My Relationship with God

I have a decent relationship with God, I think.

It feels more human than spiritual sometimes. We talk. We argue. We get exasperated with each other. There are moments when I’m disappointed in Him, and I imagine there are plenty of moments when He’s been disappointed in me.

Overall, though, I’d call it a decent relationship.

I grew up Catholic. We were all baptized, and I made my First Communion, which was a proud moment for me. My grandparents were heavily involved in the church. Church every Sunday. Grandpa sang in the choir. Grandma went to bingo at the church twice a week. Lent. No meat on Fridays. The whole shebang.

Church was simply part of life in our community.

If we stayed at a friend’s house on Saturday night, we went to church with their family on Sunday morning. My best friend was Methodist. Another friend was Lutheran. We all had the opportunity to experience each other’s religions because that was just what we did.

One church passed around grape juice during communion, which I thought was quite lovely.

Around nine or ten years old, though, I started asking questions.

“If Father Brubaker doesn’t earn a salary, how does he drive a Cadillac?”

“Why does he keep telling us we’re sinners when we aren’t doing anything wrong?”

The concept of being a sinner was especially difficult for me. I was already trying hard to be a good person, and now I felt as though I also had to worry about being perfect enough for God.

Confession became increasingly uncomfortable.

Not because I was doing terrible things that needed confessing, but because I didn’t understand why I was supposed to tell my private thoughts to a priest in a little room when I had been taught to pray directly to God every night.

If I had a relationship with God, why did I need the man in the middle?

Needless to say, by the time Confirmation came around, I pushed back pretty hard. My mother allowed me to delay it. Maybe she was tired of arguing with me, but I suspect she may have had some complicated feelings about the church herself.

By my twenties, I was still curious about religion, but I had disengaged from the Catholic Church almost entirely.

I still believed in God. I still prayed.

I had simply become convinced that there was a significant difference between God and organized religion.

And for me, it wasn’t specifically about Catholicism. It was organized religion in general.

Please don’t debate me on this. I won’t engage.

Too many people have died in the name of religion. Too often, human beings take something sacred and reshape it through power, fear, judgment, politics, ego or control. The human element can distort God’s message far more easily than I think many of us want to admit.

My own experiences didn’t exactly help.

When my grandmother became sick and bedridden, my grandfather lovingly cared for her. He invited Father Brubaker to their home so my grandmother could receive Communion and pray with him.

Instead, while he was there, the priest berated my ninety-year-old grandfather for not finding someone to care for my grandmother so he could go to church.

It was not a kind conversation.

I remember thinking that if the purpose of the church was truly to care for its congregation, there had to have been a better response. Bring the Sunday sermon to them. Sit with them. Pray with them. Offer comfort.

They were elderly. They were sick. My grandfather was caring for the woman he loved.

Treating them as though they had somehow failed God did very little to improve my relationship with the church.

Years later, in 2002, my mother and I traveled to Italy.

It was beautiful.

We saw all the places tourists dream about seeing: the Leaning Tower of Pisa, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel. The beauty was breathtaking and, despite all my complicated feelings about religion, genuinely spiritually inspiring.

We had narrowly missed seeing Pope John Paul II earlier that day and we were both disappointed.

As we walked into St. Peter’s Basilica, my mom looked at me and joked that if my skin started feeling hot or tingly, we could leave.

I laughed.

“Just because I don’t believe in organized religion doesn’t mean I’m a heathen!”

Because I wasn’t.

I believed in God.

I loved the beauty, history and architecture of those buildings. By then, I was learning how to live with the contradiction of the extraordinary things human beings can create in the name of faith alongside the damage human beings can cause in the name of religion.

I will admit, seeing the bodies of dead popes on display was a little unnerving. But overall, that trip remains one of my core memories.

My relationship with God would be tested much more seriously than my relationship with the church ever was.

In 1997, my younger brother Mark was killed when his truck was struck by a train as he was leaving a client’s home.

We were devastated.

For quite awhile afterward, my sister and I were nervous about riding in the same car together. It sounds strange now, but grief makes you think strange things.

I remember telling myself, God wouldn’t do that to Mom.

She had already lost two children.

Surely He wouldn’t take another. That would be cruel.

I was wrong.

Thirteen years later, my sister Linda died from breast cancer.

My mother had now buried three of her children. Can you fathom that?

I still don’t know how she got out of bed every morning.

She once told me:

“After Lori died, I found the strength to get up every morning for you, Linda and Mark. After Mark was killed, I woke up each morning for you and Linda. Now that Linda is gone too, I have the strength to be here for you.”

I thought I understood those words then.

But now that I’m a mother myself, I feel them in an entirely different way.

My mother had cancer, too. She died eight months after my sister.

If anything should have destroyed my relationship with God, I suppose that should have done it.

Instead, something unexpected happened.

My faith became quieter, but stronger.

In my mind, my mother is with Linda, Lori and Mark. My grandparents are there. My godfather Jack is there. The people we have loved and lost are together somewhere beyond what I can understand.

I like to believe they are still part of our lives.

That they are watching over us.

That somehow, in ways we cannot see, they are still keeping us safe.

I don’t have all the answers.

I still question God. I still argue with Him. I still get annoyed. I still wonder why certain things happen and why good people suffer.

Maybe faith isn’t about never questioning God.

Maybe it is about continuing to talk to Him even when you don’t understand.

And after everything, including the questions, the loss and the doubt, I’m still talking to Him.

That is how I know my faith in God is still strong.