How I Fell In Love With God

I was asked to give a short talk to the Newman club here at CSULB, and they asked me to answer the question: How did you fall in love with God? Now, I'm not the sentimental type, and this was definitely out of my comfort zone, but they asked for a short 5 minute talk, and I figured it wasn't that bad. So here is what I wrote up. I didn't read it out, but I typed it so that when I gave the talk, I knew in my mind what to say. Here it is. 

How I Fell In Love With God

Many of you have already heard my long and dry conversion story from atheism, that is, my move from believing that there was no such thing as God and no such person as Jesus, to not only believing such people did exist, but that they were legitimately Lord of my life. While many people are interested in the arguments and evidences of my beliefs, I don’t really talk about how my relationship with God developed. I’ve said a lot about how I came to know God, but not how I came to love God. 

The two are pretty interrelated though. When my girlfriend broke up with me because she decided to become a Christian, I wrote a poem. Now, what some of you may not to know about me is that I used to do a bit of poetry, and there was a bit of open mic events at the cafe Viento y Agua just down the street on 4th and Temple. When my girlfriend broke up with me, I did feel hurt, and hurt is only possible where there once was love. In my frustration, I thought it would be a poetic thing to do to rant to God about how He took my girlfriend away from me, and how He, the supreme creator of the universe who could do all things, couldn’t love others as I loved my girlfriend because He could not touch anyone. My dad, who I resented most of my life, was also an absentee father. And if you know me, you know my love language is touch. I said that God couldn’t even hug me, so why believe that He indeed was a loving God? He was absent just like my biological dad. 

When I eventually lost my fight against God and became a Christian, it wasn't the most comfortable thing. I remember my first prayers were so awkward. It was even worse when I prayed in groups. I’d find myself kind of rambling in group prayers, not sure what was normal and what was not. I’d say stuff like, “...and thank you God for...the trees?” I had no idea what I was doing. But like any relationship, you get more comfortable the more time you spend with them. And the more I prayed, the more comfortable I got with God, and the more open and vulnerable I could be in my prayers. I could cry from the heart. 

But after a few years of being a Christian, that feeling of loneliness began to creep back in. Sure, the Bible was God’s word to the world, or as some people liked to say, ‘His love letter to the world.’ But letters are only placeholders for the real thing. It's a mode of communication because we cannot be with that person we are communicating with. So imagine my shock that when I began to look into Catholicism after 4 years of being a Protestant, that Catholics believed that communion wasn’t just a symbol, but literally Jesus Christ Himself! Truly the body and blood, soul and divinity of Christ! Not only could Catholics read the Bible, and even those love letters Protestants decided weren’t good enough to be counted as Scripture, but literally have physical union with God himself in our consumption of Him. God could literally touch me and I could literally touch God, and I could have God’s body and blood, soul and divinity inside me, inside my own body and blood, my soul and my spirit. 

What I cried out to God about all those years ago, about how He took my girlfriend away from me, I realize now that it wasn’t my girlfriend I was crying over. It wasn’t even my own biological dad I was crying out for, though I’m sure these were part of the motivation. I realize that it was God I was crying out for. It was truly God I wanted to hug. I wanted to adore God more than I adored my girlfriend, though I didn’t know it at the time. And when I took my first communion a few years ago when I was received into the church, I haven’t felt the same. I fell in love with God through prayer, yes, but even more importantly, through the Eucharist. And the Eucharist loves me too.