Out of the Ditch
By: Missionary Team
I have six siblings and two parents that have been married for thirty-three years. Despite being surrounded by loving people and a large family, I was always a lonely kid. This loneliness spurred other issues in my life, making me even lonelier as I convinced myself no one else knew my pain. I reached a point in my freshman year of high school where I didn’t care if I made it to school the next day or made it home from school in the evening.
In the midst of this struggle, I decided to switch schools. There was no real rhyme or reason to it. I had friends and was involved in the choir and with drama at my first high school - I was even set to be the assistant stage manager in the fall of my sophomore year and a member of the best women’s ensemble in the State of Washington. I let go of all that, and on the first day of sophomore year, I was at a new school where I knew no one and no one knew me.
I walked into my math class on that first day of sophomore year and saw a woman that would change my life. Miss. Innocent (yes, that’s a real name). My math teacher was a gorgeous, smart, tall woman. She was everything I wanted to be. Looking back, I realized I didn’t desire to be like her because of her looks or skills; it was her hope and how she knew she was loved; it was a hope I didn’t have and a love I thought I didn’t deserve. One afternoon, I was hanging out in Miss. Innocent’s classroom, and she had her iPad connected to the projector. A reminder came up, and all it said was “Pray.”
Soon thereafter, I figured out that she was a Christian. That freaked me out a bit and almost wrecked my plans of being just like her. My family was Catholic, but I didn’t want Catholicism to be for me. Finding out Miss. Innocent was Christian made me reevaluate that stance; I really took the time that year to dig into the Catholic faith and decide if I wanted it to be mine. After a few months of digging, I realized that in all my digging I hadn’t been praying. One night, I decided to pray in desperation that Jesus would finally take my pain.
A few days after that prayer of desperation, I made my first good confession in years. Confession is a Sacrament in the Catholic Church that allows you to take your sins to Christ through a priest and to have those sins forgiven. After that confession, I laughed and cried; there was such relief that I hadn’t ever felt before. It didn’t cure my loneliness or stop me from sinning, but it did start me on a path to healing and freedom.
I am so grateful for even the darkest times in my life. Upon realizing how much God loved me in that confession, I began to realize how much He loved me in my sin and my suffering. The pain of being a lonely kid and the pain of the sin I carried with me for so long became the rock bottom from which God could build the foundation for my faith and my joy.
St. Paul said, “Where sin abounded, there grace abounded more” (Romans 5:20). Any time I am down, whether that’s in sin or discouragement or a combination thereof, I am reminded of this verse and can remember that God has my back and will work through my pain to bring about a greater joy. This year in particular I am working on what I call “prayer over panic”. My natural inclination is to panic about various situations in life before I pray about them, and this verse helps me do the opposite. It is a reminder that no matter what I am going through, God has the grace ready to help me through it with plenty to spare.
