I Believe

I Believe.

I believe? I believe in what? For me, it is God. I always have and I always will. Even as a little girl, before I fully understood who God was, I knew I believed in an almighty God, who cared for me, loved me and watched out for me.

So much of our faith is formed as children. We often take on our parent’s faith or lack of it. I wasn’t raised in an especially religious household. Being raised as a child of divorce, you are living between two households. Both of my parents were of the Catholic faith, but we didn’t really go to church that much (if at all) when I was very young—at either household. Both of my parents believed in God though, and both spoke about their faith to us.

I think I was in late elementary school when my dad took my brothers and me to meet with the priest at the local Catholic church. We were playing catch up because, although we had all been baptized as babies, none of us had received our first communion. We met with him a few times, and then we were allowed to take communion. There was no big ceremony or anything. We just took it one Sunday and that was that. I don’t think I really understood what it meant, but I do remember being happy about it.

When I was in middle school, my mom did end up joining a church. I lived with her during the school week, so she signed me up for Wednesday night Confirmation class. I took that through 11th grade when I was finally confirmed.

I often felt torn emotionally when I was in my Confirmation class. I wanted to rebel like my friends and act like I was too cool to be there, but there was a big part of me that LOVED learning about God. I was soaking it all in. I especially wanted to know about God and I also really wanted to know about what I could do to please God.

Even though I wasn’t raised with a lot of religion, I always loved God. I prayed at night before bed, and I genuinely believed God was listening to my prayers. I felt safer when I talked with God and I had this sense that He was going to take care of me, no matter what happened in life. It has definitely been a comfort to me since I was a little girl.

I think this kind of faith is a true gift. A gift from my heavenly Father. I am lucky that I have never had any doubt about my love for Him or His love for me. I am thankful for this gift and wish it could be this way for all people.

Religion…now that is another story. My journey with religion is a bit rockier, but I will save that for another day.

How about you? What was your faith walk like as a child? Did you always believe?

XO- Kerry