Comments on: To whom shall we go?

By: peterr55

peterr55 — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 14:38:41 +0000

Hey Jennifer, I love your blog. I too made the same journey, whereas I always felt the presence of God, I didn't feel it in the way I thought it should be. Now 13 years a Catholic, I am going to be ordained as Permanent Deacon. I have found in my journey, as you did, that God does not shout, he whispers as with Elijah in the cave in Kings 19:9-13

By: Kelly @ Love Well

Kelly @ Love Well — Sat, 30 May 2009 03:53:43 +0000

That last sentence is KILLER. It says it all, really.

When I've been most lost in my life, when I'm angry at God and in agony in my soul, I hit the bottom and think, "Yet, where else can I go?"

He is The Only.

By: Lesley-Anne Evans

Lesley-Anne Evans — Wed, 27 May 2009 16:33:21 +0000

Jennifer, I’ve just found you at Conversion Diary and I’m loving your approach, loving your face-wide-open no-holes-barred way of writing… and thinking. This particular post is very good, I think, because it’s so simple yet so profound… something I can remember and say in one sentence… not being one who is prone to long discussions about faith (apologetics, nope!)It amazes me that you can write what you do with all your kids milling about… that’s a gift in itself.
Anyway, reading and following with much interest.

Lesley-Anne

By: rebecca

rebecca — Wed, 27 May 2009 00:54:10 +0000

i love this post. just love it. i have nothing really to say except that i really do understand what you’re saying on a very profound level. thank you.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:56:35 +0000

Hi Jen, Great post! I think about faith all the time. I see the Church is right in identifying it as a gift. It is. Some receive it and some don’t. I also have observed people losing their faith entirely-so it’s not like once you have it you always have it. Sometimes I think-the earth has always been round even when people believed it to be flat. So if I lose my faith that doesn’t change the truth,just how I am seeing it. My faith is 100% intellectual at this point mostly b/c I have tested the words of Christ and found them to be true in my life. I pray to have an emotional response to faith but it hasn’t happened yet. It’s not really my style anyway-Thanks for this blog!

By: amy

amy — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:11:48 +0000

Even though I've been following your blog for quite a while, I also appreciate the repeats.

So why didn't I, a lazy quitter who is notorious for not following through on plans as soon as they get inconvenient, give up? I thought about it a lot at the time. I made the calculation of how much more free time I'd have if I cut out things like Mass on Sunday, spiritual reading, daily Mass, prayer, praying the Rosary, etc. But I couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't even bring myself to seriously entertain the idea. Walking away wasn't an option.I found myself walking away over and over but (in the past) always coming back. Going on three years now, I'm finding it more and more difficult to come back lately. Kind of like Pfp3160, I too seem to be drawn to Christianity on an emotional level but have great difficulty with the intellectual aspect.

I don't like the idea of Christianity not being true, or rather I should say I like the idea of a God who cares, and the idea of there being a purpose to the suffering and evil of the world, but just wanting it to be true doesn't make it click for me.

At any rate, thank you for your blog. Wherever I end up in my spiritual journey, your words have often been an encouragement.

By: The Burgess family

The Burgess family — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:53:08 +0000

Thanks so much for this post, well put! I have felt this way (esp recently when some friends left Christianity and I couldn’t make sense of how they could live that way), I tried to explain it to people but they just thought I sounded depressed. So thanks for explaining it better. So true!

By: Megan@SortaCrunchy

Megan@SortaCrunchy — Tue, 26 May 2009 14:00:29 +0000

Jenn, thanks for reposting this. When my faith has been the most rattled, this is the statement I have returned to time and again, Lord, to whom shall I go? I would say it is one of the most powerful truths that has guided my spiritual journey.

By: Gina

Gina — Tue, 26 May 2009 03:37:28 +0000

In this post, you’ve truly summed up what having faith is really about. It’s not about what a person feels. It never was. It’s about accepting truth, no matter how little it makes sense, and applying that truth to our lives.

Excellent post…totally worth being a rerun!

By: Em the luddite

Em the luddite — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:12:09 +0000

I had a Norwegian friend who grew up an atheist and found himself persuaded by the plausibility of Christianity. He spent two years trying to be a Christian, and eventually admitted that he still didn't actually believe, even though he had tried. Sometimes it still puzzles me, and aside from my frustration with God for failing to meet my friend in a way he could identify, it makes me ponder what faith is.

I think that I as a Protestant grew up thinking that faith was a feeling... it was feeling something in your spirit to be true that would not be overcome by any other data or hardship. Sometimes we also associate faith with knowledge, I guess, with knowing the right doctrine. I think (correct me if I'm wrong) Catholics seem to connect faith more closely with obedience, with submitting to God and to the Church, independent of whether or not the feelings or knowledge line up at that point.

Anyway, all that to say, your story made me wonder what the difference between your experience (that indeed seems to be one of faith) and that of my friend (that at this stage of the game does not) is. It seems like you could have easily gone his way. Do you suppose you did not merely because of the evidence?

Sorry that was long... I'm just thinking out loud here.