I'm 20 years old, a Roman Catholic at heart, & a girl who doesn't believe that church is detrimental to the growth or the continuation of my chosen faith. Growing up I attended CCD Classes, the youth group at my church, was baptized as a baby, held onto my first communion, and went as far as confirmation before leaving the church. Present count is a little over 3 years.
Growing up in the Catholic Church I had many unanswered questions, no one could give me a solid answer and today I have an idea why. The Bible, which I haven't read fully, to my understanding is a series of stories that help people live a happy life with God and their faith. These stories to me are just stories, whether true or made up, time is unaccounted for which makes specifically asked questions hard to comprehend and talk about. As a little girl growing up, when I asked a question in return all I got was a speculative half answered theory that my mentors told me when they knew no other option. "Just have faith and the answers you seek won't matter as much."
Why believe in something without having all the answers? I continue to ask myself daily; yet, my faith hasn't wavered once. I may have rebelled a few times during my youth and gotten to know my father better to get through the faze, but I was young. After finishing my "studies" and officially joining the church, my faith has stuck with me when church hasn't.
While companionship in a church setting is becoming a more and more appealing thought I gather I should at least know the basics of Christianity and the Bible.
My Goal: To see the Bible in a better light. Gain some answers, pose more questions, and continue to strengthen my faith to the best of my ability.
I would love for you to follow me on my journey as I continue to learn more about the world around me and its roots in the Christian religion.
Bible Version: The New American Bible
Supplements: The Message by Eugene H. Peterson and The Children's Daily Devotional Bible
Will I change?
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"Why believe in something without having all the answers?"
ReplyDeleteThe first question I would ask is this - is your faith in just a something? If so, then you should expect to have all your questions answered, because mere things are finite. The problem you are going to run into with this expectation with Christianity - particularly the Bible - is that it's not really about something. It's about someone. And someones are complicated.
My grandparents were married for over sixty years. After my granddad's funeral, everyone came over to the house, and Grandma got to telling stories. When remembering one of the more peculiar habits he had, she paused and smirked. "I never did figure out why he did that. All that time, all those years, and that man still managed to confound me sometimes" (edited for content - Grandma has a mouth on her). And that's just in a human-to-human relationship. Imagine how long we'll have to know God before we even touch a fraction of who God is.
I guess my point is this - be encouraged. Even if, for every answer you find, you come up with five more questions (which is typically my experience), be encouraged that you're getting somewhere, even if you don't always know where that is. Sometimes in the process of unraveling, it will look like you're just getting more tangled up. That's the nature of mystery, and there's a lot of mystery to this faith.
I'm excited to follow your journey!