Hey! Well, this one is for Gabby. First, I will clarify that I am referring to religion. Now, let me start by explaining how this post came to be. I was scrolling through the Freshly Pressed posts, and a tag (and then its title) struck my eye. The tag was suicide. The title was An Open Letter to the Lost (I haven’t read it yet, because then all the ideas for this post started coming to me, and I wanted to get them all down before I forgot about them, but I do plan on reading it). I then got the idea to write a somewhat inspirational post of my own (as I’m sure that that post was inspirational). I thought for a second on what to write, and then it came to me. I could explain why I believed what I did. I got this idea because of Gabby. I won’t say anything else about her and her religion except this: whenever she sleeps over, when we’re falling asleep, we have the most epic conversations about religion, and in the last one we had she asked me why I believed what I did. I answered her, and now I will answer you. So, here it is. Why I’m a Roman Catholic.
I’ll start with stating the obvious, which is that my parents raised me to share their beliefs. Although this is a part of it, over the past few years, I have grown in my faith and have become what I believe to be religiously independent from my parents. While we mostly still have the same beliefs (some very minute details might differ a bit), nothing is holding me to believe the same thing as my parents. I just choose to believe what I do, and that just so happens to be the same thing that my parents do.
Now, on to the more in-depth reasons. First, I’ll start with why I believe in God. I’ll begin with the simple fact that I’ve thought of the option of not believing in Him, and, to be honest with you, it just doesn’t make sense to me. Not that I don’t respect atheism, because I have nothing against atheists. One of my best friends calls herself an atheist. It’s just, how can you believe that the universe wasn’t created by some higher power? That it was just there? Plus, how can you believe that there’s nothing after death? The simple thought of nothing after dying scared the hell out of me when I was little (yes, I had a mid-life crisis at age 8). So, yeah, I just can’t grasp the concept of no God.
Another reason why I believe in God is because of my answered prayers. Many times, right after I’ve prayed, they are answered. Other times, it takes a little longer, but the prayer is still answered. Sure, there are prayers that still haven’t been answered, and that can’t be answered anymore (for example, ‘please let my grandma live’), but, for the most part (not the ‘please let my grandma live’ one), the result of those unanswered prayers has been greater than the result that I was hoping for when I prayed. God works in wonderful ways. You just have to stop and pay attention for once, instead of complaining because of that one unanswered prayer that turned out better than ever.
The next reason why I believe in God is because of miracles. And for all you people going ‘miracles don’t exist,’ then I believe because of ‘events that can’t be scientifically proved.’ Seriously, people, how else would these things happen? If the smartest people in the world can’t come up with an explanation, then what else can it be besides God?
The last reason (that I’m going to share) is because of a book. Yes, a book, but not just any book. This book is about a four-year-old boy, Colton. In case you haven’t guessed, the book is Heaven Is For Real. It’s narrated by Colton’s dad, although it uses a lot of the same phrases Colton did. It tells the story of Colton’s journey to Heaven and back. It’s a very powerful, moving book. You should definitely read it sometime!
Now, on to why I believe in Jesus. Again, the first reason I’m going to use is the fact that it’s how my parents raised me. Like I said before, although they raised me to believe in Jesus, over the past few years, because of many things, I have formed my own religious beliefs and have become independent from my parents, at least religiously speaking. My beliefs may coincide with my parents’, but they are my own.
The first in-depth reason that I’m going to use is His Resurrection. First, there were so many people who saw the risen Lord, like Mary Magdalene, doubting Thomas, the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and the Apostles when they locked themselves in the room. There’s also the empty tomb, which is where Jesus’ burial clothes were found with Jesus’ image… um… etched into them, for lack of a better term.
The last reason I’m going to use, for believing in Jesus and believing in God, is faith. I simply have faith in them. I can’t really elaborate on that except by saying if you’re Catholic you’ll understand. I just believe, and I hope you do, too.
Wow, this was a really, really long post. Well, I hope that anyone who didn’t respect my beliefs before, does respect them now. Seriously, though, this took me a couple hours (not straight- I was working on this on and off throughout the day). Alright, I’m done with blogging for tonight. Time to go work on my essay 😦 Bye!
-Sam
P.S. The original URL for the pictures can be found by clicking on the pictures.
Sammi Talk 