Influence and owning my choices

I've been working on the concept of owning my choices in my life. I unfortunately have been not good at this in the past and instead tend to fear judgment of someone not agreeing with me, how crazy is that? Probably not so much, but if it leads to a life of fear that's not good, not good at all.

Being Catholic for over 8 years now!!!, it's always interesting when I come into contact with someone from my past who doesn't know that, and then to actually know that maybe their example was a precursor to my Catholicism.

I went to a Southern Baptist college for my undergrad degree. They were very Baptist in many ways, and I thank them for that, but they also were shockingly open to having Catholics and more liturgically based denominations in their faculty. I grew up Presbyterian, and liturgy want foreign to me, but the Presbyterians were becoming less so and in my college years I was too. I joined the ranks of the non denom movement and enjoyed it but it left many questions and I didn't know that becoming Catholic would satisfy a great deal of those and open more avenues to truth but it did.

I feel like I'm digressing though, so to pull it back together, I need to tell you that I went to wedding of a good friend that I met during my college years. She is an amazing woman and I'm so happy that she was able to find an amazing guy to spend her life with in marriage. At this wedding, there were a few blasts from the past. One of them being a key player for me in my faith life. First I went to a small school so we had many encounters with professors families and their family life in a good way. This particular professor was the first person I encountered who was a providentialist and really open about his faith and acceptance of children. I had grown up one of four children and honestly 4 children seemed like such a huge number growing up because rarely anyone I knew had more than one sibling maybe two. But to be okay with 6+ children and be open to whatever God  gave you, that was radical. And honestly at the time I didn't get it, not one bit. But seeds, seeds of understanding were being planted despite of me.

This particular professor also was one of the first people to put science and religion together in a way that they were harmonious with each other. There were others who did this in little ways, but this particular person set the precedence for what came to be my understanding of natural law. That no longer did my love of science have to fight with my faith but they could go together, and I'm truly thankful for that.

So many times we wonder how God's grace is working in our lives and we question and we despair even maybe. But then things like this, they help, they help to see that you really aren't alone. That God does have your back every step of the way and for that I say thank-you. Thank-you, Jesus. And as for owning these things, well I want afraid to say to this person who I was now and what I did. This is progress, definitely progress.