Clare Henney: What My Heart Says

My mother is a very religious person. I was brought up required to be home at 6 PM to pray the Angelus and then the rosary and to go to church every Sunday. As I grew up I felt that something was missing in my life faith-wise even with all the rosaries and Sunday mass. It was during this time that a friend of mine encouraged me to try to have a more personal relationship with God. I became all the more better for it. For a time I was in a bad place. I was depressed and I just didn’t know what to do with my life. Having a personal relationship with God by reading the Bible and prayer has helped a lot to make me the stronger person that I am today. It doesn’t mean that I don’t have my moments of weakness, but I am better today than I was 10 years ago.

I found myself having a more meaningful relationship with God by praying to him in my way – not with memorized prayers that my mom usually has us pray but with my own words. I pour my heart out to him not just in specific times/days but whenever I feel the need to. It can be while sitting in traffic or just walking to anywhere. I find fulfillment and I feel I have a better relationship with God when I pray on my own, read the Bible and listen to the podcasts of the pastors I follow. My mother is not happy about it (I know because she keeps giving me prayer booklets to read) but I feel that I am in a better place faith-wise in this way than in her way.

There will always be people who say that this way or that way is the only way to be saved. I am not saying that my way is the right way but as a person this is what works for me at this point in my life. I have tried going back to Sunday mass but the whole tradition of it all just makes me feel that my faith is mechanical more than actual. It doesn’t feel real. I feel that it’s not fair to me and it is not fair to God if I continue in that way.

Thinking of this difference in faith between me and my mother reminded me of the time I went to see Pastor Jaeson Ma when he was here in the Philippines. He said that we are all brothers and sisters in faith. We have different ways and call ourselves by different names but we all follow the same God. Ultimately we are all Christians because we follow Christ. Pope John Paul II showed this best when he became open to uniting different faiths through dialogues because we worship the same God. For me the best way is always to do what makes us have a better relationship with God, doing it in a way that we can serve him and live up to the potential that he has given us. Am I wrong with what I believe or am I doomed to hell for eternity? Only God knows in the end. He knows my heart and what it says and I’m content with knowing that.

Photo Source: Fallible Blogma