Hardwired for God

Although I’ve always believed in God, my spiritual journey began as I watched my husband, Terry, draw his last breath. After seven days in intensive care, he took on an ashen color I can only describe as ghastly. Early that Saturday morning, I frantically circled his bed, rubbing his feet and hands, trying to recover circulation in his darkened limbs. Suddenly, alarms rang, and I was shoved out of the room as a medical team began to resuscitate him.

I looked up into the neon lights and prayed a desperate prayer. “Lord, if you are going to take him, please don’t let him suffer.” On return, my husband had gone from this horrid color to a brilliant pink. With an unearthly conviction, I told him he had to let go of this life and go into the arms of Christ who was waiting for him. One more heartbeat and he went home with the Lord. The room was so thick with God’s love, it took my breath away and sent me on a life-long quest to find out more about our connection with God.

As the world slept, I read my Bible and studied theology. It has become very clear we are made for a relationship with God. In his book, “The Holy Longing,” Ronald Rolheiser has a convincing argument that we are created with an energy inside that we either fill with addictions and things of this world or with the peace for which we were created: a relationship with God. Thomas Keating says: “What’s so bad about an addiction, if through recovery in a 12-step program we find God?”

“U.S. News and World Report” reported in an article about prayer: “Humanity reaching out to God in prayer dates back 4,500 years ago in Mesopotamia, yet even that may be predated by prehistoric cave drawings.”

Ours is a hurting and broken world. But we must remember: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” (John 3:16). What did his Jesus preach? Love. The same love that took my husband home, the same love they yearned for in Mesopotamia, and the same love that calls to us today: “Come follow me” (Mk 1:17).

Cardinal Bernardin wrote, “We need to build bridges and make connections that reconcile the world to Christ. We ourselves must become the connecting links. Our mission is to be ambassadors who show Christ to the world and help make the world a new place.”