trust. Believing is ok and good. But even the demons believe. I want you to TRUST me. You say you believe in the Bible but you do not follow what it says."

        Me: "hmm… Okay how do I trust you?"

        God: "Trust me"


 

    It was at this point that I climbed back in the window and began to think about what just took place. I decided I would trust God but I did not know what He was talking about or how to even begin "trusting" as opposed to just believing. I decided I would find one passage or command in the Bible and follow it. This began the process of learning to trust God especially when things did not make since to me. I won't bore you any of the details but this began the long turn back to God.

I moved back to Ft. Worth to my family. I did not have any answers at this point but I was determined to TRUST God no matter what. At this point we began to attend a Messianic Jewish Congregation. I realize now that God had to take me back to the beginning to set few things straight. We attended there a couple of years and really enjoyed that experience. I learned a great deal there, especially about Liturgy and the fact that the Bible is a liturgical book, and God instructs us to worship Him in a Liturgical manner. (This was part of the whole learning to TRUST even when it did not make since thing.) I was however, still very anti-Catholic. I was convinced that the Catholic Church was full of paganism, manmade rules and regulations. I was also convinced that was the problem with the Baptist. I also found that to be the problem with the Methodist, Lutheran, Presbyterian and the non – denominational churches we attended over the next few years. I could easily find errors in doctrines or traditions that I felt conflicted with Scripture. (Man, was I arrogant).

Then about 3 years ago, while staying at a friend's house in Arkansas, I watched a little program on EWTN called Mother Angelica Live. I immediately feel in love with her. I began to watch more of the programming and soon discovered a priest named Fr. Corapi. I loved his dynamic teaching and his pointed wit. Then I discovered Fr. Mitch Pacwa, Fr. Groschel and Dr. Scott Hahn. They were speaking, teaching and preaching a tremendous love for God and ministering to me in a very real and personal way. And all their teachings were extremely Biblically sound. I could not poke holes in it like I could with almost all the other Protestant ministers I had listened to (John Hagee, Jessis Duplantis, James Dobson, and Charles Stanley, etc.). And I noticed that they all had something in common. They were CATHOLIC. Uh oh. How could this be? The Catholic Church is the Whore of Babylon, full of idolters who loved Mary more than Jesus, prayed to statues and after all, everybody knows the Pope is the anti- Christ. But this is not what I was hearing and seeing on EWTN.

I do not remember knowing any Catholics growing up. There were a couple in my high school I think but I really did not know any. They may have been Catholic but I was unaware of it. This is no reflection upon them. It was just that I was unaware. There were none I can think of at my college, (it was a Baptist College after all). I had met a couple of priest who were Army Chaplains and I was impressed with their piety but I figured they were the exceptions not the norm. EWTN was the first exposure I had to what the Church really taught. I, considering myself a student of theology and Scripture, decided that I would find out what the Catholic Church actually taught and then I could reject it with a clear conscience.

I got a copy of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and began studying. I continued to listen to EWTN and even added Pope John Paul II to my list of teachers. Soon, I fell in love with the Church. I realized that so much of my spiritual heritage had been hidden from me. I discovered a depth of spiritual teaching that was absent in Protestantism. I also found the answer to the great question, "Who had the authority…?" The Church had the authority given to her by Christ Himself through Peter and the Apostles. God was saying "Trust me, trust My Church." This was the missing element of my faith, the Magisterium of the Church. This is not intended to slight the faith I was taught and grew up with. I will always be thankful and grateful for the faith I learned from my parents, grandparents and extended family. I learned to love Jesus and Scripture in a very personal way. I would not trade that for anything. But it is in the Catholic Church that I have come to find the fullness of the Faith. This past Easter my twin boys (Jeremiah and Nick, 17) and my twin girls (Katie and Hannah, 14) were received into full communion with the Church. I and my wife will be joining them soon. Please pray for us as we continue this journey.

    I will post more later as I continue to fill in the missing blanks….


 

2 comments:

  1. Robin, Congratulations for your children and can't wait to hear about the rest of your journey. The point that hit me square in the chest was the difference between believing and trusting. It is the biggest thing that I deal with in my own life and your post helped me today. So, my advice? Keep writing and keep helping out folks like me. Cheers,

    Daniel Kenney

    ReplyDelete
  2. POWERFUL! Thank you so much! I've shared your 'journey Home' link to others on my facebook wall. We've been back in the Church (fully) for 7+ years now, and as the line in the old hymn "I Have Decided To Follow Jesus" goes, "...No turning back, no turning back." :) God bless you!

    ReplyDelete