Look Up, the Signs Are All Around.

If you had told me a few years ago I would be starting a blog to write about my work in The Catholic Church, I’d have either taken your temperature or asked if you had had too much to drink. See, back then I was just a freelance writer questioning my way through my religion.

I am a cradle Catholic who was one of the few kids I knew who rarely complained about church or Catholic school. I loved the ritual of mass as a kid and as a teenager, I was an active member of a youth group and countless retreat teams. I went to church, was married in that church and as a young married woman even brought my envelopes every week to the various parishes we joined every time we moved.

When I became a mother and it was time to pass on religion to my kids, I began digging deeper into Catholicism and I wasn’t sure I liked what I was seeing. I questioned. I contemplated. I challenged. I doubted, and I nearly gave up the fight. But something kept me tethered and though I never could intellectually reconcile why, I knew in my heart this was the church where I belonged.

Then one day, on a train home from work in New York City, I read on twitter about a new Pope and I wept. Right there on the train, I wept with promise and joy and most importantly hope. I wept with hope for a different future; hope that the call I heard was indeed the right one. I had hope that the path I had chosen was being validated by God. For in all that time of questioning, I kept my heart open.

I asked for answers and then waited patiently to hear them. I never stopped communicating with God, and time and time again, I was sent the people, the stories and the experiences that lead me to where I am today- sitting here writing about my work in The Church.

A year ago if you had told me this would be the end result, I might have been a skeptic. By keeping an open heart, I was able to drown out my inner skeptic with God’s call, and for that I am ever grateful.