Rebecca Morgan
I got into Youth Ministry for all the wrong reasons. Like many, I was trying to be a teacher and needed volunteer experience working with kids as well as a Pastoral Reference. That’s where I was really in trouble. Throughout my university life I hadn’t attended a Mass, gone for Confession, or even given my faith a second thought. I was so far away from Jesus in my lifestyle choices and attitude I thought there was literally no coming back.
I’ve been in Catholic school all my life, even attended a Catholic college at the University of Toronto so really this is all I’ve known. I turned out to totally love my job as a Youth Minister, but there was always a component I was missing that so many of my colleagues “just got”. A relationship with the person of Jesus Christ. I was living 2 versions of myself; the self that wasn’t at all aligned with who I am, and the self that in my heart I knew I wanted to be. Little did I know it was the beginning of the slow, silent call home I had been missing for so long.
I was mad at God, honestly. My parents had a messy divorce at a young age, I went through periods of filling my self-esteem with attention from guys who didn’t care about me, watched my Mother lose her battle with addiction when I was 21, was in a terrible car accident the same year, and eventually found myself in an abusive relationship with someone who I really thought was “the one.” The trauma of my life weighed on my heart daily and it was just so easy to be angry with God, and to bury it all deep inside me.
What I didn’t realize was God was bringing me back to where I truly belonged and where I would find the unconditional love that I was searching for so badly. We’ve all been the woman at the well, and for me it took going to Confession to finally realize that surrendering to God was the only way to be fully free.
Confession was terrifying. I hadn’t been in 20 years, and I only decided to go because we were in Adoration just before and I felt a tug on my heart, and praise God I listened. I made sure I went to a young priest who didn’t know me, and I sat there, looked at him, and told him EVERYTHING. Every single thing I had done wrong in my life, everything that brought me shame, everything I was angry about, and finally that I was in a relationship that only hurt me but I didn’t know how to leave. This wonderful priest in his infinite wisdom paused, looked at me and said, “Girl…you need to dump that guy.” And as funny as that was, in that very moment I was filled with a love I had never felt before. I felt everything that was weighing on my heart just fall away and I absolutely knew without a doubt that everything was going to be okay. I went home that weekend, called up my boyfriend and broke up with him right there after being together for 4 years. I wasn’t upset and I didn’t even cry. All I felt was love and relief. And now years later I finally found the man of my dreams, the one who I thought could never exist, and we are getting married later this year! I had finally realized that in giving up and giving in everything would fall into place and I would get the life I always wanted. From that point forward, every time I pray I say “please Lord continue to take my life. Whatever Your will is I will joyfully live it.”
“I CAN DO ALL THINGS IN HIM WHO STRENGTHENS ME. ”
“PEACE BEGINS WITH A SMILE. ”