The Way, The Truth, and the Life

When I was a little kid, my family went to the catholic church every Saturday night. We always sat in the front of the church three rows back on the left side. That was our spot. I didn’t like sitting up front because I was very shy.  I must have been about four years old when the priest got mad in church. I never forgot it either, still to this day I can see the look of rage on his face. Some kid was making noise in church, and the priest came down and was standing in front of us, and suddenly yelled, “Children are to be seen and not heard!”  It scared to me to death, and I was afraid of him after that happened. Thank God my parents didn’t make a big deal about my first communion.

Maybe the reason why I ignored God throughout my younger years had something to do with that priest. I had no concept of God, and I am not sure why. I never prayed or talked to God. My mom told me when I was in first or second grade, I was asked to say grace before a meal I started out with “I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America” then everyone laughed.

Learning to pray has been a process for me. I remember being in catechism with the nuns during church summer school for a week we had to memorize the Lord’s Prayer, Hail Mary and the Glory Be prayer known as the Gloria. I didn’t know what I was saying, I was just repeating the words without any meaning behind them. They never explained why or what they meant, we just had to memorize them. And I really wish someone would have explained what the prayers meant.

We can pray without saying a word when we groan in the spirit. The Holy Spirit prays for us when we don’t know how or what to pray and can’t find the words.

Prayer is powerful! I have experienced miracles because of it. God healed me after having bulimia for 4 years. He gave me a vision at the same time, I saw a pair of eyes. One of God’s names is the God who sees.

One good thing about summer school with the nuns was I learned about heaven. I think that is the only thing I learned. One of my classmates asked one of the nicer nuns if she could see Elvis in heaven and the nun said, yes and you can see anyone in heaven. I thought heaven sounded nice. As a teenager I started reading books about near-death experiences. In high school I remember reading Raymond Moody’s Life After Life book, and I found it fascinating. One book called My Glimpse of Eternity written by Betty Maltz who was clinically dead for 30 minutes is a good one. In the book she described heaven like the book of Revelation describes heaven.

There is life after death, and we all make the choice if we are going to heaven or hell. If you accept Jesus as your savior, ask to be forgiven and repent, you are on your way to heaven. Like God told Moses and the Israelites, “I put before you a choice between life and death, between a blessing and a curse, chose life.” And Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life.