Growing up, I evaluated from a kid who played mass at home and preached to the family congregation in a non-understandable language, to a lapsed Catholic who pretended to sleep on Sundays. It worked from time to time, but my parents got me on this.

Sure, I was baptized, received Holy Communion and was confirmed, and I was learning about the Catholic faith in School, at home and even at mass through the priests preaching. But, becoming a teenager made me drift away from Catholicism, not in the way of leaving Church or not attending mass. I was just not interested in this topic, nor did I realized at that time, that God is a friend of mine, someone who strives for a relationship.

I grew up in a traditional Catholic family.

As a family we attended mass every Sunday, we prayed the rosary and faith was kinda important for my parents. I remember days, when my mother would come up to me and my brother, telling: “It would be nice if we would pray the rosary together.”

We knew that this kind of prayer wouldn’t be short, what means, when we accepted the invitation it would be more like: Hm, we would rather continue playing PlayStation or watching television instead of sitting down twenty and more minutes for the rosary.

My parents were good people, and all they tried was to live their faith and share it with us. We knew the commandments, the sacraments and some prayers, but I must admit that my relationship with God was similar to a machine you mostly find on train stations. I would put in as many prayers as I could, mostly before exams and after them, praying for a good mark or something else. Imagine putting in prayers like coins, pushing the button and waiting for something good to come out.

My prayers were rather one-sided, if you compare it to a relationship with a friend. How else should it be, because I never heard that the big mysterious invisible guy sitting in the clouds could be a friend, someone who strives for a relationship with every individual.

I never thought of God as a friend.

I never enjoyed school, mostly because of mathematics and physics, but after finishing it finally, I found the freedom to pursue my goal of being a graphic designer. And I did it. And I worked for a while as a designer in Frankfurt, the major financial center of Europe.

At this time I went to mass in a Croatian community near Frankfurt, mainly because I would meet there a friend of mine. But, one Sunday morning at mass, while standing in line for Communion, the choir sang Adoro te devote from Thomas Aquinas.

The words hooked me immediately and did something to me I can’t explain. After this experience, I attended mass every Sunday, no matter if my friend was there or not.

Reason? I had met an old friend again: Jesus.

But, I started to feel like I was in a wrong place at work.

I felt a kind of restlessness in my heart. Like the priest-theologian Michael J. Himes writes in his book Doing the Truth in Love, restlessness is the path to joy, which keeps you hungry. It is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which drives us to always want more, to give more and to seek God.

This restlessness brought me to the enormous desire of working and serving in the Church, but not as a priest. I came to the conclusion that I should study theology, but I had to go back to school and get my A level, the general qualification for university.

In this period, I drifted deeper into the Croatian Catholic community by working on their new website. I even started to write for some religious websites, and found out that writing, journalism and media can make an enormous impact on people. I loved to communicate this way.

Well, through the time I met new friends in Church, attended mass on a regular basis even throughout the week and started to read the readings at mass. Years before I was probably the most shy person on earth, and I couldn’t imagine to stand there in front of five hundred and more people.

My brother always asks:
“What has happened to you? You are like a new person, not the old one, the shy boy who couldn’t even look at people.”
Indeed I changed radically, but the upcoming months and years were full of up and downs, tears and failures, situations and moments with no hope. Without faith, I wouldn’t come through. Failing the exams, being lost and not seeing your goal anymore felt like darkness. St. Thérèse of Lisieux, the French Carmelite nun, experienced also moments of darkness. “If you only knew what darkness I am plunged into!” she once said to the sisters in her convent.

But, faith strengthened me, and after all these up and downs, I finally got my matura, which opened the door for university and my desire: theology.

Throughout these years I learned that God wants to be in a relationship with us. He communicates with us in many different ways: through emotions, feelings, memories, desires and prayers, but also through people and happenings in our daily life. Not to forget, relationships are also a way of communication God uses.

Through my girlfriend, I learned that prayer is not always a quiet moment in your room, but living your life and being aware of his presence. Through her, God showed me that prayer also means to be and to live, to enjoy time together, to laugh and live his love through our lives. It means being aware of his presence and love. “Imagine God looking upon you and smiling”, the Jesuit Anthony de Mello once said.

With an open heart, you can find God in All Things.

You probably know some of these desires: becoming a better person, loving more and so on. It’s not about having visions or experiencing tremendous miracles, it’s about having an open heart which let you find God in All Things.

This is the real miracle that happens every day.

When you walk to the train station, to school, to work or wherever else, try to experience his presence. The wind rushing through the leaves in autumn, the snowflakes in winter, or the wonderful sunshine in summer.

Knowing that God is your friend, walking with you, makes live much more interesting, for you have so much to discover. Here ends my piece, but not my way, not my life and not my searching.

How about you? Are you already on the way?

Mario Trifunovic is a student of Catholic theology in Frankfurt/Main. He is writing on English and Croatian on his website called, “Think outside the box”.

(Written by Mary McPartlan)

Everyone comes from a different background and how we are raised determines a lot about who we become. Some lucky ones follow a simple route, but most of us have some bumps along the road. For me, my relationship with God began the moment I was born, I was a cradle Catholic, meaning regular attendance to church, baptism, Sunday school, confirmation, the whole works. Religion was easy and it was a part of my childhood and how I was raised.

I said what I was supposed to say, did what I was supposed to do, and I had loving parents who did all the right things to raise me. I had a relationship with God and while it may not have been a deep relationship, I knew He was there.

Throughout my years in school I did the right thing, made the good grades, and stayed out of trouble. I had planned out my life to a T, to go to college, marry the first guy I fell in love with, and live happily ever after. The spot I had for God in my life was something along the lines of “I’m doing this on my own, but if I need help, God will be there to make it happen for me.”

I thought that as long as it was in the back of my mind and I knew He was always still there, then good things would happen to me.

Toward the end of my senior year of high school I got into my first relationship and I thought it was perfection. Being a hopeless romantic, I thought that once I had the guy, everything would work out perfectly. I no longer needed God because I had gotten everything I wanted and my life was on track without any major effort into maintaining a relationship with God.

Then college came around and I stopped going to church altogether. I took the credit for having myself together on my own and not needing any intervention. Weekends were spent partying with friends and visiting the boyfriend. It’s not that I was against church, as both of my parents are regular attendees, it’s just that I didn’t place it as a priority. So when I didn’t have it as a priority, going to church became a thing of the past. I had my new life on my own where I was happy and church no longer seemed relevant.

What I realized a year later is that a relationship can cloud a lot of things.

It’s a hard blow when you think you had it all together and didn’t need any help and then things just stop working out the way you thought they would. When I got out of that relationship and entered the single pool again, I felt just that, ‘single’. I was dazed and confused and not sure where to head next.

I spent the year searching for more happiness and control in my life in places it wouldn’t be found and Sunday became just another day of the week, void of any real significance. The hardest part became realizing that I was flawed in my thought process for so long. I relied so heavily on this other person in my life as being the reason why I had my life together.

My thoughts for an entire year consisted of believing I didn’t really need God because I had done everything on my own and it was working so well, and now I felt I had messed up along the way. Something went wrong and it took me months to figure out that the thing I was missing was something I willingly gave up.

I hadn’t been to church in months, except for the occasional visit to home, in which I politely obliged to sit through the service with the family. It didn’t mean much to me, my pride still had the best of me. But along the way of getting into my second year of college, the fog cleared, and I felt the slightest tinge of magnetism toward church. Somewhere in the back of my mind I felt I needed to go. Even so, not wanting to admit fault for the beliefs I blindly followed for a year, I came up with excuses.

I told myself that once I got a car, I would go.

That excuse held up for a while, until a couple weeks later I got my own car, and spoiler alert, I still didn’t go. It wasn’t until weeks later when I finally made the move to ask my friend if she would go to church with me. But I didn’t just go to the Catholic church I’d been raised on where I’d mindlessly go through the motions, I went to a church that meant something to me, a church directed toward students like me, a church with a community of people like me, a church that welcomed me anytime and every time I show up; I went to Athens Church.

I won’t say that the first time I went back to church there was some jaw dropping, awe-inspiring moment. But I did have a moment, a moment where I felt right where I was supposed to be and that this was the next step in my life to follow through on.

This was something I shouldn’t just try out once and then never show up to again. And I finally realized that no one can do everything on their own, and that the plans I come up with in my head are definitely not God’s plans. No matter how much I want them to be, they just aren’t. I lost my faith for a year, thinking I had everything under control, and it wasn’t until my plan got some bumps in the road did I realize that I wasn’t even on the right road.

To be honest, I’m glad I found out now rather than years later, continuing on with a relationship where I didn’t consider God a priority. I’ve realized I don’t want to settle for a life where God is not a part, and the people I have in my life, should share this with me. I continue to strive to surround myself with people who help me grow closer to God, not leaving me stagnant.

I grew up believing in fairy tales, and while I don’t think Prince Charming is going to come magically sweep me off my feet, I’m still a hopeless romantic in believing that I’ll have my story one day, and God will be there too. By building a relationship with God, I’ll find the community of people I want to be with. Andy Stanley said it best, “Be the person you’re looking for is looking for.” I’ll find the one who puts God at the center of his life, but only after I do it first.