Tuesday, February 21, 2023 Adventures of A Young Christian, Part 3: Growing Up

To start at the beginning of this series:
Adventures Part 1

I was in the midst of doing a dietetic internship during most of that first year after coming to Christ. It was an intense time of study and work, with a lot of expectations attached. Only 8 students from all over the country had been chosen to be part of this internship in the city which boasted of being the home of the Mayo Clinic. I lived in a dorm attached to St. Mary’s Hospital (SMH), which housed both the dietetic interns and nursing students. At that time, St. Mary’s was still very much a Catholic institution, run by nuns. Perhaps it still is. At the beginning of the internship, we were all gathered into an auditorium and given a speech by Sister Gennerose, who was at that time in a position of leadership there. She told us, among other things, that SMH would remain staunchly pro-life even when other medical institutions were willing to do abortions. This impressed and irked me at the same time, as my convictions on abortion were decidedly on the other side. In spite of my own stance on the issue, I could not help but be stirred in some way by her commitment that the hospital should do the right thing, or at least what she perceived as doing the right thing, amid pressures from the outside world.

It wasn’t long before my convictions about abortion would be challenged, however. My spiritual mentor, Jodie, had asked me to join a Bible study with some of the other nursing students. I was a little intimidated by this as a newbie in the Christian world, but had been gobbling the Bible up in my free time and wanted to be with others who were reading it, too. I had so much to learn! I don’t remember anything about that Bible study, but at the end of the first meeting, Jodie mentioned to the group that we had an opportunity to babysit for some of the women at church who wanted to go up to the capitol for the pro-life march. She passed a sign-up sheet around, asking us to sign up if we were willing and able. Uh oh…I squirmed uncomfortably. There was NO WAY I was going to sign that sheet. Not too long ago, I’d been doing volunteer work for the other side. And let’s not forget that I’d had an abortion several years previously. But now I was a Christian. Did that mean I had to become pro-life? My conscience was pricked and you can be sure the Holy Spirit was involved.

I spoke to Jodie privately after the study. “Jodie, I think you should know that I’m not pro-life. I’m really more in the pro-choice camp. Does a Christian have to be pro-life? I’m not sure if I can take that stance, but I want to be open to what God would tell me about this issue.” She listened thoughtfully, and instead of judging me or lecturing me, she suggested that I read some materials about abortion from a couple Last Days newsletters and passed them on to me. I took them back to my dorm room. This was a big deal for me. When I told the Lord I would surrender everything to Him, did I mean it? I prayed before reading those newsletters, simply asking the Lord to show me the truth, no matter the cost, but behind the words, I was still holding back.

I didn’t think the Bible had much to say on this topic, but I was wrong. I had never looked at photos of aborted babies either. When you read about Jesus healing blind people in the New Testament, they all have something in common: they knew they were blind. Until that moment, I hadn’t known just how blind I was, but that evening, the Holy Spirit applied the clay of truth to my spiritual eyes and bade me wash it off so that I might see. I wept for what I had done. I confessed my sin before the Lord and received His forgiveness.

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found,
was blind but now I see.

Do you think that a blind man after receiving his sight would ask to be made blind again? After all, there are a lot of things in this world that are traumatizing to see, and once seen, impossible to un-see. There are some who might say that I was better off blind, but they would be wrong. What a wonderful mercy it is to know the truth, to know the Man who is Truth. “You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” I would not return to those chains of self-deception for anything.

I was growing up.

Next up:
Adventures Part 4

I’ll probably delete this in the morning…or not.