Recently I shared my Testimony at the Catholic Christian Outreach Spring Banquet in Halifax. Here is what I shared:
Have you ever been running and not known exactly what your final destination is? For as long as I can remember I have had a relationship with the Church in some way. You could say I was a bit of an odd kid. I loved church, I wanted to do everything in the church. In addition to helping in the church, growing up I had some powerful experiences that solidified in me that this was it. Catholicism was true and it was where I was going to stay. But there is a difference between God being the biggest thing in your life, and knowing him personally.
This past September I encountered CCO through people I met at one of the Young Adult masses at the Basilica. I expected that there would be like three, maybe four people there - but there were like 20 university students there!
I was invited to join a Faith Study, and soon I was in Discovery. It was in Discovery that I opened up the bible on my own for the first time, and I experienced something new. Up until that point I would say that prayer felt more like a one-way conversation. Me saying to God good things, and asking him for stuff too. But in reading scripture in the lessons, it was the first time I experienced God, clearly speaking to me in prayer.
Then came a time where the leader put the relationships diagram in front me. That was the first time I ever had to think about where I was really ‘at’ with God. And when I saw the images I knew that I was in between the second and the third. But I also realised another thing. When I looked at and heard the Christ-centered relationship described, I realised that this was the kind of relationship that God wanted to have with me. He wanted a personal relationship, not just the biggest-thing-in-my-life kind.
Then came the Summit. At the November Summit I was experiencing God so personally, and I knew this is the kind of relationship he wants to have with me. No longer, where he's just the biggest thing in my life. But he desires a relationship, something you can only experience on a personal level. God was calling out to me to have a personal relationship with him, And I let him, I prayed and I told him that I will do what he wants me to do.
Almost immediately it was like little dominoes started to fall. He called me to a mission in Kelowna in May and now i’m going. I started a daily life of prayer with scripture, and now through scripture he’s speaking every day. Even though receiving God personally was only the last missing piece of the puzzle, it’s completely changed my life. It is like Pope Benedict 16th says: “If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great.”
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