Spectator and Participant

As the haze of our turmoil started to dissipate, I began to study Rich’s behavior more carefully. What I thought I had observed in him during those more difficult months now caught my attention. I discovered a transformation in Rich’s prayer life, and that brought moments of joy back to my heart. I saw the young man I remembered from our first years of marriage – a disciplined man spending hours with Jesus. Initially I thought his change would be temporary, and I waited to see if his renewed habit truly was a move of the Holy Spirit. The longer I waited, the more dedicated Rich became to “his hour with Jesus.”

More impressive, however, was a change in another area that really confirmed something new was happening to Rich. Of all the challenges I had seen him struggle with consistently; Rich’s most difficult foe was his temper. I had seen him wrestle with ill temper, get a hold on it, and have it on the mat – only to see anger reach out, clutch at Rich and slam him down for the count. Over those long weeks of early 2005, Rich displayed an un-characteristic calm at all times. That impressed me. Perhaps my long years of prayer for him were being answered. I even dared think that this “Catholic thing” was somehow responsible.

If Rich was being made new, I, however, could not see much difference in my life. And that troubled me. Was Rich’s newness because he was now more attuned to the Lord through his different understanding of Scripture? Just as important, could that understanding make a difference in me? I wondered if I could be a Catholic too.

Goaded on by the desire to be again in agreement with Rich in our Christian walk, I felt the need to give an account to myself of what I believed. Thus followed a time where I questioned everything I had learned about how to serve Jesus. I compared all that I had read in the Catholic books scattered about the house, to what I believed the scriptures said. Either I believed the simple gospel – Jesus died for me – or I believed the Catholic books; for me to be a valid Christian, I should believe in the primacy of Peter, the many attributes of Mary, making prayers to the saints and similar ideas, which were foreign to what I believed scripture taught. Furthermore, until I read those books, I hadn’t realized how adherence to specific practices such as Baptism, Reconciliation, the Eucharist, and Confirmation were considered critical to salvation.

As I told Rich, I am a simple Christian. Unlike my husband, my Protestant education was not focused on learning doctrines in a classroom. I just trusted that if the Bible said, “Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved,” that’s what I needed to do to be saved. What I lacked in doctrinal knowledge I gained in relationship with Jesus. He offered me eternal life by shedding His precious blood for my sins. I owe Him everything. He owes me nothing, and yet the Master of the Universe deigned to give me all I possess.

It was this relationship that I pondered, and I pondered it long. Either I was hopelessly separated from Christ because I was not Catholic, as I believed the books insisted, or I was as I had always been since the day I gave Him my heart . . . a Christian.