08.17.07
letter from Julie C.
Dear Margaret,
I was intrigued by your study of religion, as it can be a controversial subject for many people. There are vast views and perspectives on religious growth which need to be clarified and studied with an open mind. I can only be one small voice, and I can only share my personal encounter with coming to an invitation with God himself.
As a young girl, the only time we attended church was your usual Christmas Eve service, and of course Easter morning had many fond memories attached to it. As I became an adult, married with two small children, God was not part of the equation or the center of my life. Honestly, it felt like one more chore, and I arrogantly did not feel a need for help from a God that I did not even know, for my belief was that I should be self sufficient, and pressing on like others. My world changed rapidly in one quick year. The misery of a failing marriage and the toll it was taking on my health placed me by my bedside, on bended knee crying out to God, for mercy, strength, and most of all for his forgivesness of my selfish heart. The one I rejected, was the one I needed the most. In one afternoon, the realization that HE was what was missing all my life, and the empty void that never seemed to be filled was suddenly real and alive for the first time ever. To say that life was perfect after coming to invite Jesus into my heart would only be misleading, but I can tell you that my relationship with the Lord was now exciting, and I knew that I would never be alone with any trial that would come my way. Before it was just me and myself. Now I had faith in God that he would always sustain me and carry me in my darkest hours.
All Christians are on the same journey, being changed from glory to glory, until that day where we are faced with our creator who knew us before we were even born. None of us have fully arrived yet, and we will continue to grow through the storms of life here on earth. The Lord beautifully weaves the threads of our lives together with his perfect love, that we may be more like him every day. I’m not the same person I was eighteen years ago. My relationship with God has enriched my life, caused me to search for answers in his word(the Bible), and most importantly, my perspective of life here on earth is molded and framed in the fact that everything we go through, is simply preparing us for heaven. It gives me peace, and serenity knowing that I was birthed, like all, for a specific purpose, and that my maker is daily working through me and others to accomplish his great will.
A great Ancient Proverb sums up Christian life like an exquisite piece of stained glass. “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your lives now, transparent, in a manner so that when you die the world cries and YOU rejoice”. I praise you for all your hard work and efforts to compile and bring collective views on religion together, where perhaps one may just find closure to a subject that they may have avoided for many years. May the footsteps that we leave behind guide the future generations.
Julie C.
Many thanks to Julie C. for sharing her story. I am not going to offer specific comment in terms of stages here because I cannot see a clear pattern. You can easily see however how Julie’s involvement with her God has clearly enhanced and brought meaning to her life. For the atheists reading this, you can see where you may not need a God - but she does! This is where I take issue with the Sam Harris’*, the Richard Dawkins’** and the Christopher Hitchens’ ***of the world. Prove all you want that the God you describe does not exist, but for people like this, He does and what monster would take that away from her?
I do want to highlight one very important thing that Julie said: “None of us have fully arrived yet, and we will continue to grow through the storms of life here on earth.” That is such an important point to realize. None of us have (has?) fully arrived. No one is at the highest stage, there is always farther to grow - maybe some of us can be open to that growth before “the storms” hit and weather the storms a little easier thanks to that flexibility. If you read James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, by the time you get to the end, you come to realize that the last two stages he speaks of are very far evolved, to be sure, but that there are probably many possible stages beyond his that no person has yet been able to write about and maybe some that no person has even reached yet. Being totally self-satisfied with the faith answer any one of us has now is equvalent to closing the door on (closing one’s mind toward)any further growth. Getting people to see this is probably the main reason I am doing this writing. Stage three atheists would do well to acknowlege that the religion of both the stage twos and that of the stage fours is valid and important to them. And the stage twos should realize that their God is not the only “right” one and that some truly good people do not feel a need to worship a supreme being at all.
*Harris, Sam. The End of Faith. New York: Norton, 2004.**Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006.***Hitchens, Richard. God is Not Great. New York: Twelve (Hachette,) 2007.