I grew up not knowing my Lord. I longed for Him, I believed in Him; I wanted to be near Him, but no one in my family could help me. I called myself a Catholic because, I figured, what else could I be?
I’m Mexican. Jesus is on our dashboard. I know I’m not Jewish. I must be a Christian. I survived a childhood filled with happy but confusing holidays such as Christmas and Easter. Easter Sundays meant only matching frilly dresses for my sister and me. Always, always I wanted something more.
In high school I knew a “Jesus freak”. She was wonderful and scary at the same time. She glowed with something beautiful inside her. Every week she invited me to her church. “Come,” she would say, “Jesus loves you so much.” Finally one Sunday I gave in. It was a tiny Southern Baptist church in the middle of a very Mexican section of East L.A. There was something marvelous and overwhelming going on inside. The pastor described a Jesus who longed for me, too, and my heart ached and opened up to Him. I cried and cried and secretly begged Him to be Lord of my life. Even thinking about it now makes me remember the fragility of that moment so long ago. I was sixteen.
I spent the next twelve years or so running away from Him as fast as my legs would carry me. Finally my legs gave out and I fell to my knees. I had met a man I wanted to marry and begin a new and good life with, but I was unequipped. I begged the Lord once again to accept me, to take me in, to help me, to guide and love me. Jesus being who He is, He said yes. He said He had just been waiting for me.
Mother Theresa once told the cast of a musical in Calcutta that what they were doing was needed in the world as never before. “It is the same action,” she said, “whether you are singing and dancing and we are rubbing and scrubbing. You are filling the world with the love God has given you.” To my dear prospective audience: That is my greatest hope.