10 Facts About My Faith Journey

I was asked to send ten facts about my faith journey to a radio interviewer for a show which will be aired on December 1. I suddenly realized I really have not articulated, in one spot, how God has led me. I thought it would be more relevant to reverse the chronological order of my faith journey, putting the most recent signposts first.

Inner issues cripple everyone’s ability to become saints. We are not told how to grow in authentic holiness. I have worked with a Catholic psychiatrist (who is also a friend) for 25 years on my own inner issues. I am interested in mental health and helping others through the inner healing process.

My most recent understanding of our faith is that Christians must learn how to let go of pride. Pride manifests itself in trying to save ourselves through our own efforts. This means we do not allow Jesus save us.

In one comment, a Brother Gabriel said it better than I can,

The consequence of this prideful sin of loving self first instead of God gives rise to a whole host of spiritual and psychological distress (controlling and obsessive behaviors, paralyzing fears, etc.). Debilitating faults and sinful habits of secret pride and self-love can only be uncovered and healed with the Grace of God and the help of others.

To put it in humorous terms- we steal God’s job, acting more like Pharisees than children of God. Humour is an extremely valuable gift as we grow spiritually because it keeps everything in perspective and helps us to lighten up, not take ourselves too seriously.

It took thirty years before I was free to start writing again because I could not disengage from my role as a mother. Mothering a large family while helping run a family farm, is a 24 hour a day responsibility. Mothering was my vocation for 30+ years.

Blogging and then writing articles and interacting with people through comments, thawed my writing skills.I discovered a new vocation, even though i have always been a storyteller.

My newest bio blurb is:

Melanie’s writing is humorous and heart warming; thoughtful and thought-provoking. Part of her call and her witness is to write the truth about children, family, marriage and the sacredness of life. Melanie is the administrator of ACWB, a columnist at CatholicLane, CatholicStand, Catholic365 , CAPC, author of Echoes of the Divine and Oopsy Daisy, and coauthor of Love Rebel: Reclaiming Motherhood. Newest role- Melanie serves as a Managing Editor at Catholic Stand.

I am one of two children. I married a French Canadian, one of ten kids and we had nine children. I struggled with my background”s negative view of large families. Finally after I was pregnant with my fifth and in the midst of an anxiety attack, I heard these words interiorly and a deep calm came over me:

“THIS IS YOUR CALL. THIS IS YOUR VOCATION. THIS IS YOUR WITNESS TO THE WORLD

The book I am working on is a collection of all the crazy things that can happen when you put nine kids on a small family farm

After my first semester at university, I enrolled in classes through a Jesuit college affiliated with my university, then took some classes from priests and became part of the Catholic faith community on campus. In my last two years at university, I was a part-time student Chaplin on a team with a Jesuit priest and a nun.

After marriage, my husband and I were full- time Parish workers. This was an awful experience for all 8 parish workers in our city, even though we all came from radically different backgrounds – from nuns to liberation theology types to social workers. Priests did not understand how to work on teams.

I wrestled with the issue of Mary for about ten years after my conversion to Catholicism because my thinking and theology were still Protestant. Although my spirituality was Marian because Mary had a heart to heart relationship with me.

.God pulled a fast one on me because He placed Mary in my heart and no self-respecting Protestant church would have me. Combined with a hunger for the Eucharist, God Himself converted me to Catholicism at 19 years old. My family was horrified, my grandfather said, “My God, How did she get herself into that mess?”

I was raised in the cool, calm and Conservative Presbyterian church where nobody talked about a personal relationship with Jesus, no one talked about accepting Christ’s forgiveness, allowing Jesus to save me or committing my life to God.

Listening to an evangelical friend in high school stirred a desire in me for an intimacy with God. Like the idealistic teen that I was, I dared to stand up in front of a Conference of Canadian ministers, missionaries and elders:“After 11 years of faithful Sunday School attendance, why did no one tell me it was even possible to have a personal relationship with Jesus? Do I have to go to the Jesus People or the Pentecostals to learn how to be to be filled with the Holy Spirit?Of course everyone clapped as I sat done with my heart pounding.

A Presbyterian missionary, with her silver hair swept up in an elegant bun and her eyes twinkling with the love of God, asked, “Have you accepted Jesus as your Saviour?” That night, I felt foolish like I was speaking to thin air or the wall, but I said the words, committing my life to Christ. The next morning and, in fact, for the next few years, I was flying in the midst of the “honeymoon stage” that swept me right into the arms of the Catholic Church