A. First let me say that there are many Reformed teachers that I admire greatly. They have led the way in things like the exposition of Scripture and preaching. I also admire many Evangelicals who do not self-identify as Protestants or Reformed but who follow in the tradition of great expository preaching and evangelism.
B. Many Pentecostals and Charismatics have also influenced my life and faith. In fact, the first person who showed a love for my soul was a Pentecostal black woman from Canada. She was my kindergarten teacher and was loved and admired by many in our community, giving her love and service to generations of children in our town.
C. As well, I have had the privilege of ministering with some of the finest Christians I have ever known from many different Christian backgrounds. So, I have nothing but gratitude in my heart for those who have loved me and taught me the Gospel through the years. I have been a Christian since the age of 7 or 8, and that was quite a long time ago now.
II. Reason #1 - Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child
A. I will, D.V., write several posts explaining why I joined the Catholic church. These reasons are in no particular order of importance. They are kind of in chronological order I suppose. By that I mean that this reason #1 is maybe the first thing that began to open my eyes to where God was leading me.
B. The beginning was also the end.
1. That is, my mother passed away last May, just a few days after what would have been my parents' 65th anniversary. We lost Dad a few years ago, and now Mom is gone.
2. In many ways, Mom's death was a relief. She had been suffering one major health crisis after another for several months, years really. She lived in constant pain because of her arthritis for one thing, but also had congestive heart failure and circulation problems. She was disappearing in front of us, really.
My daughter and I would say that one day we would go to visit her, and she would have just vanished. No one would be able to find her, she was so tiny. Even so, her spirit was strong as an ox, and her little will as well. She was determined to get better, to recover from her latest ailment. She just ran out of time.
Mom had never been baptized, but my husband was able to give her Christian baptism just a few days before she passed away. She was so happy, like a little child. I had not seen her that delighted in years. She was not an unhappy person, but the pain really was a strain on her.
After she was baptized, she started kind of giggling in delight. No, not an old person's cackle, even though she was 89 years old. It was more like a child's delighted laughter. She couldn't wait to tell people what God had done for her.
We knew, thought, that her time was almost gone as far as this world goes. She was on her way Home.
3. So, I wasn't really in mourning like people might think. Even so, I realized that I was now an orphan. Both of my parents were gone from this earth. Maybe later I'll talk about my mother's alcoholism and how that affected our family when I was growing up. Even though my parents spent over 30 years sober, the effects of those formative years were still felt in many ways.
After Mom's death, the feeling of being a motherless child became overwhelming. Who was my mother now? Who had my mother been in life? Who had mothered me? Those questions and more had to have answers. Who is my mother?
About that time I read an article by a Protestant woman who talked about motherhood, but didn't get to the heart of the matter. Who is my mother, and what is motherhood all about? Yes, that sounds odd. A Catholic woman wrote a beautiful article about the other article. No, it was not a protest or a rebuttal exactly, but it was a kind of answer to my question about who my mother is.
She spoke about the Church and Mary. That was when it hit me that we Protestants did not talk about our churches as mothers. We didn't talk about Mary at all, really. It's like we were afraid of her, afraid of motherhood and femininity, even. Why couldn't we call our churches our mothers?
Yes, there are some Protestants who do use gendered language in reference to church, but it's still not common or understood.
The song Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child* went through my head and became kind of my theme song for several months. Mahalia Jackson's version is, in my opinion, the clearest interpretation of the meaning of that song. Listen to the lament, the grief, the pain in the lyrics. That is how I felt.
So, this realization about my motherless state was the first step in my conversion.
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* My focus was on the Motherless Child part of this medley. Summertime is a response to the child who feels motherless. She has a mother and a father watching over her, so all is well.
Think of this in spiritual terms. We have a Heavenly Father as children of God, but who is our Mother? Children need their mother.
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