My second conversion, and going on a third

by Rebecca Duncan

The Missal by Waterhouse (Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons).

I was watching "The Journey Home" the other day.  Marcus Grodi was interviewing Mother Angelica. They talked about when she had her second conversion. It was more in the context of a person who was brought up Catholic and deciding for themselves to live as a Catholic and not just because they were raised that way.  Even though I was not raised as a Catholic or a Christian I had a second conversion too. 

When I became Catholic it was because I purposefully set out to find Truth and I had an encounter with God as Love. I think He revealed Himself to me in that way for a pretty specific reason. It was because I run from personal relationships. I run from love. Prayer is excruciating for me most of the time. I don't want to deal with that kind of intimacy. Sometimes I can't. God showed me that He loves me right off the bat but I still tried to get to know Him on a head level. The heart level was just not there. I kicked and screamed and threw tantrums about how much I wanted to have an experience of His love again. I spent so many years gaining head knowledge and avoiding prayer while at the same time complaining that I didn't seem to be getting anywhere in my relationship with God. It was pretty ridiculous.

The only thing that changed it was that I went through a period of intense suffering. The suffering was in pretty much every area of my life and it was all happening at the same time. The physical part was that I got a kidney stone.  The pain was so intense I couldn't stop throwing up and it lasted for about a week. The first day the pain started God let me know in a way that I can't even describe that I should accept the pain. I did. When I accepted it, I felt peaceful and I felt close to God in a way that I never had before. I can't really explain that either.
 

Continue reading at Rebecca's blog  Otaku Catholic