Hello!
With as much as I put my faith out there as part of my Christian health coaching practice, I'm sure you have questions if your beliefs are compatible with mine. Being upfront - I do not belong to a church or a denomination. I participate in services online with various churches.
I have very strong Christian values and a strong belief in God. I continue working on my relationship with Jesus to deepen my faith. I use the NIV version of the Bible a lot because my copy has an accumulated lifetime of margin notes and underlines that reflect my growth from the periods when I drifted from Christ and sought Him again.
Here's a bit of my story, so you can decide if you are comfortable with my faith and how it influences the services I provide.
I was raised in a Christian home where Mom and Dad ensured we got equal exposure to the Catholic and Methodist church services and religious instruction. As an example of how this worked, when I went to the classes to prepare for first confession with the Catholic church, my mother gifted me a red letter version of the NIV bible so I could maintain the teachings I learned in Methodist Sunday school. As we moved around, religion played less of a role in our lives.
As a teenager, when I was in basic training for the Army, and went to college, I rejoined the Catholic church and was regularly studying the Bible. The familiarity of Catholic Mass was a soothing anchor in times of great change.
Once I was more self-assured in the college environment and realized that there were some key points of Catholicism that I disagreed with, I stopped attending services. Here are my main points of disagreement:
- I believe in a personal relationship with God, without needing a priest to mediate. Yet, if I needed a mediator because I felt to ashamed to approach Jesus with my concerns, I could pray to Mary or the saints to help me. They are closer to Christ and God than any priest.
- The people that created Catholicism and wrote the Bible are imperfect. The humans involved had an agenda, that was not 100% divinely inspired and at times did not mirror what Jesus said. The Gnostic & apocryphal writings from early Christianity and the debates at the early ecumenical councils show a wide breadth of interpretation and experience. Different denominations competed for dominance and political control over others and schisms occurred where differences could not be resolved. This lead to a Bible diluted by the human weaknesses of those involved. Even now, I encounter Christians that argue over which translation is "truer" and use that to create separation amongst believers even within the same denomination. God would not have saved the Dead Sea scrolls and other apocryphal writings if He did not believe we needed them in this century to better understand what is in the Bible.
After graduating from college, I continued to explore my spiritual beliefs - connecting with nature's rhythms, studying western mythology, reading Sufi, Hindu & Christian mystical writings, practicing yoga & meditation, learning about indigenous spiritual practices, re-reading the New Testament.
Before I returned to Christianity, my prior spiritual path was prideful, and mixing so many ideas & philosophies that I came to recognize wouldn't get me any closer to God. For me, as a sinner, I cannot follow a legalistic path, only by redemption from Jesus Christ can I know God.
Over the last few years, as the world has gotten crazier. I realized that there is an actual spiritual war of Good vs Evil going on. It has strengthened my Christian values and faith. I stand with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. With every sunrise, I walk outside with one of the dogs and give praise and gratitude. As I curl up next to my husband at night, I remind myself how blessed we are. Through the day, I am working on staying in gratitude and forgiving myself. Prayer and biblical meditation are part of my daily routines (and key measures to maintain my sanity!) I am asking for God's help instead of trying to do it all on my own, so I can live with love, instead of giving into fear, doubt and shame.
Despite my concerns about how the Bible was constructed / interpreted, I have come to believe the Bible is the best instruction manual we have. It requires prayer and meditation for the Holy Spirit to guide me on how best to apply what I read.
As of mid-2023, this prodigal daughter is committed to further strengthen and mature my relationship with Jesus and open myself more fully to the Holy Spirit. I am sharing the inspiration I find along the way, in the hope that it can help someone else re-kindle their Christian faith or gain clarity on their health journey and relationship with work.
Blessings!
Sharon McCall