Conversion

It would be difficult to put my whole conversion into words, let alone a blog... but I want so dearly to express what I have found in the Orthodox Christian faith. Recently certain family members, quite a few actually, have expressed their desire to begin seeking God. I can not say I am surprised because I have prayed long and hard for this and I trust that God seeks out His own whenever He can. He loves to bless us with His mercy and answer the prayers of His children, however unworthy we are of His grace.

If I tried to contain my thoughts and feelings into words, about what I have experienced as an Orthodox Christian, how this life has taken on such new meaning... how love for God has been given to this lowly soul and His light permeates my being... How experiential our Holy faith is... I can not. All I can say is, "O taste and see that the Lord is good!" (Psalm 34:8)

The truth of Christianity is that one must be ready to accept truth. Until that time, it falls on deaf ears.(Matt. 11:15) We must leave all preconceived notions at the door and simply knock. One must be made ready through suffering, experience of separation, family trials, death, and humility before one can accept truth. Orthodoxy affords one the ability to come to a new understanding of suffering and therefore a new understanding of our relationship to God. What else matters more than our own relationship to God? There is nothing more important than coming to an active and vivifying knowledge of God. This gnosis is not static. It is life giving and medicinal. Our merciful God created His holy church not as an institution to uphold merely certain doctrinal decrees, but as a hospital for the sick, the suffering, the infirmed. (Matt. 9:12-13)

What I am trying to convey is that the church of Christ is a very real place; ready with open doors to take in the sinful soul and assist in healing, and bring one to a true relationship with her creator. The church is in fact the very real extension of the grace of God, made physical as if it were Heaven on Earth! It is the place where mankind can go for the healing of mind, body and soul; where one can find sainthood not just in the world to come but here and now! Christ did not come to merely tell us about what is to come in the next life but to transform us from the old man to the new. (Eph. 4:24) It is in fact our destiny (if we should accept Him) to become living Icons (images) of God for we were made in the image and likeness of God. The church offers the restorative abilities, sacraments, to us as prescriptions for our illness. How then can we turn away from these sacraments, calling them mere symbols of our faith?

How I wish to express all this and more to my dear family. How I wish to give them all the experiences I have had in our church. Instead I am left with my prayers and hopes... awaiting the day that Christ will guide them. I trust He is doing His great work. And I hope that if in some small way there is opportunity through my own sinful heart, the Lord can show them what I (sometimes only I) can see going on behind the scenes, in my own spiritual life. Because He has truly given me a new life and a new heart, though it may be still sinful it is truly changed and changed because He resides in it. His holy body and blood have given me a life I thirst for and can get nowhere else than within the doors of the very church He established here on Earth!

Christ raising Adam and Eve from their tombs as He is resurrected. "Trampling down death by death and in the tombs bestowing life."~ from the Paschal Hymn