Living Out the Answer

I remember being a teenager. I wish I could forget sometimes.

It's especially tough to be a teen when an adolescent tornado of hormones and emotions leaves you estranged from your friends and sometimes even your parents.

I remember being made fun of in the lunch room, betrayed by my friends for no other reason than just because they thought it would be funny, and being the target of a group of boys who nicknamed me "Ugly." They didn't call me that, they named me that. I remember driving my parents crazy with my moods and attitude. I could almost say that I barely survived adolescence.

I could almost say that. But it wouldn't be true.

Yes, I thought about suicide. Sometimes, in spite of the fact that I was loved desperately by so many people, I even thought about how I'd do it. But something always stayed my hand. Two things in particular come to mind: Hamlet and a photograph.

I must have studied Hamlet for a short period in the 8th grade, because this line stuck fast to me and wouldn't allow me too much room to contemplate that horrible act:

"O that this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew!
Or that the Everlasting had not fix'd
His canon 'gainst self-slaughter! O God! God!
How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable
Seem to me all the uses of this world!"

So that was one thing. God wanted me alive for some reason, even if I hurt like the blazes at the time.

But the second thing gave that first thing its power. You see, knowing God is against something wouldn't have meant much if I didn't deeply believe that God was for real. That second thing was a miracle that ultimately saved my life and made me who I am. It was a photograph.

This image was given to my father decades ago by his boss's wife. She discovered it after she developed her photos of a recent trip to Yugoslavia. She wasn't even Catholic, but the mysterious story of Mary, the Mother of God, appearing to children in Medjugorje, Yugoslavia (present-day Bosnia Herzegovina) was enough to prompt a pilgrimage to the site and to see for herself.

At the end of the trip, this woman took the final exposure of her film: a picture of the mountain where the supposed apparition was taking place. She was quite surprised when she arrived home to find the "woman" had appeared to her as well.

That simple picture of a beautiful woman with a dress of fire and rosary beads coming down from her hands looked to be superimposed over a mountain in the background. It came into my life when I was 7 or 8 years old and has since disappeared. But it was a secure confidence, a strong mooring to the existence of God and His love for little old me. In the dark times of my adolescence, when I couldn't even stand to look at myself, I still felt His loving gaze, and His strong hand holding me steady.

Many years later, when I graduated college, I took a job as a youth minister at a parish near Ames, IA. My job (among other things) was to prepare 10th graders for Confirmation. As part of the process, I interviewed each young person about their faith and understanding of God. One thing I asked each one was this: "If you could ask God one question, what would it be?"

One particular young girl (her name was Whitney), moved me deeply with her response. She said,

"Well, if I can ask Him a question, I suppose that answers the most important question of all: Do You exist? So..." Then she paused and added thoughtfully,

"I guess I'd ask the only thing that mattered:

'How do you want me to serve you?'"

Whitney's insightful answer helped me to realize just how much the powerful knowledge of God's existence had saved my life and given me purpose. I didn't wonder if God existed, because I knew it with my whole heart, mind, soul and strength. Therefore, only one question remained for me to ask Him: "How shall I serve you?"

I've been striving to live out the answer ever since.