About 14 years ago, I was still an atheist. I hadn't been raised to believe in anything, really, so it was no surprise that I didn't have a notion of God as a Real Entity. I thought God was a nice idea, and every once in a great while, I prayed to God or read the Bible or tried on some other "moral behavior" as a test run. And then I had this very tangible encounter with God. It's a long story, but suffice to say that one moment I didn't believe God was really out there somewhere, and the next, I felt like I was staring Him in the Face.

I didn't know what to do, having had next to nothing in the way of religious education. I called around to a couple of churches and a Jewish synagogue to find out what the next step was. Most of the people seemed to be surprised to be having such a conversation with somebody like me. I am pretty sure I called a Catholic priest, but I can't remember the conversation at all.

At the time, I was bunking with an old acquaintence, sleeping on her floor until I could get my act together. She was going to this dynamic, "fun," charismatic Assemblies of God church, so out of respect to her, I tagged along for a couple of weeks. I had been asking God what He wanted me to do, but I was completely unable to figure out any form of an answer. So I had a heart-to-heart chat with Him one night, and I told Him something like, "Okay, I can't ignore You any more, and I guess You want me to be a Christian now since that's the God who seems to be making Himself known to me, so I'll do it. But I'm gonna warn You right now that I am probably going to be the sorriest Christian You ever saw. I'll do my best, but I can't see this working out very well." And that was my "profession of faith."

I feel something similar right now. I feel like I'm going to be the worst screw-up of a Catholic that ever walked the planet. I forget to genuflect. I cross myself at the "wrong" times and neglect to do it at the "right" times. I get prayers mixed up or forget to say them entirely.

And then there is the issue of habitual sin. Some of it is so engrained in my character that I can hardly fathom overcoming it. A vice, I guess they call it. The worst one for me is my tongue. I grew up telling lies and avoiding or embellishing the truth. Part of it was survival skills. Part of it was a desperate attempt to be noticed and liked ("edited truth" always had so much more "punch" than the plain truth). Part of it was because nobody ever told me not to and I always got better responses when I "tweaked" things a little. But that's neither here nor there now. The fact of the matter is, it sometimes seems impossible for me to stick to the absolute truth, with no embellishments or what have you.

I have long been weary and ashamed of this sin and have often done my best to exert my moral will and self control over the issue. But I always seem to slip back into fabricaton and embellishment. I was eager to confess this yesterday and eager to be absolved. I knew there wouldn't be a "Presto!" effect that rendered me whole immediately, but I had hoped for some sort of indication that I'd have some newfound grace with which to battle this. I can't really tell, but I've decided to walk in faith that God's doing something, and that receiving the True Body and Blood from here on out will provide me with that special Grace I've been missing. I hope that's how it works, anyway.

Over on Two Sleepy Mommies (boy, I hope that link thingamabob works), Pansy posted some prayers for Good Friday today. One of them is a prayer that you say for intention, 33 times between noon and 3 today. So I am going to say this prayer 33 times, asking God to tame my lying tongue and help me speak honestly all the time. I am not sure of these types of prayers, but I am going to give it a shot.

And the "Jesus Prayer" couldn't hurt, either: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

--Sparki