Friday, January 7, 2011

From Fear to Faith - #6

     As mentioned earlier in this document, giving glory to the enemy of my soul is not my intention here.  Suffice it to say that my ignorance of spiritual matters when attempting to mold my life to my own dreams and desires, led me to the point of denying God as I considered giving up on life entirely.  All the crying and screaming out to him resulted in emptiness and a depressive void, the lowest point in my life.  But it also was probably the first time in my life that I prayed in a more correct manner - real conversation with God, in my own words and from my own heart.  It was to lead to my salvation unto eternal life and even a taste of the benefits of that relationship with God here in this life.  
     In June 1973, with the help of a newly-saved himself, United Methodist person sitting with me in a Catholic church on a Sunday evening, I personally made the choice to trust in Jesus Christ.  It was only the beginning - not the actual saving moment for me - as I learned much later.  But without that choice, I doubt I would have begun the journey at all.  That person took the time with me to follow through and encouraged me by bringing me books to help me know there were others taking the same trip.  I needed that.  But - be careful about what you think you need.  It doesn't always agree with God's idea of what you need.  But if your heart is right - if it's sincerely seeking God's truth and you are willing to deal with your pride, God knows and hears.  As Catholics, we were instilled with the very capital sin of pride that they teach against.  I think I remember a scripture . . . yes . . . God says in Ephesians 6:6:


  • "Not with eye service, as men pleasers; but as the servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart."

     This is about fear, so what does that have to do with a choice I made in 1973?  After a summer of learning about and becoming a part of the ecumenical Catholic Charismatic Movement, attending my first huge conference of over 35,000 in Notre Dame stadium, I learned that a major problem in my life was pride.  Who me?  I was such a shy person; how could that be?  It could be, because there is not one of us alive that did not inherit the sin of pride from Adam and Eve.  HA!  I was so proud of myself!  While singing praise with the congregation gathered in the gym of a Catholic School, I conquered pride (thus fear) by giving in and focusing on the words of praise and on God, and lifting my hands far above my head.  Now that was humbling!  You see many times fear has its root in pride.  By choice, I came against my fear of being seen doing something so foreign to the way I had been raised, and in so doing overcame my pride.  After all, there were Catholic nuns in attendance (and even a priest) doing the same!
     For six years I continued in the Roman religious system.  There was still tremendous fear of facing the priest in the confessional, even if all I had to confess was that I missed a mass or told a lie since my last confession.  Seems it was always my luck to get the meanest and loudest priest available and it would always result in me exiting that box in tears.  I remember one of the last times (maybe even the last) not only exiting the confessional at the back of the church (at the time held in a gym) and continuing my exit right out the back door of the building so I could hide my tears.  I used to tell myself that I felt "so cleansed" of my sins!!  If I cried in church, my children were embarrassed.  Of course they were embarrassed even if I sang in church.  When I sang, I sang with feeling and people would turn and look and that embarrassed them.  The people should not have noticed had they been doing the same, but "worship" in the RCC churches is seldom "felt" and mostly inaudible. Heaven forbid you actually hear anyone unless they are a soloist.
     Decision day came six years after my "proclamation day."  After six years of trying to reconcile the Bible with the Roman system and observing the "Church's" pretending to work toward change as it built relationships (liaisons) with various leaders of the charismatic movement, I realized it was never going to happen and I was going to have to leave in order to stay true to God's Word.
     A word of education here for those who may need a little help "seeing" the methods of the religious system.  What helped me was to witness pride working in members as they worked themselves into positions of leadership.  The RCC was no fool.  They have been working the system for centuries and all they had to do to control the new movement was to invite those 'leaders' into positions of leadership in their local churches as liaisons between the church and the movement. They were assigned as readers of Scripture and trusted to handle the "host" of communion, which gave them position of honor before the "laity". That's how I eventually saw for myself that the RCC will never change.  It doesn't teach you God's word for you today, it just controls your life.
     Acting on my decision to leave the Catholic Church was an act of coming against the biggest fear of my life.  I left Sunday morning mass that day with both a lighter heart and a fearful heart.  "What if they were right and I would go to Hell for leaving? I asked myself."  (More likely, Satan asked me!)  Honestly, I wasn't concerned about what my family would think, but what if I did the wrong thing in God's eyes?
     Fortunately for me, I now trusted more in God's Word and knew that he would give me peace through it.  And he did.  As soon as I arrived home, I delved into my Bible and opened to, "Flee Babylon!"  (Not a KJV at that time.)
  • "Jer. 50:8  Remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans,"
     I was still so new to the Bible that I didn't even know anything about Babylon!  But I did know I had instant peace.

    Thus, fear handled properly - coming against it with the words of God - can be a good thing!  For I have continued in the WORD and one by one - tried and came out of various other religious systems since then - until, one day four years later - (twenty six years ago) - GRACE through FAITH!  (Eph. 2:7,8)


"There can be some truth in a lie,
but there can be no lie in the truth." 






Monday, November 15, 2010

Fear to Faith Part 5

   Some fears can be considered healthy for us.  Fear of God, for instance, and a fear man seldom considers - a fear of God's enemy, thus our enemy.  There was a book written in my lifetime called, "Satan Is Alive and Well."  We tend to choose ignorance when it comes to things we can't see. The spiritual world is seldom thought of by the ordinary person, but it exists and we need to have a healthy fear of Satan's realm and his involvement in our lives.  In order to have a healthy fear, we need to be knowledgeable.  
   This was a fear I did not have, for I was unknowlegeable - ignorant - of the spirit world of evil.  Oh, I had the typical fear of sin and its consequences, but it was all based upon fear of man and fear of a place of fire called hell.  Fear of man embraced fear of whatever priest happened to be in the confessional, or fear of my father's leather strap and sometimes even fear of his voice.
   I don't like to talk much about the time in my life that the enemy of my soul was working very hard to get me to take my life.  I would rather glorify the Lord of my life who helped me overcome.  In this case there was some fear that kept me from destroying myself.  My prayer life was probably never so sincere as it was during this time because, it seemed that God finally began letting me know he was listening to me.  It wasn't instantaneous, but I was on my way. 
   What fear was it that led to faith in my life?  Was it the indescribable fear I felt as I lay on an operating table as doctors were implanting a pacemaker in me at age 45 and something seemed to go awry?  Having made a decision to "follow Christ" four years previous to this, I remembered enough scripture to use in talking to God as I lay there hearing the medical team at work on me.  My whole being was enveloped in fear as I heard the sounds of a lake in my head, and I took the "fear by the horns" and started talking to God in my mind.  "Lord, I cannot handle this fear.  I'm going to let you handle it because you said in your word that you did not give me a spirit of fear, but of a sound mind."  And I promptly passed out and could no longer hear anything that went on around me. (I am now sporting my fourth pacemaker!)

Next:  One of the biggest fears I ever faced.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

From Fear to Faith #4

From the time I entered First Grade and all through the school years I searched for a relationship with God through ritualistic prayers.  I do know that I expected answers to my prayers, but my expectations were based on the 'miraculous' lives of the 'saints' introduced by my teaching nuns.  As I knelt in prayer in front of statues, I remember thinking that if one would just blink an eye at me it would confirm my close relationship with them.  However, I was merely reciting memorized stanzas – verses taken from scripture, but out of due time and context.
Instead of those memorized prayers drilled into me, there were times that I cried out to 'Jesus' with my own words, even though answers were not forthcoming.  Often when I petitioned God it was for something I just knew I was being tested about and was determined to stand the test in a way pleasing to God and to the world around me.
Lacking the training and inclination to do so, God sure never got the thanks and praise for anything I considered answered prayer, EXCEPT for the blessing of my two children.
As the influence of the ten commandments steered my life, another fear governed.  With hindsight it is quite clear that my nightly prayers were offered in fear that if I laid my head on the pillow without reciting them I would surely die in the night and go to hell.
That same kind of fear, for some reason, did not rule when we sat down to dinner in our home.  The memorized prayer for before meals was only offered on special occasions – large holiday dinners at Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas, when it was usual for aunts, uncles or Grandfather to dine with us.  For some reason it wasn't as important to recite the "after meals" prayer though each of us had been taught it.
There was another kind of fear in my life also.  The fear that gripped me when one of my brothers started fighting with my other brother.  It was the same fear that gripped me when my father was angry with my mother and  compared in intensity with the fear of that approaching bus as I stumbled to get up from the icy roadway.  I frequented the confessional for fear an un-confessed sin would send me to hell if I waited too long.  I feared also the priest who would scold loud enough for everyone to hear if I dared to miss a Sunday mass.
Yes, there was a lot of fear in my life.  
But did fear get me where I desired to be in my relationship with God?

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Fear to Faith Part 3

We lived only six doors from the front door of the Junior High School I was enrolled in for 7th grade.  Now I had a "home room" teacher and a teacher for all the different subjects.  My homeroom teacher was also my music teacher, who quickly noted that I was a very shy student and had to be encouraged to join the chorus.  She had tested me and noted that I could hold a note on key while sitting next to a different voice type.  That was the beginning of learning to deal with fear myself, as we often had to sing a part alone so she could know we were doing it right.
Shy, I said.  I was so shy that when encountering someone in the hallway I did not know well, especially a teacher, I looked away so as not to have to speak.  Although I did not choose my friends for their looks, I very much appreciated pretty faces as was the case with my cooking teacher.  She had asked me to stay after class one day in order to speak with me.  Oh boy!  My mind searched, while my heart raced, for something I might be in trouble for, but I could not find out what it was all about until after class.  That's when I learned that teacher had been offended by my avoiding her in the hall.  When I explained it was simply because of my shyness, she was very kind in encouraging me not to be fearful of speaking.
It was much easier to get through the three years at Junior High after that incident.  It helped also to be encouraged by my music teacher/homeroom teacher, (who knew my mother).  She had encouraged me to join the Girls Chorus and also the Choir and that helped my shyness somewhat.
However, a change of school buildings when entering High School revealed my shyness was not completely gone because my music teacher, who had also transferred to the same High School in the same year, wondered why I was not in her class.  Upon finding that I did not know how to get into the class or even whether I qualified, she offered to take care of it for me and did, so again I was in both the Chorus and the Choir.
The rest of my classes consisted of the usual Readin', 'Riting and 'Rithmetic' - English, History and Math along with Shorthand and Bookkeeping.  I had wanted to be a teacher or a nurse but my mother said Daddy wanted me to be his helper and I should take business courses to prepare for that, and I did.  But Daddy died in my senior year and my first job was as a dental assistant for $25 per week.  And it was not long after that I did end up in the business world where I have been most of my life.
This is about fear and its affect on my life.  More to come.

Saturday, September 25, 2010

2nd, 3rd, 5th & 6th Grades - More Fear



Having become accustomed to the pretty first grade nun and her black habit, advancement to the Second Grade injected more fear into my young life since that was the grade level that all Catholic students were introduced to the dark “box” called the confessional.  A “good” confession brought the reward of being able to receive that white, circular bread called, “The Eucharist.”  The fear involved was whether one could remember to confess ALL one’s sins committed since the last confession and how much penance one would receive for those sins confessed. An added concern was whether every classmate in the church knew how bad I was by how long a penance I received.

I got over the terrible fear of the black habit quickly.  Just how, I do not remember.  What I do remember is my mother and the nuns working on making me a black habit for a school play, with the white thing on my head that hid my long hair and my pigtails.


By Third Grade, my baby sister had advanced to three years old and had taken the heart of our father from the other five of us, and became quite spoiled.  If we complained to our mother, we were admonished that we were the ones who spoiled her because we thought she was so cute.  Nevertheless, we all began to suffer the results of that and to learn more about fear – in this case – fear of Daddy, who always defended his baby.  But that was not the worst fear I remember from that age.  One day, as I hurried to cross a street at the bottom of an icy hill on my way to school, my feet went out from under me and I fell.  My heart was pounding as I scurried to get up because there was a bus coming down that hill.  Need I try to describe that fear?


One type of fear was dealt with before it could happen with me – the fear of a black (Negro) face.  My Fifth Grade teacher, Sr. Andrea, had been assigned to the local “black church” and her work with them spilled over into our fifth grade class, teaching us that it was very unkind to use the word, Nigger, etc.  I had never seen a black person up to that point in my young life.  Being as impressionable as I was, I never forgot Andrea’s lessons and applied them in my life shortly thereafter as we welcomed the first black students to our school.


There were those of us students who feared the principal simply because we heard others being fearful of her.  My mother, however, had no fear of Sister “Principal.”  That I learned when it was discovered that I had brought home head lice to my five brothers and sisters.  I had never had a haircut, thus my hair had grown to my waist but had to be cut in order to deal effectively with the lice.  Mother reported the problem to the principal who denied the remotest possibility that I had picked up head lice in her school.  It was later discovered that the boy who sat in front of me carried the lice in to the school.  The nun apologized but Mother had already made arrangements to pull me from the school and enrolled me in public school for the next grade, where I had to be sent to the nurse’s room every week to have my head checked.

I don’t remember at what age I began spending some time during summer vacations with my Aunt & Uncle in a neighboring state.  We would sometimes visit other relatives, but Aunt Mary & Uncle Bill took one or two of us for a couple of weeks each and we were delighted for the change from home and the special attention we received. 


In addition to those special vacations, on an occasional Sunday afternoon we would gang up on Daddy to take us to visit Aunt Mary & Uncle Bill and their two sons and we would all go to the lake for a swim.  It was the same lake we had in our city and state but of course it was always fun to go with our favorite relatives.  But one of those trips held the secret of my insurmountable fear of deep water that has kept me from learning to swim all these many, many years.  I was so young when that happened I can only guess my age as being five or six.  What I remember about it is simply that I was given mouth-to-mouth or something by someone, back on the sandy beach.


At the age of twenty-six, as a young married on vacation on Long Island, I came as close to drowning as one can get – down and under the famous “three times.”  I remember knowing I was going under the third time and the fear was unimaginable and produced the forbidden panic.  And sure enough, as he stood me on my feet in the water, those were the words of the young person who rescued me (he couldn’t have been more than twelve!) – “next time, don’t panic.”  I was so deep in panic I did not have the presence of mind to thank him and that bothered me for years.


Years later, sitting around my mother’s kitchen table with one or two of my sisters as we visited on some holiday or other occasion, something was said that caused me to explain my failure in learning to swim.  I think I was the only one of us who could claim being a non-swimmer.  When I mentioned the incident on Long Island, I also mentioned having a vague memory of being resuscitated as a very young child on a beach somewhere.  It was the moment I had been vindicated from making up things as my sister, Pat, revealed, “I was the one who resuscitated you.”  She didn’t tell me how and why I had nearly drowned – just confirmed my memory and told me where it happened.  There is a clear memory of those uncles and cousins in my family trying to get me used to the water by carrying me on their shoulders as I screamed in fear.   (This is all leading somewhere - more to come.)

Thursday, September 23, 2010

Kindergarten and First Grad


Kindergarten and First Grade – (Introduction to Fear)        October 19, 2009
  • The very first horrendous fear I remember was at about four and five years of age and was in the form of nightmares about our housekeeper and her big, black, late 1930’s vintage coupe.  That coupe visited my dreams all too frequently, so that I have never forgotten it or the nightmares.  The saving thing about it is that when I was a child, we worked and played so hard that we had no trouble going to bed – we didn’t need a psychologist to determine what was keeping us up at night.  We played as hard as we worked at our chores.  When we had grown enough that our legs would reach, one of our favorite activities after we had been sent to bed entailed my brothers and I laying pillows on the floor in the hallway and climbing the walls until we chose to fall onto the pillows.  What fun!  Of course, we had to do this quietly, stifling our laughter so Mom and Daddy didn’t hear us.  I suppose there was another element of fear in that because if Daddy had heard us we would have been lined up for the leather horse whip!
  • The big (to me) black coupe made a lot of noise that must have frightened me but it wasn’t the noise that terrified me in the nightmares.  That black coupe used to follow me everywhere, even going up over curbs as I was running down the sidewalks trying to escape it.  Once I remember trying to hide from it in a row of boxwoods two doors from my home, from which I succeeded to avoid it, running up the little hill of our driveway as fast as my little legs could carry me, crying for my mother as I ran into the house.  In the dreams, I always found her in the basement between rows of sheets hanging to dry or running clothes through the washing machine wringer.   The owner and driver of that frightening black Model T coupe was hired because she could help my mother with her large family and she could bake pies.  My father’s job as a door-to-door life insurance salesman put him in touch with too many housewives who baked pies.  Mother confessed to me one day that Mrs. Twist was the answer to that temptation for my father.  But that car she drove sure made a lot of noise.
  • When mother transferred me from public kindergarten to Sacred Heart School for 1st Grade, I was not prepared for the second scary person in my life, an otherwise pretty lady, whose title as a nun I don’t remember.  But the picture of her in that black garb was enough to frighten me to tears that rolled down onto the new large blue ribbons mother had tied to the end of my long pigtails and I have had no trouble recalling that fear even though I grew to love that lady in black.


Copyright 2009 Rita E. Bauschard