Rebellion and Rejection
REBELLION AND REJECTION
I was numb for months. The one light in my world had gone out. Perhaps it was natural that at that point I started looking for some kind of meaning beyond what I could see.
I had never thought about God before, but now suddenly I became aware of Him. I didn’t know a thing about Him, mind you. I had been to Sunday School once or twice, but only because I wanted to join the drama group and to do that you had to go to services. As far as I knew, Mum and Dad had never darkened the door of a church. Yet, suddenly, I knew God was real.
At the same time, I had a deep sense that somehow this God that I had just discovered had a call on my life. I didn’t understand it, didn’t know what it was, just knew that rumbling away somewhere way down inside of me was a sense of destiny.
Meanwhile, now there was just Mum and me. Mum hadn’t changed, and I have to say that I was far from an easy child to live with. Old way beyond my years, I was strong minded and strong willed yet emotionally sensitive and volatile. We were definitely not a good combination!!!
When she had settled Dad’s estate, Mum moved us up country. We bought a house in a small country town, right near a convent. For the first time I came in contact with nuns, and as I talked with them I was increasingly drawn. This, I thought, must be that thing that I had been feeling inside: God was calling me to be a nun.
Now there was just one small problem with that: to be a nun, you had to be a Catholic, and I wasn’t. Not a problem to me. Now aged nearly 14, I went home and announced to my mother that I was going to become a Catholic so that I could become a nun. She promptly informed me that no way on earth, over her dead body, would such a thing ever happen, and the battle lines were drawn.
Our disagreement ended with her taking me to court, charging me with being uncontrollable, and having me sent to a home. (In a sense this was an inevitable outcome, as right through my childhood she had told me that if I didn’t shape up she would put me in a home.)
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At a school excursion. |
However, much to my mother’s chagrin, the home I was sent to was a Catholic orphanage, and I did become a Catholic..…
