One of the questions I get asked most often is: What brought about your conversion? Was it something you read; like a great spiritual masterpiece; or the life of a Saint; or did I have some sort of intellectual awakening; a philosophical epiphany? Unlike the enlightening experienced by great thinkers, theologians, and various academics - it was none of those things. For, when God called me home, I was far too gone to have any kind of cerebral realization. In a sense, heaven had judged me incompetent. Therefore, the Lord was making it as simple as possible: Life or Death? It was a necessary dumbing-down, because I couldn’t distinguish anymore between good and evil, straight or gay, wellbeing and disease. God brought me back to the very basics. Yet, even then, I was lost. Only when I felt the hot breathe of hell on the back of my neck did I call out the Name of Jesus. I didn’t know what I was doing, or whom I was choosing, but I knew it had to be better than the stinking pit of hell that opened up before my eyes.
In a way, God shocked me out of unconsciousness. It worked, but I would never recommend it - since, at that point, I was teetering on the edge of damnation. Yet, it proves that only Jesus can bring about salvation when all appears to be hopeless. To St. Faustina, Our Lord said: “Let the greatest sinner place their trust in My mercy. They have the right before others to trust in the abyss of my mercy…With My mercy, I pursue sinner along all their paths…” With that in mind, just the tiniest molecule of Faith can give the most wretched of creatures an immediate out – and that is precisely what Jesus did for me. Although, my Catholic education had been faulty, at best, I still contained, buried somewhere deep inside me, a modicum of knowledge. In the end, it was just enough. It was close, but in those last few seconds, God compounded my life and I saw the desolation and the immediate result. I hadn’t thought of Him in years: nevertheless, immediately, He was there.