Conversion does not happen just once. It is a continual series of awakenings in life. Everyone gets moments when we wake up a little and our world seems clearer. If we are lucky, we begin to notice them. If we are very lucky, we find out what is behind them.

I did not find God initially in the church. My childhood catechism teachers were the lakes and woods of Wisconsin. Their beauty and ever-changing colors spoke to me of a sacred life. That was where I fell in love with God, although I did not know it then.

The rules and forced confessions of Catholic school led me to distrust this innate spirituality. I did not know that my baptism and sacraments received early were seeds that would flower later. By the time I was in my mid teens, I wanted nothing to do with the Catholic Church. God’s voice which sounded clearly in childhood had gone mute. But God was on his way to finding me. He was only waiting for me to be ready to see his face.

In my twenties, I was fortunate to have a religion teacher who was a former Trappist monk. He taught of things that my Catholic education had not shared, about the contemplative teachings and practices that ran through the whole history of the church. My eyes were opened to find my childhood love of the sacred right in the center of the church. Mass gained new meaning. It was no longer a forced obligation, but a place to receive the love of God. One day at Mass, I discovered Jesus was really present. He had been there all along; I had just not known him. After that, I would go to sit in Mass to be with him. Perhaps much in the way I had once sat on the edge of the lake or forest to receive God’s beauty. 

For a long time, knowing God was about receiving him. In Mass, in prayer, and in his creation, through the opening he had given me. Like an infant on her mother’s milk, I was fed to gain strength and come to know him. Being with him came first, later there would be more to do. But it was all on God’s timeline.

Perhaps this conversion had started in childhood, when I first learned to love God in his creation. Or that love had to grow into a longing born of the emptiness of being without him, immersed in the externals of life. But ultimately it was not something I did. It was a grace given from Jesus, when he opened my eyes to know him. What he gave me then has taken a lifetime to unravel.

That conversion was only the beginning of many. Of continuing to discover God, my family in God, and what he wanted me to do. And forgetting this truth so many times. So many, that God would have to wake me up all over again.

There is a moment for everyone when God shows his face. That will be different for each person. Sometimes we ignore that moment and turn away again for a while. But we can never forget it. God will continue to meet us along the road when our heart is most open. When we see that we can’t make our lives work on our own. Then we can begin to receive all he will give us.

I was taught that these encounters were only for holy people. But I think that the lives of everyone are hard wired to wake up to God. It is what we are made for. Whatever we achieve in life we will never be happy until we find God and allow him to direct us. This does not mean that we become a monk or nun. It means we are God’s child and life is all about coming home.

Conversion is about realizing that God is real. In that you are real (loved by God) and everyone else is real too. You have a father, a family and a purpose. That realization causes the sadness to leave that you didn’t even know was there. The sadness imposed by churches and teachers who told us that we were separated from God. Then you know that you never can or will be separated from God again.

God is waiting on the end of a prayer. Waiting for us to stop our noise and listen. Finally we can start to let go of what we have been grasping. Then we receive everything.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” – Matthew 13: 44-46

– Julia Gauvin