History of My Faith Part 1

First off, you should know that Good Friday and anything relating to Good Friday is bad for me. Bad in the sense that I take it as a very emotional and somewhat personal day; much as I take the Holocaust personally, even though I'm not Jewish just Polish. But I digress.

When I was 17, the Friday before Palm Sunday, I went to a lock-in at my church. We went around the nave and did the Stations of the Cross. I was in tears from beginning to end. We're talk big fat crocodile tears. Sometimes it was even hard for me to breathe. When we came to the station with the painting of Jesus being nailed to the cross, I had to sit down. It was interesting really, because when we started the stations I had volunteered to carry this small picture adorned cross. The entire journey I clung to that cross. After we completed the stations we split up and contemplated our thoughts and feelings. After 5 or so minutes I went up to the altar to pray with the priest who was there with us that night. I prayed about many things while I knelt there; but mostly I prayed for guidance. Guidance that I may accept Christ's crucifixion as a loving act and less as a forced one; to see Christ's love and prepare me for Easter. Thinking about it, in my many "crocodile tears" lay my fears. As I released those fears I turned to God, as we all should do, for help in wiping them away. Showing Him that I was capable of doing more than fear all that surrounded me.

We are all afraid of many things throughout our lives. As children we fear punishment from our parents; as teenagers we fear we won't be accepted by our peers and we fear falling in love with someone who will only break our hearts. As adults we fear losing or not getting a job, we fear losing our spouse forever, and we fear that our children will grow not to love but to hate. It is the culmination of these fears and our lack of faith in God that slowly pushes us away from God. Yet if we don't ask for help how can we overcome those fears? "Through God all things are made possible." Prayer and praise alone are often not enough. Sometimes it takes a little bit of repentance to make the dough rise.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall not fear, for You are with me." A part of a well known Psalm that comes to mind. God is always with us. Though its hard sometimes to recognize and understand that, its very much the truth.