You really must. She is blogging up a storm - just keep scrolling down. You’ll have to stop when you get here for this long but…really very interesting and moving…read.
“look, marie overdosed on god knows what, and she died last night.” she said it so cold, and with out any emotion.
i didn’t know what to say, i was stuck in this parallel universe for what felt like an eternity, i started to cry.
“hello? you there?” her mom sounded so callus, and so angry, and all of a sudden marie’s life became that much sadder.
August 1st, 2005 at 6:25 pm
This is a sad and troubling and interesting glimpse into the experiences and mindset of a couple of non-Catholics. I must confess that, as with many things Protestant, I was fairly confused with and do not understand the views of Christianity by Natala and her “pastors,” as it appears that she was and is herself confused.
–”the truth is that before i was a christian i would have done anything for her. i became saved, i started to go to church. i should have been the one that was like christ. no longer was i close to her, i backed away from her instead, no longer did i cry with her, i prayed for her salvation instead . . . i was more christ like when i was not going to church, and when i wasn’t a christian. . . . after i became a member of the salvation club, i loved the sinner, but hated the sin, and that just meant that i was not a good friend to her. that simply meant, i backed away, and i became less and less christ like, the more and more i prayed, went to church, read the bible, and lead a bible study. the less christ like i became.”
–I’ve tried, but I guess I’ll never understand how one can be “saved,” as if it is a one-time act to gain entry into the “salvation club,” rather than salvation in Christ being a continuing and often difficult process that frequently does not involve ecstatic happiness, but involves instead difficulty and suffering — which is why we need Him so.
–On the one hand, it is true that “Marie” was the leper, blind person, and cripple — and there are all too many like her in the world, people who engage in horribly self-destructive lives originating in awful and unconscionable abuse beginning in childhood and throughout her life, and the end of her story was probably not unexpected, yet some portion of her recognized the hell she was in, and that her own conduct contributed to that hell, and still she chose to remain there when a hand was extended to her. As impaired as it was by trauma, still she retained some measure of free will. Sadly, there are people in the world who commit slow-motion suicide by self-destructive lifestyles.
–Although I know that Marie and those like her can be and often are, and hopefully in this case, are redeemed, still the challenge for us is to recognize when those around us are in the same type of living hell and work to get them out of it. It does take action, and a change in the worldly-life, but praying for her salvation is pretty important too, notwithstanding Natala’s frustrations. It still is.
–Reading the entire story, and all the comments at the very end, I was struck that, although there were many comments thanking Natala and many saying “Lord have mercy on me,” I did not see a single comment about praying for “Marie,” whatever her true name may be.
–And I suppose this is another area where I find the Protestant approach so foreign. Instead of praying for each other (or rather, in addition to praying for each other), perhaps we need to direct some of those prayers on behalf of Marie and pray that, even now, God take her into his loving arms, to experience a love and happiness that she never experienced here on earth. Perhaps we need to participate ourselves in the redemption of Christ’s crucifixion, helping to carry the cross and offering up some our own sufferings and hardships toward her merits. To be sure, few people ever did anything good for her when she was here, so maybe we can do some good for her now.
–And perhaps some good can come out of Marie’s sufferings, in that it compels us and encourages us to turn away from our own near-sighted selfishness and self-centeredness, and to look to other people in our lives who are mired in their own living hell and find some way, with the Holy Spirit, to show them a better life.
August 2nd, 2005 at 10:26 am
A Christian Pharisee
What a story from your life can mean And that has made all the difference (seeing Jesus through a porn star). An extraordinary story by Natala who thought she found God as a Chrisitan to realize she had become a Pharisee.