Testimony Tuesday - Take My Broken Life and Make it Meaningful

 Trigger Warning: Depression, Abuse, Loss of family members.

    I enjoy writing novels, reading books, listening to music, dancing, and spending time with my family and pets. I was involved in Campus Ministry as well as the soup kitchen- the Door is Open, for the entirety of my time in high school. As well, I often did readings during Mass (both during my time in elementary and high school) and was an altar server at my parish for a few years. Currently, I am involved in UBC’s Cancer Association and am doing a faith study with the CCO (Catholic Christian Outreach) at UBC.

    I was baptized as a baby and regularly went to Mass with my mom and sister as a young child. However, I never truly began believing in God or Christ until I switched from a public school to a Catholic school and became more involved in the faith. I originally had a bad outlook on the Church community not because of any personal negative experience with it, but because my father had always been so against the Catholic Church that he regularly and heavily criticized it. When I began learning more about the Church (when I was old enough to recognize that my father was not always right), my faith was able to take root, and I learned from many wise mentors and teachers about the beautiful teachings of Catholicism/Christianity. Over the years however, I’ve been through some difficult times at home, and admittedly, the loss of my mom and the abuse I went through had a very negative impact on my faith. There were a lot of times when I wanted to blame God and be angry with Him for what I’d gone through, for what my mom went through, and for what I was struggling with. There were times I even blamed myself. There were times it was both—those were the hardest because it was in those times that I felt the most alone, and that feeling sent me into this spiralling cycle of anger, pain, self-doubt, and bitterness. At one point, I could no longer pray without being overwhelmed with shame and hate and sometimes even indifference.

    Through it all, I had my family and my friends—amazing, loving people—around to support me. But for the longest time, I could not see in myself the goodness that they saw in me. I could not find a reason to have a faith as strong as they did. I thought God abandoned me. At first I’d thought so because he hadn’t protected my mom, and then I thought so because of all the times I had cast him aside in anger. I remember there were multiple times I had gone to Confession and told the priests all that I’d done, but many of those times, they had this shocked look on their face, and that made me feel hopeless. I think for a while, that only drove me further from the Church, from God. As much as I still wanted to have a relationship with Him, I believed there was no way he could make something good out of the terrible life I’d lived. Depression and self-hatred had already gotten too tight of a hold over me. 

    But then the second half of twelfth grade came crashing in. Most notably, there was the trip to the Philippines I went on over spring break. While I was there, I met with a young girl, a girl who was suffering in the same way I did. Her peers did not understand her. They thought she was strange, and bullied her. But I did not overlook her pain, I noticed it right away. I connected with her in a way I had never connected to anyone before, and I can only assume she felt the same way. That day, I felt God in the love I gave and in the understanding I received. I would never have been able to do that, would never have been able to be there for her the way I did if I had not endured all the suffering I had gone through until then. In my mind, that did not justify what I’d experienced, but it did begin to explain it. 

    I realized then that perhaps my pain had not been proof that God had not been with me, but rather proof that He had truly chosen me—chosen me to reach those others have difficulty understanding. It was this realization that led me to finally hope that maybe God could take my broken life and turn it into something meaningful. With this in mind, and with the support of my family, friends, and mentors, I found the courage to come back to my faith. Of course, that doesn’t mean that all of my pain and trauma was healed instantly. To this day, I still have my moments of doubt and grief. It’s just that I’ve come to learn that my suffering and my past mistakes do not determine who I am or what good I am capable of doing, nor do they determine or even affect God’s plan for me, because even when I don’t believe it, He’s still there—and will always be there—waiting for me.

    Deuteronomy 31:8 is a verse that has helped me when I still sometimes feel that I’m alone or fear that with all the things that I’ve done in my life, God is no longer with me. The verse is as follows: “And the Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed.”