My story

Slovak dissident living in America.

There are many ways that lead people to a closer relationship with God. All of these paths resemble various songs that touch the hearts of people and leave everlasting imprints on their souls. Some of us have been raised in families that regularly attend church and even pray at home, yet we have not had the personal experience of being born again in the Spirit like Jesus said during his discussion with Nicodemus: “You have to be born again.” These words completely puzzled Nicodemus and his question, “How can that be? Can one go back into his mother’s womb and be born again?” showed that sometimes we are still stuck too much on this material world. It’s one thing to attend church and say prayers all day long and another thing to have a heart fully merged with the divine presence of the Creator.

My journey of faith began in a Slovak village where traditional Christian values have been alive for centuries. Unfortunately, our lives were often in dichotomy, i.e. going to church was one thing and your private life was another. More intense “religious” behavior was reserved for children and women or perhaps for someone who was destined to be a priest. My intention was just to join the crowd of boys and men that sometimes went to church on Sunday or just stayed outside and waited until the mass was over. How could any healthy man handle such a boring, pious service in church and hold a rosary in his hand? That was not a very masculine thing to do. Most of all, life in the street with friends was too attractive to be replaced by some ancient church ceremonies.

Human psychology teaches us when children reach adolescence they start asking important questions about life such as where do I come from and what do I have to live for? At this time of my life, something very special happened in our country; it was 1968 and freedom and openness had suddenly entered during this new democratization process. Everyone thought this was a great time and was very excited about these new changes. Our parish organized missions and for the first time in my life, I could see it. The whole parish met outside of the Church around our mission crucifix. Since missions were traditionally based on renewal and complete conversion, I felt encouraged to clean up that dirt that had accumulated in my soul for many years. I remember even going to confirmation without a decent confession. Hence I decided to confess the things for which I felt guilty. Perhaps this will not make any difference in my life but it might be worth to give a try. Let's give God a chance and see what happens, I thought. The whole village was there, even people from other neighboring places so it felt kind of cozy to be in the middle of the crowd. For the first time in my life, I saw a large crowd of missionaries and priests. They introduced an older Slovak priest that had come from America for the first time since he had left many years ago. For some reason, I liked him and decided to take confession with him. When I entered the confessional, I unfolded the paper that I had completely filled up with my sins. The Slovak-American priest listened very carefully and would now and then interrupt me gently and give me some kindly suggestions so that I would not get completely dwell on the negative rather than the positive aspects of my life. As he spoke, I felt God’s love pouring down on me like fresh water from a waterfall. I never met this priest again, but since that moment I had so much peace, joy and security inside me that nothing in the world mattered anymore. For the next few weeks, I literally enjoyed a honeymoon with the Holy Spirit; it was indescribably beautiful and I felt that not even death could separate me from the love of God. I was truly born again. All my bad habits were gone. For example, I used to have the problem of using bad language, but since that moment I never had any desire to use it again. Prayers were no longer boring and I began to live a peaceful life completely trusting God’s guidance in everything.

Some time after this event, another beautiful thing happened. My mother used to suffer from severe pain in her abdomen. One day, we traveled to a nearby town. Suddenly the pain unexpectedly arrived and she could not even move. “What are we going to do? How are we going to get home?” she asked quietly. So I prayed a very short prayer for her that I still remember after so many decades. I said,

“Jesus, please heal my mother from this pain and if you need my life in return for this, please take it according to your will.” She was instantly healed and never suffered from this pain.

As time went by, troubles and worries about this life took some of my early excitement and peace away, but I knew very strongly that my salvation was not by my own power, and I never doubted heaven simply because I knew I would never make it there on my own; it had to be only through God’s mercy and grace. I am weak, but if I stretch out my hand towards Jesus he is strong enough to pull me out of turbulent waters. I wish everyone could go through this experience. I believe that often (but not always) it is our bad conscience and guilt that keeps us away from God. We do not believe that He can really forgive us and help us to start a new life.