Introduction

And I will give to you a new heart,
and I will place in you a new spirit.
Ezekiel 36:26

MY FAITH JOURNEY

I’m Catholic! That’s been true all my life. But being excited about the Catholic faith is a more recent development.

I was raised Catholic with loving parents, my mom a Catholic and my dad a Baptist. We went to Mass together every Sunday, I received the sacraments, and my mom was very involved in our parish. Despite all this, God didn’t seem to have a big role in our lives. We didn’t discuss him very much, and the occasional grace said on holidays was the extent of our prayer.

Growing up, I had a few encounters with God but nothing that my anxious spirit absorbed. Activities, friends, and high school drama characterized my teen years, and I struggled with some anxiety that I tried to ignore. I stopped going to Mass at the end of high school. My life revolved around having a good time–partying and going out whenever I wanted while anxiously seeking love, acceptance, and praise.

After college, I entered a period of searching that led me to Costa Rica. There I met my husband. We lived in Costa Rica for several years, then moved back to the United States, where I pursued influence, business prowess, and financial stability. From the outside, I probably looked like a decent person, but my lifestyle was selfish and I was indifferent about important issues. Religion and spirituality seemed like a hobby for those who needed it. I thought God supported whatever level of participation one felt comfortable with, that we are all free to do what we want and create our own truth, as long as it makes us happy and doesn’t hurt anyone.

In my mid-thirties, God used certain trials to draw me out of this toxic version of myself and closer to him. A parasite that I had picked up in Costa Rica gave me one of the worst years of my life, as I suffered difficult and embarrassing physical symptoms and, along with them, increasing anxiety. Then my husband and I tried to conceive a child, a two-year process that ended tragically in miscarriage. Now starting to grasp the fragility of life, I was joyfully relieved when I conceived my daughter. But fear for this pregnancy’s outcome, along with serious medical complications, hit me to the core.

Through these experiences, I was pried away from my party lifestyle. I felt completely stripped, grasping for meaning amid sufferings over which I had no control. I found myself turning to God, even though I didn’t really know how. C.S. Lewis perceptively noted this phenomenon in his book The Problem of Pain:

We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.

Following these ordeals were some profound moments in which God touched my heart. My beloved grandfather died, and the Baptist minister at the funeral said, “The only thing Robert wanted in life was for everyone he knew to know and love Jesus as he did.” I felt a pain in my heart. Not only was I missing my lovable, quick-witted, Marine Corps granddad, but I was not living up to his deep desire. The Holy Spirit was working in me. This was my first experience with the communion of saints, as I believe that my granddad’s prayers aided me in my discovery of faith.

Now more open to God, I attended a Christian moms’ group, where I heard the testimony of a woman who had experienced drugs, alcohol, and abortion before encountering Christ. Tears filled my eyes, and I knew I wanted to grow closer to God and find a church to attend. My husband and I had been sporadically going to Mass, but I was open to looking at other Christian churches. My mother-in-law kept pushing us to get our daughter baptized Catholic. I gave in and read up on Catholic baptism, which led me to a class on YouTube covering the fundamentals of the Catholic faith.  What I encountered blew me away.

I learned that Jesus Christ started a church through which all his teachings would be preserved and shared to the end of time, that this is the Catholic Church. I discovered the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a book that explains Catholic belief in detail. I learned about the office of the pope, the authority of sacred tradition, Scripture, and the magisterium, where the Bible came from, and more. The Catholic Faith was what the first Christians believed and practiced, coming straight from Jesus Christ. I was sold.

The event that finally launched me into aligning my life to God’s will came one seemingly ordinary day when I fell extremely ill. That night, propped up in bed with fever and severe body aches, nursing my baby as my husband slept next to me oblivious, all the bad choices of my past came crashing down on me. An intense suffering, both physical and mental, set me in a spiral of despair and self-pity. Then a thought cut through and interrupted my suffering, a thought that was not my own: “Put God first.” In that instant, I understood and agreed.

The next morning, I was completely well. I had a paradigm shift. What I had researched about the Catholic faith went from my mind to my heart and soul. I couldn’t just learn about the Catholic faith; I had to live it by putting God first, at the center of my life. I immediately prepared for my daughter’s baptism and my marriage convalidation in the Catholic Church. I wanted nothing more than to follow everything God was asking of me.

Our household went into spiritual crisis as I confronted my reluctant husband on contraception and other issues. I also sensed a dark presence in our home. Eventually some things in our lives that were not of God came to light, including New Age practices such as Law of Attraction. Once we removed those, the dark presence left.

My husband had his own personal experience of God’s love, and our daughter was baptized. For the first time in thirty years, I received God’s forgiveness and grace in the sacrament of reconciliation. Then our marriage was made right with God through the convalidation ceremony. I was immersed in pure peace and joy. This was God’s love. When I received the Eucharist the first several times, I experienced Jesus’ physical embrace in my soul.

I started to notice God speaking to me—through songs, radio programs, books, and Scripture. Natural creation took on a supernatural beauty. How had I failed to notice the wonder of simple things like clouds, rainbows, and wildlife?

I am very thankful for the absolutely unmerited gift of faith. I hold no regrets about the past or anxieties about the future and know that my life has meaning. I see God’s love flowing in our family, which gives me the greatest joy.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

When I realized how little I knew about the Catholic faith, it really shocked me. I wanted to create a resource that would help others understand Catholicism, embrace it, and start living with Christ as their focus. My goal was to present straightforward explanations of core Catholic beliefs and accurate Christian history, along with ways I have found helpful in growing closer to Christ. I hope you find this book a resource to further your own faith journey and to share with family and friends.

This book is set up like a guidebook, with headings and graphics to help you navigate to the content you need. Of course, reading cover to cover works great too. You might not know what you don’t know! Reading recommendations at the end of each chapter will help you study topics in more depth. I suggest you pick up two resources right away:

• a good Catholic Bible, such as the Revised Standard Version, Catholic Edition (Ignatius Press) or the New American Bible, Revised Edition.
• Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition. I indicate quotes from the Catechism by CCC, followed by the paragraph number.

BEFORE YOU BEGIN

Encountering God is exciting and probably easier than you think. God is with you right now. He loves you as if you were the only person who ever existed. Keep that in mind as you go through this book and get introduced or reintroduced to God.  I suggest you pray before you begin reading:

God, I want to know you in a personal way. Please help me approach you in humility and gratitude, as your child. Open my heart to faith, and help me understand your truth. AMEN.

SUGGESTED READING

• Atheist to Catholic: Stories of Conversion, Rebecca Vitz Cherico.
• Night’s Bright Darkness: A Modern Conversion Story, Sally Read.
• Not God’s Type: An Atheist Academic Lays Down Her Arms, Holly Ordway.
• The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis.
• The Seven Storey Mountain, Thomas Merton.
• Something other than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness and Accidentally Found It, Jennifer Fulwiler.

This page is taken from the book, A Miracle Awaits: Encountering Christ In His Church by Carol Dintelman,  which is available for purchase in print or digital formats here.

Or read the full book online! Click to visit the contents page, endorsements, copyright, acknowledgments, and notes.