Why Me?

Sometimes when things go wrong in our lives, we ask God “Why me?”

I know that I have often asked the question in the past because I didn’t have an proper appreciation for the value and depth of Christian suffering (which is a whole different subject). This week though, I asked God this question from a completely different perspective.

Considering my conversion from Protestantism to Catholicism, I seriously asked God why He chose me above any of my other Protestant friends. I mean, so many of them are smarter than I am, and many of them lead much holier lives than I do. So, why did God choose to open my eyes to the fullness of truth found in the Catholic Church?

My guess is that most cradle Catholics wouldn’t understand where I am coming from because many are not really aware of just how anti-Catholic much of Protestantism can be (especially those who pride themselves on being “Bible Christians”). Many Protestants are completely misinformed about the Catholic Church – largely due to much of what they believe about the Catholic Church being handed down generationally. In fact, there are even Protestants who believe that the Catholic Church is the Beast of the Apocalypse, and that the Pope is Antichrist. So as you can imagine, becoming Catholic for us meant that so many teachings that we always took for granted had to be challenged and ultimately rejected.

That is why I asked the question. Why did God choose to soften our hearts to be even slightly open to investigating Catholic teaching? If He hadn’t, we would never have become Catholic. Rather than leaving us in our misinformed ignorance, God in His grace and mercy gave us an opportunity to really study Catholic teaching – not from the mouths of misinformed Protestants, but from godly Catholics. And boy were we surprised!

So this week, when I asked the question “Why me?” it was a gentle reminder that I am Catholic not because of anything wonderful that I have done. No – I am Catholic because of God’s grace. And I pray that the question would remain on my lips until that day that our Lord calls me home so that I can learn humility.