When I First Believed!

THE WALK

I was cleaning out closets when I ran across a photo album of the year I studied in Spain. Here I found silly pictures and started leafing through the pages of my past. So lost, alone and unaware. Then I found it! The HOST! Yes, the very host (holy bread) blessed in church to eat as a reminder of His death!! Oh the story!!! Tears filled my eyes and I cried for that girl!!!

While living in Granada in my late teens early 20’s I had been very lost and….searching. I found myself in a world with others on the same journey. I did things teens sometimes do and in positions I stumbled upon. One night, after an evening at some bars, we ended up at a Moroccan Tea shop which are so very popular in Spain. A few hours of chai tea and smoking I started a quiet, lovely and picturesque walk to my house. I was blessed to be living with a host family that had a beautiful home right next to The Alahambra and all it’s little shops and old churches. On my walk home I became increasingly paranoid and couldn’t think straight. I quickened my pace and thought about how much this street looked like a back lot of a studio. That it was too picturesque and too perfect. I just knew it had to be a set up. I was so busy convincing myself that I was being watch that I barely noticed it!

A host. Yes, a host…the big white round one with the cross imprinted on it! Yes, the one a priest blesses as Christ’s body for us to share… there on the floor, at 2am, in the dark, in Spain, on the street! What? Surely this was part of the plot I was being set up for right? Paranoia grew. Surely I was hallucinating this! Mental note: No more tea and smoking for me. So, I kept walking but was getting closer to it and yet it didn’t disappear. Ah, a brilliant thought! It wasn’t there was it? No, it couldn’t be! A plan: I’ll step on it and prove to myself that it’s an illusion! So I walked and tried not to look at it and stepped on it and took another step….I heard it! A very clear and audible crunching sound!!! What??? I pivoted around and stared at it….now behind me….cracked, with a clear shoe mark on it. Broken into two pieces………

I fell to my knee’s, tears fell down my face, and here….it was my turn to break!!! Who was I? Lost, in a foreign country, unaware of what my current actions would do in my life so many years later. I refused to believe in this host, on the floor, so I challenged it’s existence. Yet, it still lay there, now broken because of me! He loved me!!! Even if I refused to believe in his existence and chose to challenge it by stepping on it….it remained! I sat there crying and picked it up and ran home!

I’d like to tell you my life changed immediately and life was perfect from then on! I’d like to tell you that….but it wouldn't be true. It did take me a little longer to understand however, that was the day “that I first believed.” 

Here I am 17 years later. On my living room floor, with 3 year old triplets running around and asking me what this white broken thing was. The MERCY, the GRACE….how do I explain that to them? “Mami what’s that?”…..all I could mutter… “A gift from God.”

How many times have we not taken His love, mercy, grace and favor for granted. Asking for more. Always wanting more. Not understanding the value and truth of what was already gifted to us. I am thankful for a God that despite our flaws loves us and meets us even in those dark deserted streets. You are never alone friend!!!

"What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off?" 

Matt 18:12