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My college boyfriend's marriage proposal had one troubling requirement: that I convert to Judaism. If I didn't convert, he told Me he would lose his family inheritance. Weighted against losing a man who had loved me through the traumatic separation and divorce of my parents, I found it fairly easy to push my Catholic upbringing and beliefs into the background. I loved this man very much, and I was prepared to do whatever I had to do to become his wife. Thus, I accepted his proposal and his conditions, and I converted to his faith.

Although I practiced Judaism and attempted to understand and observe Jewish customs, my husband's religion could not sufficiently meet my own spiritual needs. All of my attempts to be a faithful Jew only left me feeling empty and disappointed. I felt estranged from the very God I was trying so hard to know and please. Finally, as I sat in Temple on a Jewish holiday, I broke down in tears as I admitted to myself that I was practicing a religion I didn't really believe. I had turned away form Christ, and now I didn't know how to make things right in my life again. My deepening struggle to undo my mistake only intensified with the birth of my daughter. How could I raise this child in a faith I myself could not accept? Even though I felt estranged form God, still I pleaded with Him to help me figure out what to do.

To struggle along in silence, of course, would mean financial security and a life of ease for me and my daughter. But I just couldn't do this. I wanted to know Christ; I needed to know Christ. When I read about Moses I knew how hard it must have been for him, too, to leave the wealth and comfort of the Egyptian royal palace for a life of hardship and wandering with his true people. Choosing to follow Christ would mean that I, too, might lose everything, that I, too, would have a hard life. But it didn't matter. The longing in my heart to know God personally, as I could only do through His Son, proved greater than my fears of what the future might bring. So it was that I asked God to help me go back to the faith I knew was true, the faith my heart was really drawn to.

My husband could not understand my need, and he promptly left us, placing our home on the market. Instead of having financial security in a "perfect" little family, I was suddenly a single mother faced with scary life-changing decisions. Where would I live? How would I survive? I was at my wit's end.

It was then that God sent Linda, a friend from my past, to help me through the next step in my spiritual odyssey. Linda listened carefully and lovingly as I shared my story with her one day over lunch. She wisely discerned the incompleteness of my own faith and told me very clearly and plainly that I needed to repent of the sin in my life and to ask Christ into my heart, and this I humbly did.

Though close to my own age, Linda proved to be a marvelous "spiritual mother" to me, someone who accepted me and my young daughter into her heart and home. Her congregation also welcomed us into their church family. Jesus' forgiveness and His presence in my heart really transformed me into a new person. I had been so hungry for God's Word, and I was so ready to start learning to trust His promises. Through the preaching and teaching in that fellowship, I learned solid scriptural truth, and I was, at long last, finally reunited with God. In a way, He became my new "husband" and was a loving "father" to my daughter. His compassion guided me through the difficult and confusing journey of single parenthood. His presence gave us bright direction and warm light during the dark days and shaded us form the burning sun of discouragement and lonely times. Instead of depending on people and circumstances for my security and wisdom, God's Word became a constant source of comfort and guidance for me. I was even able to accept my singleness unless or until God decided He had other plans for me.

Finally, after ten years as a single mother, I met and married a wonderful man, someone who loves me and who shares my faith in the Living God. The Lord has thus led me from darkness into His marvelous light; He has adopted me into His family and given me the desire to live for Christ. In sharing His compassion and mercy so freely with me, He has also given me a heart for finding and helping others who are now, as I was then, lost, lonely, and afraid.

Excerpted from Treasures of Faith, Living Boldly in View of God's Promises, pages 154-156.

Monday, December 23, 2002

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