Living With Faith

People have always tried to decipher God but they can't . God cannot work with logic . God is a mystery . Who can define a mystery .
A mystery opens itself up only through insight , like sight to the blind .
The innocent of this earth have discovered the wonder of God and yet those who have no concept of faith or who God is will continue to see God as a logical puzzle to be figured out and then controlled like some kind of machine .

I have seen God working in real ways .
The real ways of God are a beautiful experience and leave no doubt tin your mind that it was a miraculous event . Some times these events are witnessed by others and that in itself is a confirmation of your faith that God is real .

In this life all God wants from us is that we recognise that he is there .
We then can establish a communication with him then God will invite us closer to him . This is the beginning of a lifetime relationship that grows through constant affirmation of his power in our life .

Belfast was a city I lived in once and my memories may not be the way things are today . Where I grew up everything was centred around the church .
The community never knew anything else . In this environment you could easily get an invitation to the presence of God .

For me personally , I had an early calling to serve God . Its hard to describe the feeling I had except from this overwhelming love that burned inside me to become a priest . Early on as a young boy I had a vision in my room and not long after that the troubles erupted in my City . Daily battles and riots changed the picture of the innocent city where I had grown up and loved . I saw good people go bad and even worse innocence had been killed on the streets without even firing a shot .

My life changed overnight .
The calling I had to the priesthood had left .
I never even saw it leave . Like a train on a track it had left to a place where I would not be able to catch it again .

As a teenager I met my first girlfriend .
At 14 I still had no notion where babies came from .
I remember somebody told me on the way home from school . I was nearly 16 and couldn’t believe what he had said . He informed me that the Priest had told him and so in that case I had to believe him .

I began to study for my O levels at school when my parents told me we were all going to Australia . That news hit me like a smack on the forehead .
I was devested. I never wanted to leave Ireland but at 16 I was too young to stay and too connected with my family to live without them.

So we left and within a month of landing in Sydney I got myself an apprenticeship and within the next few years I met some people at work who introduced me to
Hard narcotics. In a short time I was using every day.
Starting with cannabis and hash I soon was experimenting with acid and LSD.
Soon I was shooting up heroin .
I was going through hell after some bad experiences and tried to get off drugs .
As soon as I had made the decision to quit that’s when all my problems started to escalate . I knew I was up against something evil and started to pray hard for the strength to go straight .

Thank God I kicked the habit .
In the darkness of my drug addiction I had found God again on my life .
I discovered God was working in a big way in my life .
It took me about 14 years to straighten out and during that time I had to fight off suicide three times . I was in a few mental hospitals . Chelmsford in Sydney where I went through deep sleep therapy and Purdysburn in Belfast where I had shock treatment and intensive drug treatments .
Finally after going through many therapy programs and rehabilation I started to see the light appear in the darkness in my life .
I was in my earl thirties when I had recovered from using drugs .
I was straight and sane .

Now the question was what do I do now ?
Where to next and what can I do ?

I started to look for the same calling that I had in Belfast but it was gone .
The harder I looked the more it evaded me .

I prayed hard for guidance and suddenly started to write songs and poetry and short stories . I went on weekend retreats and spent most of my time in reflection of where I stood with God . I kind of felt that I had disappointed God by falling into drug addiction . After years of this guilt trip I realised that God loved me for who I was . I was able to break those chains guilt and found freedom and acceptance in my life . Things were much better for me at last .

The testing times in faith .
Indeed how else can we ever hope to understand it all ?

Sure there were times when I was angry and hurt .
God knows I lived through a nightmare .
But in the middle of that darkness, where no one could ever go that’s where
I realised that God was right in there with me . In the thick of it all .
In a place I feared and could not understand God took me away from that .
That’s’ how I found him . He was there when there was no one .
Without faith I could not have survived this experience .
When things go wrong as they do , its not God but satan behind it .
Let me ask you this question , does the devil work to save souls or destroy them ?

The way out of hell can never be found with Satan but God , so the hell on earth I have experienced was not because of God . How could I shake my fist or get angry with God when the only thing God can do is love .

I had met people who were angry with me and my family because we are Christians and the number of times I could have asked God to curse them and strike them is numerous . However Jesus told us to love our enemies and to bless those who are our enemies . Many will try to do us harm in life ,
But God will never allow one hair on our heads to be touched if we have faith .
If we have faith we will survive the things life throws in our face .

I fell into bad company and got addicted to drugs .
Going cold turkey and almost dying in the process of quitting hard drugs was one of the hardest things I have ever done . But the toughest battle in my life I came through because of my faith . Without it I would not be here today .
During this time I had gone through ECT , heavy sedatives and tranquilzers , group therapy , community and sheltered nursing procedures , hypnotherapy , and the list goes on and on . In the end I got down on my knees and said , God you created me . Now get back on my feet .

He did and before long the dark night of the soul had passed . From that day my life changed . I quit all the medications I was on . I went to weekday mass and prayed hard for strength every day . Guess what God did for me what doctors and hospitals and every other avenue could not .
I had assistance and God healed me and helped me to recovery .
Doctors and specialists told my parents , I would never marry and could not have kids . I have been married 15 years now and have 4 beautiful children . I was angry with myself for not asking God's help sooner . Isn't it always the way . We try to do things ourselves without asking God to help us .

When I was 36 years old I met my wife . We now have four kids . They’re growing up very fast now .
I often think of Ireland and all my memories of growing up there .
My adopted home now is Australia .
After 35 years here in Australia I am not so homesick for Ireland anymore .
Once I asked myself the question Where is my real home anyway ?
The answer came back to me that my real home is with God in heaven and only time is all that keeps me from being there with him .

People often said to me where you never angry with God for all the things I went through but I have always known that God has been with me .
I was never alone with my struggles .

The End

By Paul McCann