Kahlan Strop
After a long and very difficult experience in the Protestant church I’d grown up in, I didn’t know where to go. I knew I still believed in God, so I “church-hopped” around different congregations for a while. None of them felt right, and after my last experience I struggled to see anything but judgment wherever I went. More often than not, I didn’t go to church at all.
During this time, I met my future husband. To my absolute horror, I learned he was Catholic. Everyone had told me Catholics were non-Christians at best and a cult at worst. I nearly broke it off with him right then and there, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, I decided I would look into what exactly Catholics believe. I thought if I looked into it, I would learn things that made it obvious how incompatible his faith was with mine. Then, I would have the strength to end things.
There was only one problem: The more I researched, the more I became uncomfortably aware that Catholicism was nothing like I’d been told. I needed to know more. Questions turned into more questions, and I looked for answers everywhere: Catholic sources, Lutheran sources, Baptist sources, even atheist sources. I needed to know the truth. I grilled my future husband and his Catholic best friend, and I even scheduled a meeting with our campus priest to go through a double-sided page of all my skepticisms.
Finally, I forced myself to walk into our local Catholic church. It was evening. I’d picked a time when I was sure I’d be alone. When I walked into the sanctuary, I was terrified. I didn’t even bother turning on the lights. But the moment I sat down in front of the altar, a wave of peace washed over me. It was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. It felt like Jesus himself was giving me a hug. I sat there for a long, long time, basking in what I knew was God’s presence. I didn’t say a word. I didn’t even pray. I just sat and soaked it up.
I left the church feeling confident that — if nothing else — Catholics couldn’t be evil, because if they were, why would I have felt God so strongly? Then I stumbled upon the article that changed my life. It explained the Catholic teaching of the real presence in the Eucharist — in the very tabernacle where I’d felt God more strongly than ever before. I knew then that despite everything I’d been told, the Catholics were right.
Not just “OK,” not just “another kind of Christian.”
They were right.
And I never looked back.
Strop, 24, is a parishioner of All Saints in Lakeville. She and her husband, Spencer, have been married for four years and have three children. When she isn’t wrangling her toddlers, she works as a special education teacher and writes fantasy novels.
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