My Faith Story

I'm not sure what it is that is convicting me to write down my own personal faith story. I'm not sure why I feel the need to do so, let alone in my blog that I created for my sports and pop culture opinions, two things that mean dramatically less to me than my faith. Maybe that's it. I love to write and I love God. I love to voice my opinion through my writing and I love Jesus Christ. Maybe I should be asking myself what took me so long instead of why.


I was baptized into Saint Joseph's parish in Aston, PA when I was a newborn. I was raised in this Catholic parish and never questioned anything that I was taught. Being brought up in a Catholic household by a mother who religiously read the Bible and a father who "brought me to church once a week", I didn't feel the reason to question anything. My father's parents were strong advocates in the parish, my mother's parents were strong advocates in their own parish. Everyday, I learned something new about God, or the church or the Bible through my classes since I was enrolled in Catholic middle school. I had no reason to think anything else. Everything sounded good to me. God is good, God loves us, I love God. That was just the way it was.

I went to Catholic high school as well, good old Cardinal O'Hara. As I began to grew up in the real world (I was now in high school, about to get my first job, became interested in girls, started to wonder about partying and drinking), I also began to grow up in my spiritual self journey. Throughout my childhood, my faith was just something that sounded good. I would say I was Catholic and that I loved God, but if anyone ever asked me a follow-up question, I would have been as stuck as Michael "Kramer" Richards at an Anti-Racism rally. Speechless. For some reason, I never thought about what Jesus rising from the dead actually meant. I never thought about what faith actually entails. I never thought about what prayer could actually do. I said my prayers, the same ones every single night, crossed myself, and went to bed. I never questioned anything. Until one day in theology class.

I got my exam back and I vividly remember being surprised by my low grade. I was in no way a scholar in high school, I might have spent thirty total minutes doing homework in all four years there and that is being generous in case any of my past teachers are reading. But I was usually pretty good in theology. I knew my basics, God is love and we love God. Done deal. Why did I do so poorly on this test? I looked at my essay and noticed my teacher's comments. I referenced the story of Adam and Eve from the book of Genesis. I was told on my test that Adam and Eve were "kindergarten stuff" and "symbols, not facts". To quote an American icon, The Rock, "what in the blue hell?" I was caught off guard and suddenly, doubt was pouring into my mind and soul. If Adam and Eve are symbols, is the entire Bible a symbol? Are any of the stories I've read and studied and learned real? Is Jesus kindergarten stuff? Who am I praying to at night?

Is God real at all?

In some ways, I am grateful for that experience. I finally began to question my belief, to self-analyze my soul. We need that as Christians. If we aren't studying our sin, our beliefs, our faith, we risk losing that very faith and letting heart problems go unnoticed. I was definitely letting heart problems go unnoticed. I remember going to confession and really contemplating telling the priest that I had no sins to confess! That is totally absurd to me now, but made sense to me as a teenager with blind Catholic faith. I knew the traditions behind the Lord, but I didn't know the Lord. I didn't know anything with any spiritual bearing. I was lost and I was so blind to that. 

I carried that doubt with me to college. I still believed in God, although no one would ever know it. I didn't bring my Bible to school and I didn't get involved in any campus ministry activities. I never really talked about my faith with anyone there, for reasons I still don't understand. I might have been afraid of losing friends since the ones I had made didn't believe in God, I also might not have known what I believed in my heart. Scratch that, I know I was unaware of what was in my heart. There are people who are in bad places in life, in their hearts and in their faith, and they pray about it. I was in a bad place and didn't even realize it. It was like being dressed in my army suit and peacefully and unassumingly walking onto a battlefield. I had no idea how screwed up my heart really was.

Yet at the same time, I wanted more out of my spiritual being. I wanted a relationship with God, I just didn't know how to do it. I was still stuck in my Catholic ways without knowing how to get out. When looking for change to help my soul, I didn't know how to do so. I continued on my dark ways, drinking myself into a stupor every single weekend, pursuing girls at parties that I didn't ever meet before and passing by in life with no real integrity. I could sit here and blame the people who I was surrounded by, or I could man up and blame my sin and blame my blind walk through a forest without the lantern from Jesus Christ. I'll chose the latter because the latter acknowledges how I was saved.

When I thought about what my faith meant, and especially when I met my beautiful fiancé, Chrissy, I realized that I couldn't do any of this alone. I realized that I had been praying to a God that I didn't know in ways that weren't constituted as prayer. I was talking God, he was listening, but I wasn't making any sense my entire life. Chrissy brought me to her church and I saw people inspired with love, joy and a sense of enlightenment. It was all so foreign, being accustomed to the dry, quiet and often distant worship of a Catholic church. I loved everything about this new means or worship instantly and I wanted more of it. I finally realized what I wanted, a real relationship with my Savior.

And now, here I am. I am fully aware that my only way into heaven is through my faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ dying on the cross did have meaning, it is how I even have the opportunity to get into the pearly white gates some day and how I have been forgiven for all of my horrible sins in the eyes of the Lord. In the past, I thought it was just a cool way to show Divine Intervention, or some other term I learned in a theology textbook. And a five day weekend, of course. Today, I am pursuing so many great things in God. I am pursuing a daily, intimate relationship with my heavenly father. I am pursuing a greater, deeper understanding of the Bible and of the great love that God has for all of his children, including me. I am learning to love others like Jesus wanted me to, and to look for a sense of community like the Father calls from all of us. I am learning how to be a Christian, and I might be closer to that than I was five years ago, but I've still got miles to go. It's a life long journey with speed bumps, car crashes and traffic jams. It's got rain storms and hail, lightning and cold droughts. But the great thing is that I've got shelter and that shelter is the love of Jesus Christ. He is my shelter, my rock and my light. Through my faith alone, not my works or good deeds of the day, I can get into heaven some day when my time has come to breath no more. 

My faith story might not be as interesting or conventional or enlightening or dramatic as anyone else's, but it is my faith story. And it has plenty more to be written, it is far from over. But I finally feel safe in knowing that I've got the best author out there writing my tale. With Jesus Christ in my life, I will never be afraid to turn the next page.