A Pact with God

Teresa Homan

I'm a soon to be 65-year-old woman married to Steward for 45 years. I have seven grown children and seventeen grandchildren who are the light of my life.

I have had significant God moments, some of the most profound when I was a child.

As a child of four at a more rigid time when children were supposed to endure Mass without fidgeting or 'playing up', way beyond the capability of a four-year-old, my father, bless his soul, took steps to reprimand me a parents did in those times for concompliance.

He then left me outside until the end of Mass. I clearly remember telling God that if this is how you treat people then I don't want any part of you, I think I went so far as to say, 'I hate you and my Dad too.'

God came back to me and said, 'I love you and this is not me or what I want.' So, he and I made a pact, I wouldl behave as best I could at Mass and God would protect me from harm now and always. And God always has not only at Mass but in all sorts of situations where courage was needed. And comforted me in times of pain and loss.

I have never doubted that God is beside me and the God is on my side in all things since that day. He advocates for me.

When I was about eight, I was feeling a little sad and lonely, I think it was around the time my grandmother died. For some reason I found myself alone in a spring garden surround with daffodils and God came to me, no big deal, I just knew in a special way God was present. Today I can still recall the garden, the place I stood, the daffodils and the experience. This confirms for me God is, because a child has no great theology to protect but just knows the truth they experience.

Just recently my daughter, who spends a lot of time fishing, told me she was just putting her fishing line in for the last time and asked God to let her catch a fish (I don't think she had before) and a few seconds after she put her line in she caught one, a big edible one.

God has some affinity for fisher people I think.