Rediscovering My Faith

This is my own “Prodigal Son” story. I sincerely hope you can draw some inspiration from it.

Early Life

We don’t know each other very well yet, so let me share a bit about myself. I was a zealous and pious child. Church felt like home; boring, but comforting. Mass was looooong, but evocative, at least when I understood what was going on. 

My parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles were regular churchgoers. Attending Mass with those I loved felt like wrapping a warm blanket around my soul. Especially during Christmas. Easter was alright, but it was Christmas Eve, Eve Mass, and then presents on Christmas that are among my most cherished memories.

It was my faith that made me adore knights from medieval times. More than anything, I wanted to be a gallant and loyal hero like them—this made “what do you want to be when you grow up?” assessments difficult because I didn’t know of any modern knights. I fantasized about donning my war gear and the armor of faith to fight demons and the enemies of God. I spent a lot of time playing video games, and my favorite character was always the Paladin—a holy knight who fought courageously and could invoke the Favor of God to smite his enemies.

My Fall

High school is when my spiritual trouble started. I did not have any practicing Catholic friends. My best friends were Mormon and agnostic. The rest of my friends were Evangelicals of one sort or another, though most didn’t take their faith too seriously.

It wasn’t until I met Kevin in my Senior Year of high school that my faith was truly in jeopardy. 

Unlike many of my other friends, Kevin was a Catholic. Or at least his family was. Kevin was going through a rebellious phase, and was into anything that would allow him to rage against the machine. He and I shared a mutual distrust of large organizations and governments as we discussed the scandals of Enron and the multiple US-involved wars of the 1990s. The organization that bothered Kevin the most was the Catholic Church.

Being a people pleaser, I didn’t push back on too much of the heresies Kevin laid out. I also didn’t know any better: my Catholic apologetics skills were nonexistent. I let his ideas influence me. They crept into the weakened foundations and began to take root. They choked out my faithful affirmations and better judgment. 

The heresy that damaged my faith the most involved the Bible’s provenance. Kevin told me one night as we imbibed: “You know the Bible was written by Man, right?” 

“Yeah,” I said. “It has to be - it didn’t just fall out of the sky.”

He laughed and corrected me: “I mean, it was written by the minds of Men, not God. He didn’t reach down out of the sky with a quill. Think of all the error that it contains.” 

Whoa.

Between the influential friend and the mind-altering substance, this notion knocked out the foundational pillar of my faith. If the book that taught us how to live was flawed, then maybe I had this whole thing wrong. I had never questioned the Bible before. 

“But what about the church?” I asked.

“Buncha child molesters,” Kevin replied. And though I thought surely the church isn’t all molesters, there were enough stories to wonder how deeply the corruption ran. In that moment, I did not differentiate between the Magisterium and the entire Mystical Body of Christ. 

I silently nodded as our discussion turned to puerile topics. Senior year went on, but I couldn’t shake this conversation. Little did I know that this otherwise normal evening was upending my worldview, and leading me astray, into the spiritual desert, for almost two decades.

A Host of Bad Decisions

The effects of my apostasy weren’t immediately felt, but sure enough, over time, things got worse for me. 

The surety that my faith afforded disappeared first. I was less confident in myself at an important moment in life: I was graduating high school in a few months and beginning university in the fall.

Living a God-centered life has many benefits. One of these is that all choices can be made through the lens of “Would God want me to do this?” Praying on this question has helped me many times before. With my faith in decline, a host of competing priorities vied for my attention: friends, girlfriends, influencers, Internet chatter, a budding interest in world events, and worst of all, pride. 

Pride’s Fall

Ignoring God left me vulnerable to pride. My academic scores suggested I was smarter than most, and I pridefully assumed as a result that I could make my own decisions with ease. So much ease that I often ignored any good counsel from my family or reasonable friends if it countered my pride or ego. 

I thought I could do no wrong.

I had forsaken God and His church because I was smarter than to let myself be subjugated to the authority of those teachings. (hah! I was so naive it hurts me emotionally to think about it all these years later)

Pride, however, led to my downfall, which endangered others.

Relationships

Willingly absent from God’s grace, the spirits of lust, envy, and desire exploited my vulnerability. 

During my late teenage years and early third decade, this led to an excess in self-gratification that put any chance of having a lasting or meaningful relationship to rest. I was at the center of my life, and I was not a good anchor. Life is messy and hit me from all directions: it felt like living in the spiritual spin cycle. Chaos reigned in all directions.

What relationships I did pursue were unhealthy for both parties. I cared little about the emotions of the women I courted, and it didn’t bother me when I knew they didn’t care about mine. I emotionally hurt others undeserving of it and felt the hurt reciprocated. On more than one occasion, this hurt led me to put myself—and others—in physical danger. I was in pain and blinded to the fact that it was spiritual, not emotional. 

Looking back, however, I can see God’s presence in the midst of this pain: I wanted a relationship. I wanted to be married as we know God desires from the first chapters of Genesis. I longed for a God-given love that I could be sure of.

I tried to find comfort in romances that I knew weren’t right. One lasted several years and involved a shameful amount of alcohol and fighting. There were sleepless nights when I worried about the fidelity of my girlfriend, when I should have worried about why the two of us were together in the first place. Anger and mistrust were at the center of that relationship, and anyone who has tried to find love in this world knows that you can’t build a relationship on that foundation.

There was pain. So much pain. Pain expressed through anxiety and anger. 

Anxiety

I lost my “God’s in charge” mentality. I developed intense anxiety because I couldn’t control anything; therefore, everything could happen to me. 

I experimented with mind-altering substances that made me hyper-aware of myself and focused my anxious thoughts inward. Fears of heart attacks and strokes began to manifest; I had never had a medical fear in my life beforehand. 

Even after years of work addressing anxiety, it wouldn’t be until I re-accepted my faith and trusted in Jesus Christ that this anxiety would lessen. 

Anger

Losing a God-focused worldview had the side effect of making me pay more attention to the world. It didn’t take long for me to discover that the world is a broken place, inhabited by broken people. The attacks of September 11, 2001, were just around the corner. These broken people embraced evil and tried to destroy the society I grew up in. And it made me angry. Furious.

Little things also made me angry. Sitting in traffic. Waiting at the doctor’s office. A family member or friend running late and disrupting my schedule. I resented things and people, feeling unnecessary anger because I no longer valued my fellow human beings as God’s children. I saw any inconvenience as an affront to my dignity. 

Only in retrospect do I appreciate and understand that I chose the pain myself. God was always with me, guiding me through situations even (perhaps especially) when I was willfully ignorant of His presence. 

Others tried to help

My parents deserve credit for supporting me and trying to keep me on the straight and narrow. They never gave up on me, just like I will never give up on my own children. But a painful lesson is this: there is only so much a parent can do to protect their child.

My parents couldn’t protect me from the aimlessness and ennui that was enveloping my life. Only God could help me find meaning again, and little by little, my desire to return to Him grew.

The Road Home

My journey back to faith began in my late 20s as I was establishing my career. Professional necessity demanded critical thinking about problems in cybersecurity. This had the knock-on effect of causing me to constantly think critically about all facets of life.

Judging a tree by its fruit

I mulled over my situation. I had finished school, started a career, and was in a failing relationship. Where was I going? What was I doing? What did my apostasy gain me? Nothing good. Nothing valuable. Nothing that I cherished. 

My fondest memories were inspired by faith and family. The happiest people I met through work always credited the same two things to their happiness: faith and family. 

I attended Mass a handful of times during my apostasy, most notably at Easter and Christmas. I remember looking most longingly at the young families; fathers and mothers around my age with young children. That's what I wanted.

The Power of Prayer

Despite my worldview change and my actions, I never stopped praying. I prayed almost every night because something deep inside of me knew I should. My soul yearned for its connection with the Lord even if my mind was trying to be ignorant of this need.

For a long time, I didn’t feel connected to the Almighty in prayer: they were rote utterances that helped calm my mind before sleep. As I rediscovered my faith, this connection slowly returned.

If I hadn’t maintained the lifeline of prayer, I may not have re-found my faith.

Fruitful Relationships

I met a woman at work whom I developed an interest in. She was smart, good-natured, attractive, and all of the other good qualities I was searching for in a mate. 

One afternoon, I joined her and some colleagues for drinks and dinner. She revealed that she was raised Catholic, and my heart stumbled. What had started as a desire turned into certainty that she was The One for me. I broke off the failing relationship and pursued this woman, convinced God crossed our paths for a reason. Many prayers of thanksgiving were offered up to Him.

Unexpected Illness

Our second child was born with biliary atresia. This is a life-threatening disease that prevented his liver from functioning properly. My previously rote prayers became desperate pleas for the health and survival of my newborn. 

I promised God I would abandon my self-centered, self-gratifying lifestyle if He would please heal my son. Shortly after this, my wife’s sister donated a portion of her liver to my son, who has been happy and healthy for the past eight years. Many prayers of thanksgiving were (and continue to be) offered up to Him.

Slowly, over time, I felt the comforting pull of the Lord. When I paid attention, I was aware of His presence. Much like the Prodigal Son, I was yearning for home but had not yet made the decision to return.

The Night

In the summer of 2022, I was feeling crushed. My son’s illness, the pandemic, politics, social media feeds, a rambunctious household, and turmoil at work left me defeated. Years of high stress made me collapse. 

One humid night, I couldn’t sleep. My thoughts were a maelstrom, and none of the many earthly techniques I’ve learned offered any solace. Then, it struck me: I knew what I had to do. 

I got on my knees and relinquished my pride. I gave myself to the Lord. I acknowledged that I was being overwhelmed by the world and consumed by malevolence. I asked Him for forgiveness and to welcome me back home. And He did. Almost immediately, I felt a soothing renewal course through me, and I slept like a baby.

Shortly thereafter, I returned to regular Mass. I made the best confession of my life. And then I changed how I ordered my life by putting God first. The embers of faith have fanned into a flame that I will continue to stoke.

Conclusion

I found my faith the same way I lost it: gradually, then all at once. For the past few years, I’ve been catching up on studying my religion and trying to live my life as God wants me to. I aspire to be like the Saints. 

Life continues to involve trials and tribulations, but I feel equipped to handle them. I don the armor of faith to battle my challenges, and I willingly carry my cross to glorify God.

I spent nearly two decades living life as though I wanted to, and much of it was a disaster. It was shocking how quickly and profoundly my life changed for the better when I invited God back into it. 

I lost touch with Kevin shortly after starting university. I think of him from time to time and pray that he’s found his faith, too.

My Unbidden Advice

For anyone reading this who may have asked, like I did, “Where are you, God?” I urge you to pray on this. Don’t make demands of God, just ask Him to reveal Himself to you and pay attention. 

As Jesus Himself told us:

“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

God has given us a choice in our future. Religion and faith aren’t things that happen to us; we are participants. The book of Sirach presents it thus:

Freedom of Choice
11 Do not say, “Because of the Lord I left the right way”;
    for he will not do what he hates.
12 Do not say, “It was he who led me astray”;
    for he had no need of a sinful man.
13 The Lord hates all abominations,
    and they are not loved by those who fear him.
14 It was he who created man in the beginning,
    and he left him in the power of his own inclination.
15 If you will, you can keep the commandments,
    and to act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.
16 He has placed before you fire and water:
    stretch out your hand for whichever you wish.
17 Before a man are life and death,
    and whichever he chooses will be given to him.
18 For great is the wisdom of the Lord;
    he is mighty in power and sees everything;
19 his eyes are on those who fear him,
    and he knows every deed of man.
20 He has not commanded any one to be ungodly,
    and he has not given any one permission to sin.

These are hard, convicting words. They show us that we face a grave choice: if we want to enjoy God’s blessings and the fruits of our faith, we must choose to do so. 

If you are also in the midst of a self-imposed exile, I encourage you to reconsider. Stop making the bad decisions you know you’re making. 

Start a habit of prayer. Regularly pray. Pray and ask God for His forgiveness and to reveal Himself in your life. Pay attention to the choices you make that harden your heart. Pray for those you have wronged and those who have wronged you. Practice forgiveness and gratitude. Read the Bible. 

Pray, pray, pray.

God Bless.